9, POPULAR BRITISH CONCHOLOGY. 



life at our feet. Here, in tlie grotto-like hollows, are the 

 little branching corallines and many- coloured seaweeds, 

 spreading out their floating threads and ribbons to the light, 

 and forming many a mimic landscape by their fanciful group- 

 ing ; there, the larger algse hang in clusters over the rough 

 blocks and tablets, sheltering perhaps some small mollusca, 

 or some valorous crab who hides his body under it, all but 

 the one claw with which he tries to terrify the intruder. 



If we turn up some of the stones, or look under the pro- 

 jecting ledges, we shall sometimes find, among other things, 

 certain oddly shaped bodies having a leathery or fungus-like 

 look about them; and, looking a little more carefully, we 

 may meet with others transparent and star-like, all growing, 

 as it were, on the rocks or surfaces of large weeds. These 

 belong to an order of sliell-less mollusca (if indeed they are 

 rightly so classed) called " Tunicata." 



It would not be consistent with the pretensions of this 

 little book to enter very deeply into the consideration of this 

 order, however well it might repay our attention. Many 

 clever men, who have spent years in examining these animals, 

 have concluded that they come nearer to polypes than to 

 molluscs. Yet they breathe and digest their food in the 

 same way as the latter ; but their circulation and method of 



