The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, April 1885Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Philosophy
The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, April 1885
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
A second representative of this class is the jelly fish. It has a soft,
gelatinous, circular body, that floats or swims on the surface in calm
weather, with the mouth downward. Tubes radiate from the center to
the circumference that is fringed all around with pendant tentacles,
sometimes of great length and of considerable contractile power. They
are of various sizes, some quite small, others as much as eight feet in
diameter. They move about by flapping their sides, after the manner of
opening and shutting an umbrella. When dried, the thin, filmy covering
is very light. One variety, called _Lucernaria_, is found attached to
grasses along the Atlantic shore. But the ordinary jelly fish is free,
and borne on the surface of the sea.
The _Anthozoa_ (flower animals) are small, but not microscopic animals,
having a double cavity, the inner of which is the digestive sac. The
best known of the class is the _Actinia_ (rayed), or sea anemone, so
called from its resemblance to a plant or flower of that name. The body
is somewhat like a flower in shape. The disc has a central orifice, very
contractile, and surrounded with tubular tentacles of various forms,
which it elongates, contracts, and moves in different directions. They
are so many arms by which the animal seizes its prey, and when expanded
for the purpose, being tinted with brilliant colors, present an elegant
appearance, and make vast fields of the ocean look like beautiful flower
gardens. They feed voraciously on little crabs and mollusks, that
often seem superior to themselves in strength and bulk, but they have
power in their little tentacles to seize and hold their prey, and when
they engulf large bodies the stomach is distended to receive them; and
their digestion is good. The purple sea anemone is very common on the
southern shores of England, and one species, found on the shores of the
Mediterranean, is said to be esteemed a great delicacy by the Italians.
At night, or when alarmed, the animal draws in its arms, shuts the door,
and seems but a rounded lump of flesh, a huge oyster without a shell. The
coral polyps (many footed), belonging to this class, are little folk,
but of importance from their well-earned reputation as reef builders.
They are very diminutive creatures, mere drops of animal jelly, often not
larger than the head of a pin, but their works show unmistakable evidence
of life, and an organic structure. They live in communities, closely
united, but each, having a distinct individuality, by the sure process
of secreting a portion of the calcareous matter within reach, prepares
for himself a house, as all his ancestors have done, and his neighbors
are now doing. They build together, their foundations having strong
connections, and thoroughly cemented. There in his own little palace the
polyp lives, his food being brought to his lips; and, having sent out a
numerous progeny to do likewise for themselves, there he dies. Life and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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