pain depends in some degree upon the size and consequent power of the creature. After it has been removed from the water for some time, the stinging property, although still continuing to act, is found to have perceptibly diminished. I have observed, also, that this irritative power is retained for some weeks after the death of the animal, in the vesicles of the cables, and even linen cloth which has been used for wiping off the adhering tentacles, when touched, still retained the pungency, although it had not the power of producing such violent constitutional irritation." The question has been much agitated, without being positively resolved, whether the Physalia are venomous or not: if they can kill or make sick the man or animal which swallows them. Listen to the opinions of M. Ricord-Madiana, a physician of Guadaloupe, who made direct experiments with a view to settling the question. "Many inhabitants of the Antilles," he says, "say that the 'galleys' are poisonous, and that the negroes make use of them, after being dried and powdered, to poison both men and animals. The fishermen of the islands also believe that fish which have swallowed them become deleterious, and poison those that eat them, a prejudice which has been adopted by many travellers, and has even found its way into scientific books. We can state as the result of direct experiment, that though the 'galley,' will burn the ignorant hand which is touched by its tentacles, when dried in the sun and pulverized, it becomes mere grains of dead matter, producing no effect whatever upon the animal economy."