136 TECTIBRANCHIATA.—PLEUROBRANCHIDZ. 
into segments, cut, and cut again, make fine bushy 
tufts in a deep pool, and every segment of every 
frond reflects a flush of the most lustrous azure, 
like that of a tempered sword-blade. 
I have said that animals of various kinds inhabit 
these rock-pools. They are cavities of irregular 
shapes and diverse dimensions in the surface of the 
rock, covered by the sea at every incoming tide, 
and left full when it recedes. The water, therefore, 
presently becomes as clear as crystal, and the 
surface being too small to be ruffled by ordinary 
breezes, the eye can easily penetrate even to the 
bottom, and mark all that is goimg on within. 
There are little fishes, with bright eyes and silvery 
sides, peeping from under the shelter of the broad 
leaves, or darting out with vibrating fins from be- 
neath one projection of the rock to another. 
Elegantly painted prawns are swimming leisurely 
to and fro, and hundreds of other smaller Crus- 
tacea are playing about. Sea anemones of dif- 
ferent species stud the rocky sides, and attract the 
eye with their brilliant colours—crimson, purple, 
scarlet, green, and white—resembling gorgeous 
flowers, or ripe and mellow fruits, according as the 
are expanded or contracted. The shelled Gas- 
teropods are not wanting; the little Cowry, the 
Purpura, the various species of Trochus, to say 
nothing of limpets and periwinkles. And here we 
may often see the lovely Nudibranchs and Tec- 
tibranchs, crawling with graceful elegance about 
the fronds of the waving Algz, or floating at the 
surface of the still water in that reversed position 
already described. 
Many more objects of like kind the observant 
naturalist will find from time to time, to gratify his 
