320 SUBMARINE SCENERY. 



The Theliphonus caudatus, a curious osculating link 

 between the Scorpions and Tarantulas, is not uncommon 

 in the islands. It remains concealed generally under 

 logs of wood and stones, and seems to love dark, damp 

 forests as the seat of its depredations, living in the society 

 of the larvae of Glow-worms, the Scorpions, the JScolo- 

 pendra, and a dingy coloured species of Blatta. It is 

 slow in its movements, and when alarmed raises its 

 stingless tail in a threatening manner, but never at- 

 tempts to use its chelicerae, as organs of aggression or of 

 defence. 



I am aware that persons have been accused of allowing 

 their imagination to trifle too freely with the reins, in 

 describing submarine scenery; but I shall simply state the 

 matter as I found it, and in language that came freely on 

 the spot, and educed from first impressions. Dendritic 

 Zoophytes, with their slender branches loaded with in- 

 numerable richly coloured polypi, like trees covered with 

 delicate blossoms, uprose from the clear clean bottom of 

 the bay, distinct and characteristic in their specific forms, 

 and contrasting strangely and powerfully with those most 

 apathetic and stone-like combinations of the plant, the 

 animal and the rock, the Madrepores, the Millepores, and 

 the Nullipores. Flat, and immovably extended on the sand, 

 in the bare spots between the Corallines, were impassive 

 large blue five-fingered Asterias ; and crawling with an 

 awkward shuffling movement, like an Octopus, were num- 

 bers of the slender Ophiuri, with their snaky arms, groping 

 their way among the weeds, and striving to insinuate their 

 writhing forms beneath the coral masses. Fixed flower- 

 like Actinia were expanding their fleshy petals on the 



