"It's cause as how they takes in all sail, or goes _chuck_ to bottom, when it 'gins to blow a spankin' breeze,"--truly a fine compliment to the navarchy of Portugal!
This animal is a genus of the mollusca tribe, which glitters in the night on the crest of every bursting wave. In the tropical seas it is found riding over the gently ruffled billows in great numbers, with its crystalline sail expanded to the light breeze--barks delicate and tiny enough for fairy "Queen Mab." Termed by naturalists _pharsalia_, from its habit of inflating its transparent sail, this splendid animal is often confounded with the _nautilus pompilius_, a genus of marine animals of an entirely distinct species, and of a much ruder appearance, whose dead shells are found floating every where in the tropical seas, while the living animal is found swimming upon the ocean in every latitude.
Dr. Coates, in describing the Portuguese man-of-war (pharsalia) says, that "it is an oblong animated sack of air, elongated at one extremity into a conical neck, and surmounted by a membraneous expansion running nearly the whole length of the body, and rising above into a semi-circular sail, which can be expanded or contracted to a considerable extent at the pleasure of the animal. From beneath the body are suspended from ten to fifty, or more little tubes, from half an inch to an inch in length, open at their lower extremity, and formed like the flower of the blue bottle. These I cannot but consider as proper stomachs, from the centre of which depends a little cord, never exceeding the fourth of an inch in thickness, and often forty times as long as the body.
"The group of stomachs is less transparent, and although the hue is the same as that of the back, they are on this account incomparably less elegant. By their weight and form they fill the double office of a keel and ballast, while the cord-like appendage, which floats out for yards behind, is called by seamen "the cable." With this organ, which is supposed by naturalists, from the extreme pain felt, when brought in contact with the back of the hand, to secrete a poisonous or acrid fluid, the animal secures his prey." But in the opinion of Dr. C. naturalists in deciding upon this mere hypothesis have concluded too hastily. He says that the secret will be better explained by a more careful examination of the organ itself. "The cord is composed of a narrow layer of contractile fibres, scarcely visible when relaxed, on account of its transparency. If the animal be large, this layer of fibres will sometimes extend itself to the length of four or five yards. A spiral line of blue, bead-like bodies, less than the head of a pin, revolves around the cable from end to end, and under the microscope these beads appear covered with minute prickles so hard and sharp that they will readily enter the substance of wood, adhering with such pertinacity that the cord can rarely be detached without breaking.