230 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



From this you perceive that the climatal conditions are 

 very favourable, and, whenever Rennel's Cui-rent permits it, 

 the southern forms of animal life are swept in by the Atlantic. 

 One great contlition demanded by the tide-hunter is 

 wanting here. There are no caves, no gullies, no huge dark 

 fissures, few overhanging ledges and rock-pools. It has 

 already been noticed in these pages that darkness and depth 

 seem primary conditions even on a good coast. Within the 

 sheltering darkness of caves and fissures, these animals, im- 

 patient of the light, are to be found crowding together, and 

 are only accidentally found elsewhere. On such a coast as 

 this you gain nothing, unless you have a man and crowbar 

 with you to turn over the big stones. Under these stones 

 the animals crawl and nestle, chuckling, no doubt, at your 

 zoological despair in the helpless endeavour to get at them, 

 but laughing on the other side of their mouths (by a remark- 

 able anatomical mechanism not yet explained) when they 

 find that you have outgeneraled them, and have oveiturned 

 their bastions. And yet this love of darkness is very para- 

 doxical. Some of them, especially Annelids, are so impatient 

 of the light that they speedily die in your jars and bottles, 

 unless abundant shadows protect them. The Actiiiige are 

 stimulated by the light ; or perhaps it would be more 

 accurate to say that the effect of light upon the sea-weed 

 oxygenates the water, and thus makes the Actinia more 

 vivacious. Some Actiniae — tlie Daisies, for example — 

 liabitually flaunt in the exposed glare of sunlight ; but the 

 majority, like all worms, Crustacea, and most Molluscs, 

 retire into the darkest shade they can find. 



