146 



THE HARMONIES OF NATURE. 



substances, they trust for nourishment to whatever small fry 

 are brought to their mouths by currents in the water. They have 



not the elegance of form of the sea 

 anemones, but many are painted 

 with the most gaudy colours. 



s If, when walking on the sea- 

 shore, about low -water mark,' 

 says Forbes in his History of 

 British Mollusca, 'we turn over 

 large stones, or look under pro- 

 jecting eaves of rock, we are 

 almost sure to see translucent 

 jelly-like masses of various hues 

 of orange, purple, yellow, blue, 

 grey, and green, sometimes nearly 

 uniform in tint, sometimes beau- 

 tifully variegated, and very fre- 



B otryll us vioiaceus,highly magnified. J \ 



a common test, bb some of the bronchial QUently pencilled as if with stars 



orifices, c the common anal orifice of one 



of the systems. ot gorgeous device ; now en- 



crusting the surface of the rock, now descending from it 

 in icicle-like projections. These are compound Ascidians. A 

 tangle of broad-leaved fucus, torn from its rocky bed or gathered 

 on the sand, where the waves have cast it after storms, will show 

 us similar bodies, mostly those star-figured (botrylli), investing 

 its stalks, winding among the intricacies of its roots, or clothing 

 with a glairy coat the expanse of its foliated extremities. In 

 examining these bodies, we find that it is not a single animal 

 which lies before us, but a commonwealth of beings, bound to- 

 gether by common and vital ties. Each star is a family, each 

 group of stars a community. Individuals are linked together in 

 systems, systems combined into masses. Indeed, few bodies 

 among the forms of animal life exhibit such exquisite and 

 kaleidoscopic figures as those which we see displayed in the 

 combinations of the compound Ascidians. 



Both in the solitary and compound Ascidians, the young 

 animal, when it first issues from the egg, has active powers of 

 locomotion, being provided with a large tadpole-like tail, by 

 the aid of which it is propelled through the water. Then the 

 tail disappears, and grasping fibres or roots spring from the 

 body, which gradually assumes the form and adopts the quiet 



