Show HYDROIDS AND JELLYFISHES BY W S WALLACE In the time of Hercules the very strong manand that was a very longtime long-time agothere existed so the stories say a huge monster who had a body like a tree trunk and no less than fifty heads As soon as a head was cut oft a new head grew out In Its place This creature lived In a swamp and was called Hydr x One of the nine labors or tasks of the giant Hercules was to kill this monster which he did by cutting off all its heads at a single blow No one has ever seen Hydra since but In the sea we find some very small animals which strongly resemble him and are therefore called hydroids When you arc picking up shells and other objects on the seashore you sometimes some-times find them covered with a moss like hairy coat At times this Is merely mere-ly a seaweek which Is a plant but often of-ten this t moss Is a colony of dead hy drolds Even the shells of crabs sometimes some-times bear this covering Now If you could find this crab alive or deep In the water or the shell lying on the sea floor the hydrolds would all be as allvo as can be We may however seek these animals in a better place than on shells and stones and that is on the logs which form the parts of wharves and docks that lie under water at high tides or upon the flat rocks placed beneath the wharves to act as weights Let us have a look Into this quiet slfaded spot We find a place where two logs are wide apart and peer Into the still clear water What a splendid sight greets our eyesl A veritable flower garden hidden under the old wharf Near us on the Inside of theo the-o s Is a mazy wilderness of beautiful hydrolds of a yellowish white color reminding I re-minding us of fioldis of yellow and white i i daisies only of course very small and I delicate The expanded heads wave their many arms or tentacles about I seeking to capture the myriad little I creatures swimming around them I But It Is on the fiat stones which form the floor of this log cabin in the I sea that we discover the garden The others were merely a border Every rock Is covered with great red clusters of hydrolds with heads as largo as the centers of the oxeye daisy The stalks on which these flowerllke creatures rise l arc two or three Inches long and as the hydroids seek their prey with their I tentacles these stalks bend this way I and that with a graceful motion In and out among them move hundreds of I sea snails limpets cling to the logs between be-tween and the smallest of fishes the stlcklebrats and silversided friars j i move like streaks of silver and gold above the waving h drol sAnd I s-And now let us look closer at these pretty animals Certainly no one who did not know It would take them for anything else than sea daisies But what daisy ever had a mouth and a stomach The head of the hydroid we have selected to describe Is very much I like a cup with a fringe of delicate I threadlike arms and the edge of the j I cup beautifully scalloped l Many a poor little creature no bigger than a pin point has gone Into that beautiful cup and never been heard of afterward There Is a very curious thing happens when one of the little hydrold babies Is born The frail creature Instead of resembling resem-bling Its parents turns Into a very different dif-ferent sort of an animal a Jellyfish This however Is not all I The young Jellyfish floats or swims away whore Its parents cannot follow being fastened fast-ened to the logs But the Jellyfish Is destined to have a queer baby also For these young Jellyfish FCC their children turn Into hydroids thus taking af ter their grandparents Instead of their parents The hydroid baby changes Into I u Jellyfish the lalters baby In turn becomes a hydroid completing their circles of changes Of course lnese are merely different stages of growth of tho same animal Jellyfishes swim by opening and abut ting their umbrellalike disk or top just as an umbrella does except that the Jellyfish closes the edges of Its disk When you are enjoying a sail in the ound or a row off on the beach any where watch In the water for theca curious creatures and you will be gull Indeed that you saw them as they shoot gracefully by the boat or dive lazily beneath It There have been stories told of divers who In their suits of rubber and hIM have been hunting the sea ooltom for pearls and who have suddenly become entangled In one of these gigantic Jellies while coming up through the water to their boat again Certain It la that among the divers of the Wet India islands who wear suit It no Is not an uncommon accident for them to get en tangled In the tentacles of a dlscophore which Is the largest of the Jellyilshes Then Indeed they would give up all hope for the tentacles of all Jellyfish have the power of numbing the fl hand h-and muscles The diver unable to swim dies by drowning and Is lost Even the little Jellies which arc only a foot across the top have enough of this power to make you wince If you happen to handle one In the water whllo It Is alive The manner In which these great jellyfishes grow Is sometimes very wonderful For Instance the llttlo egg like creature which Is born In the egg sack of the great Pacific Jelly which I spoke of before and which Is called dlscophorus Is remarkable because It settles down on a rock and splits up In a number of little pieces like a rasa onion does These pieces float away each piece turning Into a complete Jel lyllsh What a great number of these there would be In the sea If each egg makes eight or nine new Jellies There are often seen at sea process slons of Jellyfishes miles In length nnd so close together are the broad disk that If It safe walk iL 11 were O4Lll one might across the sea on their backs So keep your eyes open when you ara at the seashore |