io ANIMAL LIFE 



fore led to conclude that the sea-jellies are sprung 

 from the foam, and that even the more substantial 

 creatures of the summer are also of halcyon birth. 



The very names of the animal jetsam that we 



pi. k up on the beach keep this Greek idea that the 



i he mother of life fresh in our minds : the common 



tl.shv pink polyp, our 'dead men's fingers,' is named 



Alcyonium ; the jelly-like, shapeless, brownish polyp 



thrown up in ribands is Alcyonidium ; the kingfisher 



th.it tlies arrowy as foam before the wind is Halcyon ; 



the days most children recall with greatest glee the 



-IM -nt on the sands are the halcyon ones. 



That the sea-jellies are the egg-cases of fish, worms, 

 -nails, and cuttlefish (fig. i) is a discovery of recent 

 times. And yet so unwilling is the mind of seamen 

 to accept such a reasonable origin, that these Greek 

 traditions of the rise of creatures from inanimate 

 naturr, and of the transformation of the egg-cases of 

 worms into young fish, survive as lustily as ever the 

 spread of modern education. 



This acquaintance with the larger forms of animal 

 life, begun by the shepherd and hunter, the fisherman 

 and explorer, has been continued by naturalists, with 

 the result that an altogether fresh idea of the fulness 

 of the earth has been obtained. By the use of magni- 

 fying-glasses it was found that creatures far smaller 

 than insects abounded in sea and fresh water, even 

 as the midges in the air or ants and greenfly on the 

 ground. 



The furry coating of weeds, the scum round farm- 



