114 POPULAR BRITISH CONCHOLOGY. 



hollows you see pebbles and corallines ; on the surfaces not 

 covered by seaweeds you see uneven crustings and green 

 mosses^ and for a moment you feel as if you were the only 

 living thing within sight or sound. But it is not so. The 

 disturbance of an overhanging alga will cause a commo- 

 tion among innunlerable little crustaceans, who will scamper 

 away to hide in the nearest cover ; a blow of the barest rock 

 will lay open the dwellings of sea-worms and shell-fish ; the 

 polypi will be seen, " all hands^' at work, seizing and devour- 

 ing prey. A closer glance at the crusty surfaces of the 

 blocks will show the tiny haniacles, busy throwing out their 

 feathery cirrhi in rapid strokes. In some instances nature is 

 so economical of space in packing her vital treasures, that 

 you may take up an old shell and find almost every hair's- 

 breadth of its substance crowded with perforating worms and 

 mollusca, and every quarter-inch of its surface covered with 

 serpules, limpets, and barnacles. On examining the surfaces 

 of the low rocks you will frequently find crowds of convex 

 shells, fixed by their flattened bases; they are not only 

 motionless when your busy eyes are upon them, but look as 

 if they were incapable of motion. You see nothing but 

 shell, or shelly skin, forming a conical excrescence; you try 

 to remove it by the finger and thumb, but it will not stir 



