SEA HARES AND SEA SLUGS, 23 



harmless, may well excite the suspicion of the ignorant. 

 Whenever you find one crawling on the sea-weed, or left 

 stranded by the retiring tide, carry it home and study it. 

 Few molluscs are so easy to dissect ; and the attention of 

 anatomists will profitably be directed to it, because several 

 errors are stereotyped in our treatises, which prove that, 

 since Cuvier, few have minutely examined its structure. 



But to return to our hunt. We place these Sea Hares in 

 a small jar by themselves, and quickly add thereto a broad 

 white ribbon of tiniest beads, which is coiled up against the 

 under side of the ledge, and which we see with joy to be the 

 spawn of the Doris — another sea slug, if a name so ugly as 

 that can properly be applied to a creature so attractive. 

 (Plate II., fig. 2). Keally this pool is enchanting ! How 

 gracefully the Polypes wave from its sides, lilce fairy fir-trees 

 in the summer air. The longer we look, the more beauties 

 and wonders we discover. I have just detected an Asci- 

 dian * standing up like an amphoi'a of crystal, containing 

 strange wine of yellow and scarlet ; and crawling about the 

 root of that Oar-weed, I see various Annelids of great 

 beauty ; we must have the root — the more so that it bears 

 some Botrijllus clustering round it. You want to know 

 what is that jelly-like globule no bigger than a pea ? I can't 

 answer ; but probably the ovum of some fish. At any rate, 

 the rule is to carry home whatever one does not know, and 

 identify there, if possible ; so pop the globule into a phial. 

 Having made this haul, we may now begin to hammer away 



* Plate I., fig. 4, represents a compound Ascidian,magnified ; the solitary 

 Ascidian is less elongated, and of about the size figured. 



