plant-like animal forms (hydroids, sponges, and 

 anemones) . 



I will not impose upon the reader by enumerat- 

 ing in detail all that I found either in the trawl or 

 on the rotten plank; although giving substance to 

 my narrative, its telling would add nothing to the 

 interest of the plot. There are a few things, how- 

 ever, that cannot be so ignored — of which more 

 than mere mention must be made. For their sig- 

 nificance is such that had not their finding come 

 to pass, all that precedes in this chapter would 

 never have been told, as those events were but 

 the prelude to this most important end — an end, 

 in a way, which was really a beginning; for, at the 

 close of that memorable night, started my first 

 sustained inquiries into the lives and habits of 

 those four forms to whom the concluding part of 

 this work will be more or less devoted; each of 

 which, it may well be said, is in its own way not 

 surpassed in surprising interest by any other 

 groups of animals in the sea. I mean the spider- 

 crabs, the sea-horses, the squids, and the disk, or 

 scyphozoan, jellyfishes. 



In sum, for such a start, the trawl furnished 



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