Show liVING I I IN A fRlfNOLY STOMACH HOW THE WHITE SHRnfi > > DOES ITS HOUSEXEEPING Queer Little Greeneyed Creature Settles Himself For Season In Their Deadly Enemy Jelly Fish It a boat is anchored in anyone of the channels which separate the quick sands of the mouth of the Thames when the tide Is runningfast during calm summer weather multitudes of jellyfish may be seen floating along just below the surface Some are no bigger than teacups and others are the size of a large basin and they all have some curIous markings on the top and move by contracting and expanding ex-panding the lower parts of their bodIes Hour after hour these beautiful things float b3 and their numbers are Incalculable If one is caught with thc hands the fingers usually perforate Its jellylike structure and If it Is placed on a board thc creature seems to runaway run-away In the form of water Now a gi eat many of the larger kinds when carefully examined are found to have within theIr large stomachs stom-achs a small white shrimp with most beautiful emeraldcolored eyes It was supposed that these shrImps formed the food of the jellyfish ot medusae as they are properly called but careful Investigation proved that these lively little creatures with the beautiful eyes only exist in the larger medusae and that they make the stomach of these wandering masses of animal jelly their home and larder The shrimp soon dies If it Is taken from Its shelter and specimens of It are never found swimmIng with the common shrimps which live In the sea around our coasts The shrimp lives at the expense of the jellyfish and feeds upon some of the small creatures which are entangled by the peculiar structure of its mouth The jellyfish floats along collecting food and killing every small living thing that touches its stinging body whilst the shrimp enjoys itself and lives inside out of danger and In great comfort The shrimp swims in and out and Is never harmed by the deadly poison of the wonderful sharp stings of the medusa Now the most wonderful part of this singular history is how the jellyfish and the shrimp come together There are no jellyfish in the winter and early spring and the whole of them die in the autumn shrimps and all Before dying the shrimp leaves the stomach of the jellyfish and lays Its eggs at the bottom of the shallow sea The jellJlish lays thousands of tiny eggs which being covered with small movable hairs row themselves into quiet rocky nooks on the coast and settle down These eggs become adherent ad-herent to nieces of shell or stone and do not turn to jellyfishes any more than butLerfiJs eggs turn to a butterfly butter-fly flyA A stem springs from them and branches arise from it all covered with tiny cups whose rims are crowded with small arms called tentacles This is the first stage of the Jellyfishs life Now the shrimps egg hatches about the same time as the stem just mentioned men-tioned begins to grow and the young shrimp Is not at all like the old one It has a big head a firs body and very long legs In the r1r part of their existence the jellyfish and the shrImp are separate and unlike what they subsequently turn to As the warm weather comes on tine stem with its branches and cuplike ends begins to bud and after awhile out of the buds spring lively jellyfish whirls soon swim off About this time the young shrimp casts Its skin and grows Into the form of the old one and it imarl ably seeks shelter In tho stomach or the first young jellyfish It comes across in its swimming to and fro This extraordinary circle of events goes on year after year and the reason why the young shrImp should seek an animal totally unlike itself and very fatal to other shrimps Is one of those things in nature that no one can understand under-stand Certainly no other kind of shrimp could live In the medusas stomach |