174 B Y THE DEEP SEA. 



a short time at high-water, will be found the queer Isopod, 

 Campecopea hirsuta, which seems to mimic the plant that 

 shelters it. They curl up tightly into a ball, and roll about if 

 dislodged. The projections at the end of the body (uropods] 

 help their resemblance to the Lichina. This species must not 

 be confounded with the similar and allied Ncssa bid en tat a, 

 which has the sixth segment of the trunk much larger than 

 the others, and produced backwards in the two teeth-like 

 processes, which suggested its Latin name. 



If one is so fortunate as to get access to the rocks at the 

 equinoctial low tides, which are lower than the ordinary fort- 

 nightly " springs," he will see rocks covered with a muddy 

 felt, much of which appears to be the work of marine worms, 

 who live in it. A portion of this coating should be rapidly 

 prised off with the putty-knife, and put into a bottle of sea- 

 water by itself. At the same time look for a dirty-looking 

 slaty rock, at the same level, and take off the upper flakes, 

 with their investing crust of acorn-shells, corallines, zoophytes, 

 etc. On this will almost certainly be found the absurd acro- 

 bat or contortionist, the Skeleton-shrimp (Caprella linear is] , 

 sprawling about, his walking-feet on the extreme segments of 

 an extremely long and thread-like body. Here will, in all 

 probability, also be found a Crustacean with a body not more 

 than half an inch long, but looking much longer by reason of 

 an enormous development of its outer antennas, which it 

 flourishes about as though they were long arms. The chief 

 use it makes of these is as flails to thresh out its prey, certain 

 marine worms that inhabit the mud-felt to which we have 

 referred. By repeated heavy beatings on the mud with these 

 antennas, the worms are induced to come outside their burrows 

 to see what danger is threatening them, and find out only too 

 quickly. 



The first time I saw this remarkable creature, I was greatly 

 moved to mirth. I had wrested a flake of rock from a huge 

 mass that was ordinarily covered at low-water, but which now 



