SEA-MATS AND SHELLY CORALLINES 75 



to allow the water to rush into a small vacuum formed 

 within. As these animals are hermaphrodites, requiring 

 mutual impregnation, the sounds may possibly be a means 

 of communication between them, or, if they be of an elec- 

 tric nature, they may be the means of defending from for- 

 eign enemies one of the most delicate, defenceless, and 

 beautiful Gasteropods that inhabit the deep." * 



CHAPTER IV 



SEA-MATS AND SHELLY CORALLINES 



WHEN" we were at the sea-side last summer we 

 bought, you may remember, of a poor widow 

 whom we met on the beach, a little basket of 

 dried sea- weeds. Fetch it: it is on the chimney-piece 

 upstairs. 



Now all of these objects are not sea- weeds. I mean 

 they are not all plants; some of them are animals, and 

 these I want to bring under your notice this evening for 

 our microscopical entertainment. Here are exquisitely 

 delicate crimson leaves, as thin or thinner than the thin- 

 nest tissue paper, with solid ribs and sinuous edges. Here 

 is a tall and elegant dark red feather, quite regularly pin- 

 nated. Here is a tuft of purple filaments as "fine as silk- 

 worm's thread." And here is a broad irregular expanse 

 of the richest emerald- green, crumpled and folded, yet as 

 glossy as if varnished. 



Well, all of these are plants, certainly: they are veri- 



1 "Edinb. Phil. Jour.," xiv. 186. 



