#medusae

Illustrations of Olindias tenuis anatomy from Alfred Goldsborough Mayer’s Medusæ of the Bahamas (1904).

Full text here.

“These objects are, it is true, among the humblest of creatures that are endowed with organic life… Here we catch the first kindling of that spark, which glows into so noble a flame in the Aristotles, the Newtons, and the Miltons of our heaven-gazing race.”

Philip Henry Gosse’s stunning 19th-century illustrations of and meditations on coastal creatures and the interleaving of life.