FOURTH WEEK] June 161 



and grow up into the plant-like hydroids. So each gener- 

 ation of these interesting creatures is entirely unlike that 

 which immediately precedes or follows it. In other words, 

 a hydroid is exactly like its grandmother and grand- 

 daughter, but as different from its parents and children 

 in appearance as a plant is from an animal. Even in a 

 fairy-story book this would be wonderful, but here it is 

 taking place under our very eyes, as are scores of other 

 transformations and " miracles in miniature " in this 

 marvellous underworld. 



Now let us deliberately pass by all the attractions of 

 the middle zone of tide-pools and on as far as the lowest 

 level of the water will admit. We are far out from the 

 shore and many feet below the level of the barnacle-covered 

 boulders over which we first clambered. Now we may 

 indeed be prepared for strange sights, for we are on the 

 very border-land of the vast unknown. The abyss in 

 front of us is like planetary space, unknown to the feet of 

 man. While we know the latter by scant glimpses through 

 our telescopes, the former has only been scratched by the 

 hauls of the dredge, the mark of whose iron shoe is like the 

 tiny track of a snail on the leaf mould of a vast forest. 



The first plunge beneath the icy waters of Fundy is 

 likely to remain long in one's memory, and one's first dive 

 of short duration, but the glimpse which is had and the 

 hastily snatched handfuls of specimens of the beauties 

 which no tide ever uncovers is potent to make one forget 

 his shivering and again and again seek to penetrate as far 

 as a good-sized stone and a lungful of air will carry him. 

 Strange sensations are experienced in these aquatic scram- 



