CHAPTER X 

 SEA- WORMS AND SEA- ANEMONES 



LET us now leave the beach-pebbles and go down 

 on to the rocks at low tide in order to see some 

 of the living curiosities of the seashore. There are 

 some seaside resorts where, when the tide goes down, 

 nothing is exposed but a vast acreage of smooth sand, 

 and here the naturalist must content himself with such 

 spoils as may be procured by the aid of a shrimping-net 

 and a spade. Wading in the shallow water and using 

 his net, he will catch, not only the true " brown shrimp," 

 but other shrimp-like creatures, known as " Crustacea " — 

 a group which includes also the lobsters, hermit-crabs, 

 true crabs, and sand-hoppers, as well as an immense 

 variety of almost microscopic water-fleas. 



He will also probably catch some of the stiff, queer 

 little " pipe-fish," which are closely related to the little 

 creatures known as " sea-horses." Pipe-fish are very 

 sluggish in movement, almost immobile, whilst the 

 " sea-horse " or hippocampus — only to be taken by the 

 dredge amongst corallines in deep water on rocky 

 bottoms (as, for instance, in the Channel Islands) — goes 

 so far as to curl his tail, like a South American monkey, 

 round a stem of weed and sit thus upright amidst the 

 vegetation. Even when disturbed he merely swims very 

 slowly and with much dignity in the same upright 



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