236 SEPTEMBER. 



tually sluggish. Sometimes it appears to sham death ; 

 for if pushed, it at first tries to escape by running ; but 

 if the annoyance continues, it stiffens its limbs, and 

 allows itself to be pushed without resistance ; and when 

 laid on its back in the water, will lie motionless for a 

 minute or more, then suddenly turn over and crawl 

 away. 



Hosts of other things we capture in this summary 

 sweeping of the sea-bottom, and by the time we have 

 drifted down towards the Orestone, till we are close 

 enough to make out the noble leaves of the tree- 

 mallows that grow out of its rocky heights, we have 

 accumulated a marvellous store, almost enough, in- 

 deed, to set up a little provincial museum. Brittle- 

 stars and urchins ; cucumbers great and small ; bivalve 

 and univalve mollusks ; swollen ascidians, smooth and 

 warty ; active, shuffling, sucking fishes ; heaps of mossy 

 Bryozoa ; long bristling tufts of Hydroid zoophytes ; 

 naked worms, twining and writhing amidst the mass, 

 gleaming in purple and pearl ; sea-mice " armed in 

 gold," like Virgil's Orion ; tangled masses of Serpula- 

 pipes, every one with its scarlet-crowned tenant ; these, 

 and multitudes of creatures besides, come up from the 

 teeming sea-floor, and all at once claim our bewildered 

 attention. And there is not one of the host that is not 

 worthy of it ; not one that would not be an eloquent 



