JULY. 135 



and habit, but also, because it is extremely abundant and 

 well known. At least, I am often asked about it. There 

 are frequently to be found washed up on the beaches little 

 structures like glass barrels, about an inch long, and open 

 at each end. Each contains a delicate transparent shrimp- 

 like animal,* which, by the continuous waving of its 

 abdominal feet, keeps up a constant circulation of water 

 in its domicile, and also causes it to move rapidly forward. 

 The barrel is the empty shell or test of some kind of salpa, 

 and the crustacean is an amphipod. It has large but very 

 feeble claws, and relatively very large eyes. Placed in a 

 glass of clear sea w r ater this animal is a singularly beautiful 

 object. Its body is so transparent that it is often possible 

 to see the internal movements with a magnifying glass, 

 the pulsations of the heart and the working of the ali- 

 mentary canal being quite visible. 



But this Phrotiima, as it is called, is only one of the 

 many curious things which the sea yields up in this calm 

 frosty weather. When the garden and the wayside are 

 spellbound by the iron hand of frost, the sea still furnishes 

 innumerable treasures to the eye that looks for them. 



III. 



For the naturalist there is an immensely wide field lying 

 close to our own doors in the study of these living forms 

 which inhabit our seas, and of which we really know very 

 little as yet. If we walk round the shores of the Harbour, 

 and, picking up some of the small weed that grows between 

 tide-marks, shake it in a glass of sea water, we find that 

 we have disturbed great numbers of little organisms, which 

 swim about vigorously, or sink to the bottom of the vessel 

 and seek vainly there for the shelter out of which they 

 have been so rudely shaken. Many of them are so small 

 that they only reveal their singular forms under the micro- 

 scope. These shore-haunting forms of life, numerous and 

 interesting as they are, are really, however, few as com- 

 pared with those which swim in the open water, and 



* Phronima novce-zealandia. 



