Another voyager, Leblond, in his "Voyage aux Antilles," relates as follows: "One day I was bathing with some friends in a bay in front of the house where I dwelt. While my friends fished for sardines for breakfast, I amused myself by diving, in the manner of the native Carribeans, under the wave about to break; having reached the other side of one great wave, I had gained the open sea, and was returning on the top of the next wave towards the shore. My rashness nearly cost me my life: a Physalia, many of which were stranded upon the beach, fixed itself upon my left shoulder at the moment the wave landed me on the beach. I promptly detached it, but many of its filaments remained glued to my skin, and the pain I experienced immediately was so intense that I nearly fainted. I seized an oil flask which was at hand, and swallowed one half, while I rubbed my arm with the other: this restored me to myself, and I returned to the house, where two hours of repose relieved the pain, which disappeared altogether during the night." Mr. Bennett, who accompanied the exploring expedition under Admiral Fitzroy, as naturalist, ventured to test the powers of the Physalia. "On one occasion," he says, "I tried the experiment of its stinging powers upon myself, intentionally. When I seized it by the bladder portion, it raised the long cables by muscular contraction of the bands situated at the base of the feelers, and, entwining the slender appendages about my hand and finger, inflicting severe and peculiarly pungent pain, it adhered most tenaciously at the same time, so as to be extremely difficult of removal. The stinging continued during the whole time that the minutest portion of the tentacular remained adherent to the skin. I soon found that the effects were not confined to the acute pungency inflicted, but produced a great degree of constitutional irritation: the pain extended upwards along the arm, increasing not only in extent but in severity, apparently acting along the course of the absorbents, and could only be compared to a severe rheumatic attack. The pulse was accelerated, and a feverish state of the whole system produced: the muscles of the chest, even, were affected; the same distressing pain being felt on taking a full respiration as obtains in a case of acute rheumatism. The secondary effects were very severe, continuing for nearly three-quarters of an hour; the duration being probably longer in consequence of the time and delay occasioned by removing the tentacula from the skin, to which they adhered, by the aid of the stinging capsules, with an annoying degree of tenacity. On the whole being removed, the pain began to abate; but during the day a peculiar numbness was felt, accompanied by an increased temperature in the limb on which the sting had been inflicted. For some hours afterwards the skin displayed white elevations or weals on the parts stung, similar to those resulting from the poison of the stinging nettle. The intensity of the