60 NATURE IN ACADIE. 



Happening one day, this same week, to spend an 

 hour or two on board a vessel moored alongside a quay 

 in the harbour, I amused myself for some time by 

 watching the marine life in the still, clear water around 

 the vessel. The whole surface of the water was teeming 

 with a small animal, appertaining to Medusa, which con- 

 sisted of an almost transparent whitish disc, less than 

 an inch in diameter, with two retractile filaments which 

 could be extended to the length of five or six inches, and 

 by the alternate extension and retraction of which the 

 animal moved through the water. I also noticed several 

 small whitish Medusa, and one pink one; these, I 

 observed, moved almost vertically (instead of horizon- 

 tally) and by regular expansions and contractions of the 

 disc. The wooden piles of the wharf indicated exactly 

 the tidal rise and fall at this part of the world ; it was 

 then low water, and I assumed the fall to be about five 

 feet — very different to the tremendous tidal wave which 

 sweeps up the Bay of Fundy, less than a hundred miles 

 away. 



On these wooden piles, and above low-water mark, 

 were immense concretions of mussels, but of small size. 

 Below low-water mark the seaweeds grew in profusion, 

 and many forms of marine life could also be seen. 

 Anemones were abundant and of varying sizes, but all 

 were of whitish and brownish hues. Here and there 

 was a starfish, of the forms most common on our own 

 coasts, and deeper down there seemed to be corals or 

 sponges ; but there the vision failed, for the light died 

 upon the borders of the depth below and I could see no 

 more. 



It was while watching the marvels of this little under- 

 world — so strangely quiet and secluded and so undis- 

 turbed by the busy turmoil on the wharf above — that I 

 perceived a long twisting and twining tentacle floating, 

 or rather creeping outward and upward from the forest 

 of seaweed at the side of one of the piles. It was fol- 

 lowed by another, and then I discerned the slimy, 

 flabby, whitish body of an octopus appear, but only 

 for a moment, as it soon slowly descended again. The 



