This peculiar phosphorescence is not their only interesting feature. Nearly all the jellies afford protection to fishes, crabs, and various small animals. As I drifted over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico almost every large jelly that I examined had one or more little fishes of the mackerel family up among its lobes or tentacles. As they always resembled the tentacles in tint or color, a delicate pink, they found protection amid the death-dealing darts. The most remarkable example of this strange companionship of dangerous jellies and delicate fishes is found in the Physalia, or Portuguese man-of-war (Fig. 26), one of the most beautiful of all the animals that make up the group to which the jellyfishes belong. Physalia is a bubble tinted with purple hues, four or five inches long—a fairy ship of pearly tints. On its upper portion is a sail which can be raised and lowered, while from the lower part depends a mass of beautiful blue or purple tentacles which sometimes are nearly one hundred feet in length. During the summer of 1902 I found them on the outer islands of the Texan coast in great numbers, stranded on the sands, while scores of others sailed on through the pass into the quiet waters of Aransas Bay. Among the islands of the Tortugas group I often saw them dotting the calm waters, the sunlight on their delicate tints presenting beautiful combinations of colors.
Fig. 26.—The Physalia.
It may appear strange that one of the most resplendent of animals should be the most dangerous, yet such is the case. The attractive tentacles which drag behind the Physalia are deadly to almost every fish. I have found a hawkbill turtle weighing twenty pounds caught and benumbed by one; and fishes which touch the seeming worms roll over dead, as though stunned by an electric shock. In swimming around one of the keys of the reef I unwittingly passed over the train of one, and if I had been alone, I doubt if I could have reached the shore, so terrible was the burning pain. A year afterward my flesh had the appearance of having been tattooed in fanciful designs. Yet despite the deadly nature of this maze of traps and lures, a little fish lives up among them, and what is more remarkable, is the exact color of the tentacles, a rich blue. So exact is this resemblance that it is very difficult to see the little attendants, but if you lift the dainty man-of-war by its sail, they rush about greatly alarmed by their exposed condition. I have been told that the Physalia eats these attendant courtiers, but in hundreds of specimens which I examined I never saw the little fish in the toils. They swam about among the death-dealing tentacles with the greatest freedom. The secret of the poison lies in the lasso cells of the tentacles, as in the case of the jellyfish, but in this instance they are much more poisonous. Along the southern beaches, where the Physalia is common, their stranded hulks form after storms a windrow of mimic balloons which explode like torpedoes beneath the feet, as one strolls along the sands.
No branch of the animal kingdom contains more beautiful and radiant forms than that which includes the Portuguese man-of-war. They are the fairy crafts of the sea, graceful, seemingly formed of water in some instances, and nearly all so delicate that they usually drop to pieces when captured. I have kept all for a brief time in confinement, but few survived more than a few hours.
Fig. 27.—Velella.
Fig. 28.—A, Praya; n´n´, mouths; ss, swimming bells. B, single polypite (p), enlarged.
In a tank at Santa Catalina Island I had at one time, besides a Portuguese man-of-war, the delicate Velella, a raft of sheeny silver which floated on the surface, having a silvery sail (Fig. 27), beneath which hung short tentacles of a brilliant hue. More beautiful than these were the "swimming bells"—strings of beautiful pink and crystal bells attached to a central cord (Fig. 28). One of these, Praya, three or four feet long, was a veritable string of little pumps, each of which pumped water very rapidly, urging the entire animal along. Each little cup seemed carved in glass and colored by some artist, so perfect were the tints, so delicate was the design. Many of these forms could be seen in the ocean only by fitful glances, so delicate were they. Most beautiful of all these prisoners in the tank was one called Physophora, or by the Italian fishermen, Boguetti. It had a central stem like the glass of a thermometer, the bulb being uppermost and filled with a gas that was almost exact in its resemblance to mercury. When the bulb was full the animal floated at the surface. I have watched the animal force the gas down by repeated restrictions of the tube until it could descend beneath the surface with ease. On the sides of the central pillar were numbers of beautifully tinted pumps, the locomotive organs. Underneath was a mass of lacelike tentacles, richly tinted, purple and vermilion, so Physophora was one of the most gorgeous objects to be imagined. A unique feature of this animal was its rapid movements. When it so desired it dashed around the tank with great velocity, in strange contrast to the labored movements of other jellylike forms, or the utter and complete helplessness of Physalia, Velella, or Porpita. These latter were ships at the mercy of every breeze, the Physalia alone being able to anchor itself on a lea shore, but always beaten in by the heavy surf.