THE EADIOLARIA 91 



came and fished with Miiller-nets for tiny trans- 

 parent sea-creatures in the gentle periodic 

 currents, that may once have given rise to the 

 legend of Scylla and Charybdis. There is no place 

 more favourable for the purpose than the harbour 

 of Messina. The basin is open only at one spot, 

 towards the north. The westerly wind is cut 

 ofi from the town by the mountains, and can do 

 no harm. Even the detested southern wind, the 

 sirocco, that lashes the Strait till it is white 

 with foam, cannot enter. There is only the 

 north wind that drives the water into the 

 basin. The waves it brings in are full of millions 

 of sea-animals, which accumulate in the cul-de- 

 sac of the harbour. In fact, if the sirocco has 

 previously been blowing in the Strait and 

 gathered great swarms of animals from the 

 southern parts at the mouth of the harbour, and 

 then the north wind drives them all inside, the 

 whole of the water seems to be alive with them. If 

 you dip a glass in it, you do not get water, but 

 a sort of " animal stew," the living things making 

 up more of the bulk than the fluid — little crystal- 

 line creatures, medusse, salpse, Crustacea, vermalia, 

 and others of many kinds. 



It was at this classic spot that Haeckel would 

 lay the foundation of his fame as a zoologist, by 

 the study of a group of minute creatures that 

 appealed equally to the aesthetic sense by the 

 mysterious beauty of their forms. There can be 

 little doubt that we can see in this, not only a fortu- 

 nate accident, but also the play of some hidden 



