64 THE OCEAX WOKLD. 



subjected to certain fixed laws. We never find on the coast, except 

 by evident accident, the same species that we meet with far from the 

 shore ; nor on the surface, creatures whose habits lead them to hide 

 in the depths of ocean. What immense varieties of size, shape, form, 

 and colour, from the nearly invisible vegetation which serves to 

 nourish the small zoophytes and mollusks, to the long, slender algaB 

 of fifty and even five hundred yards in length ! How vast the 

 disparity between the microscopic infusoria and the gigantic whale ! 



" We find in the sea," says Lacepede, " unity and diversity, which 

 constitute its beauty ; grandeur and simplicity, which give it sub- 

 limity ; puissance and immensity, which command our wonder." 



In the following pages we shall figure and describe many inhabi- 

 tants of the sea ; but how many remain still to figure and describe ! 

 During more than two thousand years research has been multiplied, 

 and succeeded by research without interruption. " But how vast the 

 field," as Lamarck observes, " which Science has still to cultivate, in 

 order to carry the knowledge already acquired to the degree of per- 

 fection of which it is susceptible !" 



" When the tide retires from the shore, the sea leaves upon the 

 coast some few of the numberless beings which it bears in its bosom. 

 In the first moments of its retreat, the naturalist may collect a crowd 

 of substances, vegetable and animal, with their various characteristic 

 colours and properties. The inhabitants of the coast find there their 

 food, their commerce, and their occupations. At low water the 

 nearest villages and hamlets send their contingents, old and young, 

 men, women, and children, to the harvest. Some apply themselves to 

 gathering the riband seaweed (Zostera), the membranous Viva, the 

 sombre brown Fucus vesiculosus, formerly a source of great wealth to 

 the dwellers by the sea, being then much used in making kelp ; others 

 gather the small shells left on the sands ; boys mount upon the rocks 

 in search of whelks (Buccinum), mussels (Mytilus), detach limpets 

 (Patella), and other edible marine animals, from the rocks to which 

 they have attached themselves. On some coasts, shells, as Mactra, 

 Cytheria, and Bucardium, are sought for their beauty. By turning 

 the stones, or by sounding the crevices of the rocks with a hook at the 

 end of a lath, polypes and calmars are sometimes surprised sometimes 

 even sea and conger eels, which have sought refuge there ; while the 



