230 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. 



the other and furnished with tentacular filaments. 

 The animals are fixed to rocks, shells, and some- 

 times to sea-weeds, and are either sessile, or 

 elevated on a footstalk : the sessile ones present 

 a considerable analogy with the puff-balls, and 

 the others with different funguses, as Clavaria? 

 &c. They seem, especially Boltenia, which is 

 covered with short stiff bristles, to approach the 

 Echinidans. Nothing more is known of these 

 animals, than that, like the others, they alter- 

 nately absorb and expel the sea water. The 

 Cynthia Momus* is remarkable for its changes 

 of colour, being sometimes white, sometimes 

 orange, and sometimes of a flesh-colour. As all 

 this tribe are fixed, their history furnishes no 

 other interesting traits. 



Nothing is more striking than the infinitely 

 diversified forms into which Creative Power has 

 moulded the little frail animals, in this as well 

 as the preceding classes, that are destined to 

 inhabit, and numbers of them to illuminate, the 

 wide expanse of waters occupying so large a 

 portion of the globe we inhabit. When we 

 survey, with curious and delighted eyes, the 

 varied tribes that cover the soils of every aspect 

 and elevation of that part of it which emerges from 

 the fluctuating surface of the great deep, and 

 which, instead of deriving their nutriment and 

 means of life and breath from the waters,' saline 



i PLATE IV. FIG. 5. * Ibid. FIG. 1. 



