THE W0XDER3 OF THE SHORE. 83 



and wherever a tbin layer of muddy sand inter- 

 venes between two slabs, long Annelid worms 

 of quaintest forms and colors have their hori- 

 zontal burrows, among those of that curious and 

 rare radiate animal, the Spoonworm,* an eyeless 

 bag about an inch long, half bluish-gray, half 

 pink, with a strange scalloped and wrinkled pro- 

 boscis of saffron color, which serves, in some 

 mysterious way, soft as it is, to collect food, and 

 clear its dark passage through the rock. 



See, at the extreme low-water mark, where 

 the broad olive fronds of the Laminarioa, like 

 fan-palms, droop and wave gracefully in the 

 retiring ripples, a great boulder which will serve 

 our purpose. Its upper side is a whole forest of 

 sea-weeds, large and small ; and that forest, if 

 you examined it closely, as full of inhabitants 

 as those of the Amazon or the Gambia. To 

 "beat" that dense cover would be aii endless 

 task ; but on the under side, wliere no sea-weeds 

 grow, wc shall find full in view enough to occupy 

 us till the tide returns. For the slab, sec, is 

 such a one as sea-beasts love to haunt. Its 

 weed-covered surface shows that the surge has 



♦ Thalassema Nepluni (Forbcs's British Star-Fislies, 

 p. 259). 



