THE ZooLocisT—FEBRUARY, 1875. 4313 
individual, as the picture becomes understood, changes to delight. 
But even this feeling is accompanied by one of strange bewilder- 
ment; the subdued light, the dripping roof, the rush of the sea 
through the gullet-like opening, and its thudding against the rock 
outside,— but especially the splendour of invertebrate life on the 
walls,—combine to divert one’s attention in so many different ways. 
Gradually these feelings wear off, and a desire to attack every part 
of the cavern at once, soon follows. One’s ardour in this respect is, 
however, very soon damped by the nature of the granite, which is 
hard as adamant, and twisted up my cold chisels, as though they 
had been strips of lead. The richness of colouring on the walls, 
which is eminently characteristic of the laminarian zone, as the late 
Professor Edward Forbes first pointed out, is principally traceable 
to three classes of marine life-—Sponges, Anemones, and 'Tunicate 
Mollusca,—on each of which I have given a few notes. Between the 
fresco-like patches of these lowly animals, peep out masses of fern- 
like Zoophytes and Polyzoa, their possession of the space being 
disputed by stray specimens of the bivalves Modiola barbata and 
Pecten varius, and the little echinoderm Asterina gibbosa. Among 
these creeped numerous specimens of the grass-green annelid Phyl- 
lodoce viridis. It is difficult to say what colour is predominant, so 
many are blended together. In one spot it is opaque-white; in 
another grayish, darkening to slate-colour; then it is rose-pink, | 
deepening on the one hand to scarlet, on the other to crimson: here 
there are innumerable shades of brown, there many hues of green, 
then orange, purple, and the most delicate violet. The crimson 
patches are due to the sponges Hymeniacidon sanguinea and H. 
caruncula; and Victor Hugo, in his highly imaginative ‘ Toilers of 
the Sea,’ aptly compares them to an “abattoir.” It is extremely 
probable that he had in his mind’s eye the Gouliot Caves, when he 
wrote that work, for in the second part, book 1, chapters xi., xii. and 
xill., he describes an ideal series of caverns under the sea, that have 
a singular resemblance in many respects—allowing, of course for 
the novelist’s usual license—to the reality. 
The sponges are a remarkable feature of the Gouliot Caves, 
both as to number of species, and luxuriant growth of individuals. 
Dr. Bowerbank first pointed out the important fact “ that there are 
some interesting points in the characters of the marine species of 
the Channel Islands’ Fauna, from which it would seem that these 
shores, and those of the South of Devonshire, are included in 
