1360 THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



there is more to see close to it. Those yellow plants 

 which I likened to squirrels' tails and lobsters' horns, 

 and what not, are zoophytes of different kinds. Here 

 is Sertularia argentea (true squirrel's tail) ; here S. 

 filicula, as delicate as tangled threads of glass; here 

 abietina; here rosacea. The lobsters' horns are 

 Antennaria antennina; and mingled with them are 

 Plumulariae, always to be distinguished from Ser- 

 tulariae by polypes growing on one side of the branch, 

 and not on both. Here is falcata, with its roots 

 twisted round a sea-weed. Here is cristata, on the 

 same weed; and here is a piece of the beautiful 

 myriophyllum, which has been battered in its long 

 journey out of the deep water about the ore rock. 

 Here are Flustrae, or sea-mats. This, which smells 

 very like Verbena, is Flustra coriacea. That scurf 

 on the frond of ore-weed is F. lineata. The glass 

 bells twined about this Sertularia are Campanularia 

 syringa; and here is a tiny plant of Cellularia ciliata. 

 Look at it through the field-glass; for it is truly 

 wonderful. Each polype cell is edged with whip- 

 like spines, and on the back of some of them is 

 what is it but a live vulture's head, snapping and 

 snapping what for? 



Next, what are the striped pears? They are sea- 

 anemones, Sagartia viduata, the snake-locked anem- 

 one. They have been washed off the loose stones 

 to which they usually adhere by the pitiless roll of 

 the ground-swell ; however, they are not so far gone 

 but that if you take one of them home and put it in 

 a jar of water, it will expand into a delicate com- 

 pound flower, which can neither be "described nor 



