Nothing more ephemeral, more delicate than these daughters of the sea. Some of them are so fluid that they dissolve and disappear as soon as taken from the sea. Such is that slight band of azure called the _Girdle of Venus_. The Medusa, a little more solid has all the more trouble in dying. Was she dying or already dead? I do not readily believe in death, and believing that she still lived I resolved to convey her to a lagune of salt water. To say the truth I felt some repugnance to touching her. The delicious creature with her visible innocence, and rainbow of tender colors, looked like a trembling jelly which must slip from one's touch or dissolve in one's grasp. However, I conquered this repugnance, slid my hand gently beneath her and as I turned her over her hairs fell down into their natural position, when used in swimming. I thus carried her to the water, where she sank without giving the slightest sign of life. I walked about the shore, but in about ten minutes returned to look after my Medusa. She was swimming under water, her hairs undulating gracefully beneath her; and slowly, but safely, she had left the rock far behind her. Poor creature, perhaps she got wrecked or stranded again, ere long, for it is impossible to navigate with weaker means or in a fashion more dangerous. The Medusæ fear the shore where so many hard substances hurt them, and in the open sea they are liable to be overturned at every gust of wind, in which case, their swimming-feathers being above instead of below their bodies, they are carried hither and thither, at random, upon the waves, as the prey of fish or the delight of birds who find sport and profit in seizing them. During a whole season which I spent on the banks of Gironde I saw them cast ashore to perish miserably by hundreds. On their arrival they were white and brilliant as crystal. Alas! How different was their aspect in the course of a couple of days. Very happily they sank beneath the sand and were lost to my pitying view. They are the food of every thing marine, and have themselves scarce any aliment, none that we know of, but the, as yet, scarce organized atoms floating in the sea which they, etherialize, as we may say, and suck in without making them suffer. They have neither teeth nor weapons; no defence, excepting that some species, Forbes says not all, can secrete, when attacked, a liquid which stings somewhat like the nettle, but so faintly that Dicquemare with impunity received some of it in his eye.