EXAMINATION OF THE HAUL. 55 



pendicular. The boy liad been seeking rabbits, wliich. 

 are very numerous on the downs above, when he fell 

 over. Thirteen hours he lay helpless at the bottom, 

 in the hardest frost of the winter of 1849-50, and was 

 then found with a broken arm and thigh, but with no 

 other important injuries. 



But up with the dredge ; let us see our success. It 

 feels pretty heavy as it mounts, and here as it breaks 

 the surface we can already see some bright-hued and 

 active creatures in its capacious bag. A wide board 

 resting on two thwarts serves for a table, and on this 

 — a few of the more delicate things, that appear at a 

 glance, having been first taken out — the whole con- 

 tents are poured. The empty dredge is returned to 

 the deep for another haul, while we set eagerly to 

 work with fingers and eyes on the heap before us. 



What a pleasure it is to examine a tolerably prolific 

 dredge-haul ! I am not going to enumerate all the 

 things that we found ; it would make a pretty long 

 list. Numbers of rough stones and of old worm-eaten 

 shells, half of a broken bottle, and other strange 

 matters were there ; every one, however rude, worthy 

 of close examination, because studded with elegant 

 zoophytes, the tubes of Serpulae and other Annelida, 

 bright-coloured pellucid AscidianSjgracefulXudibranch 

 Mollusca, the spawn of fishes, and endless other things. 

 Brittle-stars, by scores, were twining their long spiny 

 arms, like lizards' tails, among the tangled mass ; 

 arrayed in the most varied and most gorgeous hues, 

 of all varieties of kaleidoscopic patterns [see Plate 

 IV.) ; and Sand-stars not a few. The latter are much 

 more delicate in constitution than the former, being 



