112 VARIETY OF ANIMALS. 



appointed course of its busy life. Adhering to the roots 

 of sea- weeds we find the scarcely organized, but ob- 

 viously animated Sponge, whose place in the scale of 

 creation seems so nearly balanced between the animal 

 and the vegetable that naturalists have debated to 

 which of the kingdoms it properly belongs. To the 

 stems and leaves adhere multitudes of incrusting ani- 

 mals, some of which, till we examine them somewhat 

 closely, and watch their animal motions and propen- 

 sities with some care, seem to consist merely of masses 

 of jelly ; while others display, in their outward forms, 

 the branching appearance of mosses, every branch 

 clothed with scales, and crowned, when the animal is 

 in vigour, with starry flowers. The rocks from which 

 the sea-weeds spring afford a resting-place to stationary 

 animals, which, in the shelter of these submerged groves, 

 watch the approach of prey; and through the branches, 

 in every direction, tribes as different from each other in 

 form and structure as it is possible to conceive, sport 

 and multiply, and contend in ceaseless motion. No spot 

 of rock is absolutely desert, and no sea-weed grows 

 that does not support its multitude of living things. 

 The zoologist, therefore, on any rocky shore, may find 

 abundant occupation ; and he who does not limit him- 

 self to the mere collection and determination of new spe- 

 cies, but enters into the more noble departments of his 

 science Anatomy and Physiology, will in the most 

 barren places find animals, the investigation of whose 

 history will afford him constant sources of pleasure. 



At the base of the animal scale, and apparently in 

 close connection with the vegetable kingdom, yet, when 



