ng the lobes of jelly aside. All the food goes up this
tube-mouth, and so into the stomach of the animal. The whole creature is
little more than so many cells of sea-water, the walls of the cells
being a very thin, transparent kind of skin.

Perhaps the strangest thing about it is the way in which it catches
prey. Jelly-fish feed on all kinds of tiny sea animals, such as baby
fish, and the young of crabs, shrimps, and prawns. These small creatures
form part of the usual dinner of many a hungry dweller in the sea, and
the Jelly-fish takes a share of them.

[Illustration: A MEDUSOID.]

From the edge of the "umbrella" there hangs a fringe of long, delicate
hairs, rather like spiders' threads. These are fishing lines, yet much
more deadly. They trail through the water, stretching far from the main
part of the Jelly-fish; and any small creature unlucky enough to touch
them is doomed.

Down each one of these threads there are minute cells, hundreds and
hundreds to every thread; and in each cell there is a dart, coiled up
like the spring of a watch. The tip of the dart is barbed like a
fishhook. Now the cells are so made that they fly open when touched. The
dart then leaps out and buries itself in the skin of the animal which
touched the thread. Not only that, but the darts are poisoned, and soon
kill the small creatures which they pierce.

You see now how this innocent-looking Jelly-fish gets its food. As it
swims along, the threads touch the tiny living things in the sea, the
darts pierce them and poison them. Of course these stinging darts are
very, very small, much too small for our eyes to see.

Sometimes there are numbers of large brownish Jelly-fish in the sea, or
washed up on the shore. If you are paddling or swimming, keep well away
from them. Their poison darts are able to pierce through thin skin, and
may cause you illness and great pain. Remember that the threads are very
long; after you have passed the main body of the animal, you may still
be in danger from the trailing threads.

We noticed these same poison darts when we were dealing with the
flower-like animals, the Anemones. Only, in that case, they were so
fine, so small, that they had no power to harm us, even though they
entered our skin. You may remember that we called the Anemone a cousin
of the Jelly-fish, for they both belong to the same lowly division of
the Animal Kingdom.

Animals have queer ways of getting a living. Who would expect to find