4 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



Professor Allman, of Edinburgh. But they had not 

 examined it in the living state with the microscope, and 

 though they showed that it was quite unlike other 

 polyps, yet there was obvious need for further examina- 

 tion of it. I hoped to obtain its eggs and to watch its 

 early growth. The name given to it by Allman was 

 " Rhabdopleura," meaning " rod-walled," alluding to a 

 rod-like cord which runs along the inside of the delicate 

 branching tube (only the one-twentieth of an inch wide), 

 which the little animal constructs and inhabits. 



I sent a chest containing glass jars, microscopes, 

 books, chemicals, etc., and my dredge, as well as a large 

 windlass, on which was coiled 600 fathoms of rope, by 

 sea to Lervik, and started in early July, with my 

 assistant, Dr. Bourne (afterwards Director of Education 

 in the Madras Presidency), overland, via Copenhagen, 

 for Christiania. Thence we drove in " carioles " across 

 Norway to Laerdalsoren, on the west coast, making 

 acquaintance with the magnificent waters — rivers, lakes, 

 and cascades — of that pine-grown land. After visiting 

 the Naerodal and the glaciers which descend from the 

 mountains into the sea on the Fjaerlands Fiord, we took 

 steamer to Lervik, and were welcomed at our farmhouse 

 by its owner, the sister of the member of Parliament for 

 the surrounding region (about four times the area of 

 Yorkshire), whose son secured for me a fair-sized sailing 

 boat, and with two other men of Lervik engaged as my 

 crew for six weeks. 



After a day or two we had everything in order, and 

 at seven o'clock one morning sailed out of the harbour 

 to make our first cast of the dredge. The mouth of the 

 harbour of Lervik* is 40 fathoms deep, and the great 

 north-bound steamers enter it and come alongside the 



