182 THE SEA-SHORE. 



tained its perfect state, it escapes at one end, 

 which opens readily from within, and it is in this 

 state that the purse is generally cast ashore. 

 Sometimes after a violent storm they may be 

 found still containing the imperfect animal. An- 

 other fish common on our shores, the dog-fish, 

 is propagated in the same way; but the purses, 

 instead of being furnished with horns, terminate 

 in elastic sinewy cords many feet long, which, in 

 all probability, become entangled in the weeds at 

 the bottom of the sea, and, while the tender ani- 

 mal is protected from the attacks of other marine 

 animals by its horny covering, keep it fixed to its 

 moorings in deep water. I am now trespassing, 

 I know, on another branch of natural history, 

 namely Zoology. I am induced, however, to 

 make this brief notice, from having for a long 

 time myself believed that sea-purses were of 

 vegetable origin, and somewhat analogous to the 

 air-vessels of the Knotted Fucus. 



It very frequently happens during the hot sum- 

 mer months, that the sea-weeds, which grow be- 

 tween high and low water-mark, are exposed for 

 many hours together to the direct rays of the 

 sun, and are consequently liable to be scorched, 

 and to become perfectly dry. The flowering 

 plants, if reduced to such a state, could never be 

 restored by the application of moisture; the 

 mosses and lichens, as we have seen before, would 

 recover their state of freshness, if but a portion of 

 the plant were immersed in water. Now, the 

 cases in which the latter plants might be partially 

 exposed to moisture, are numerous, and hence we 

 see the advantage which they derive from being 

 able to transmit fluids from one part to another. 



