m ANIMAL LIFE 



therefore led to conclude that the sea-jellies are sprung 

 from the foam, and that even the more substantial 

 creatures of the summer are also of halcyon birth. 



The very names of the animal jetsam that we 

 pick up on the beach keep this Greek idea — that the 

 sea is the mother of life — fresh in our minds: the common 

 fleshy pink polyp, our ' dead men's fingers,' is named 

 Alcyonium ; the jelly-like, shapeless, brownish polyp 

 thrown up in ribands is Alcyonidium ; the kingfisher 

 that flics arrowy as foam before the wind is Halcyon ; 

 the days most children recall with greatest glee — the 

 days spent on the sands — are the halcyon ones. 



That the sea-jellies are the egg-cases of fish, worms, 

 snails, and cuttlefish (fig. i) is a discovery of recent 

 times. And vet so unwilling is the mind of seamen 

 to accept such a reasonable origin, that these Greek 

 traditions of the rise of creatures from inanimate 

 nature, and of the transformation of the egg-cases of 

 worms into young fish, survive as lustily as ever the 

 spread of modern education. 



This acquaintance with the larger forms of animal 

 life, begun by the shepherd and hunter, the fisherman 

 and explorer, has been continued by naturalists, with 

 the result that an altogether fresh idea of the fulness 

 of the earth has been obtained. By the use of magni- 

 fying-glasses it was found that creatures far smaller 

 than insects abounded in sea and fresh water, even 

 as the. midges in the air or ants and greenfly on the 

 ground. 



The lurry (dating of weeds, the scum round farm- 



