Most formidable are the powers which reside in the long tentacles.
Each of these is an excessively slender ribbon of contractile
substance, connected at its base with a translucent bag, and carrying
at short intervals throughout its length semi-rings of thread-cells
(_cnidæ_), similar to those of our Sea-anemones, but of far more deadly
virulence. Mr. Bennett, who, for the sake of science, ventured to test
their powers, has left us a terrific account of his sufferings. “On one
occasion,” he says, “I tried the experiment of its stinging powers upon
myself, intentionally; when, on seizing it by the bladder portion, it
raised the long cables by muscular contraction of the bands situated at
the base of the feelers, and, entwining the slender appendages about my
hand and finger, inflicted severe and peculiarly pungent pain, adhering
most tenaciously at the same time, so as to be extremely difficult
of removal. The stinging continued during the whole time that the
minutest portion of the tentacula remained adherent to the skin. I soon
found that the effects were not merely confined to the acute pungency
inflicted, but produced a great degree of constitutional irritation:
the pain extended upwards along the arm, increasing not only in extent
but in severity, apparently acting along the course of the absorbents,
and could only be compared to a severe rheumatic attack; the pulse was
accelerated, and a feverish state of the whole system was produced;
the muscles of the chest even were affected, the same distressing
pain felt on taking a full respiration as obtains in a case of acute
rheumatism. The secondary effects were very severe, continuing for
nearly three-quarters of an hour; the duration of the pain being
probably longer, in consequence of the time and delay occasioned by
removing the exciting and virulent tentacula from the skin, as they
adhered to it, by the aid of the stinging capsules, with an annoying
degree of tenacity. On the whole being removed, the pain began
gradually to abate; but during the day a peculiar numbness was felt,
accompanied also by an increased temperature in the limb upon which the
stings had been inflicted. For some hours afterwards the skin displayed
white elevations or wheals on the parts stung, similar to those usually
seen resulting from the poison of the stinging-nettle. The intensity
of the pain depends in some degree upon the size and consequent power
of the creature; and 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. To remove the irritation,
at first cold water was applied, but this, instead of alleviating,
increased the evil: an application of vinegar relieved the unpleasant
symptoms, and olive oil has produced a similar beneficial effect. I
have observed 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 had been used for wiping off the adhering tentacles,
when touched, still retained the pungency, although it had lost the
power of producing such violent constitutional irritation.”[124]
Among the tentacles there are seen many depending organs, which
take somewhat the shape of a claret-bottle, with the mouth a little
expanded. These are highly moveable, turning and bending themselves
in various directions. They are termed _polypites_, and are the
mouths and stomachs of the animal: taking-in and digesting food,
much as the protrusile lips of an Anemone do. Mr. Bennett describes
the _Physalia_ as seizing and benumbing small fishes by means of the
tentacles, which are alternately contracted to half-an-inch, and then
shot out with amazing velocity to a length of several feet, and which
drag the helpless and entangled prey to the sucker-like mouths, the
stomach-cavities of which were filled while he looked-on, with atoms of
the flesh absorbed.
Dr. Wallich thinks Mr. Bennett must have mistaken what he saw; because
he has observed that in a great number of cases the _Physalia_ is
accompanied by small fishes, which play around and among the depending
tentacles without molestation. He has in so many cases seen this, and
even witnessed the actual contact of the fishes with the tentacles,
with no inconvenience to the former, that he too hastily concludes
that “the urticating organs are innocuous.” Surely the premises by
no means warrant such an inference. There is no antagonism between
the two series of facts witnessed by such excellent observers; the
venomous virulence of these organs has been abundantly proved by many
naturalists, myself among the number, and Mr. Bennett, to his cost,
as narrated above. We have only to suppose that the injection of the
poison is under the control of the _Physalia’s_ will, and the impunity
of the bold little fishes is sufficiently accounted for.