THE SEA-SHORE. 



181 



when far away from the sea, and not within view 

 of it." 



Among the sea-weed thrown on shore after a 

 storm, you will frequently find a singularly shaped 

 substance, which, at first sight, you will probably 

 imagine to be a large beetle, and, on examination, 

 will pronounce a de- 

 tached portion of some 

 marine plant. Both 

 suppositions are equal- 

 ly erroneous : you see 

 before you neither sea- 

 weed nor insect, but 

 the outer integument 

 of the egg of the skate. 

 These purses, as they 

 are called, when cast 

 by the fish, may be 

 described as oblong, 

 leathery, or almost 

 horny pouches, con- 

 vex on both sides, and 

 internally hollow, con- 

 taining a substance 

 bearing a close re- 

 semblance to the yelk 

 and white of a bird's 

 egg. The four horns 

 which project from 

 the angles are much 

 longer in their natural 

 state than in the broken specimen from which the 

 annexed drawing was made, two of them being 

 slightly hooked. These latter seem designed 

 to attach the incipient animal to the weed at 

 the bottom of the sea. When the fish has at- 



PURSE OF THE SKATE. 



