SECRETS OF THE OCEAN 145 



these caves twenty-five feet or more below high- 

 water mark. 



Here in these beautiful caverns we may make 

 aquariums, and transplant as many animal-flowers 

 as we wish. Wherever we place them their fleshy, 

 snail-like foot spreads out, takes tight hold, and 

 the creature lives content, patiently waiting for 

 the Providence of the sea to send food to its many 

 wide-spread fingers. 



Carpeted with pink alga3 and dainty sponges, 

 draped with sea-lettuce like green tissue paper, 

 decorated with strange corallines, these natural 

 aquariums far surpass any of artificial make. Al- 

 though the tide drives us from them sooner or 

 later, we may return with the sure prospect of 

 finding them refreshed and perhaps replenished 

 With many new forms. For often some of the 

 deep-water creatures are held prisoners in the 

 lower tide-pools, as the water settles, somewhat as 

 when the glaciers receded northward after the Ice 

 Age there were left on isolated mountain peaks 

 traces of the boreal fauna and flora. 



If we are interested enough to watch our 

 anemones we will find much entertainment. Let 

 us return to our shrimp colonies and bring a hand- 

 ful to our pool. Drop one in the centre of an 

 anemone and see how quickly it contracts. The 

 tentacles bend over it exactly as the sticky hairs 

 of the sun-dew plant close over a fly. The shrimp 

 struggles for a moment and is then drawn down- 



