CHAPTER X 



OCEAN ANIMALS: SPONGES, SEA-ANEMONES, 

 JELLYFISPIES, CORALS, STARFISHES, OYS- 

 TERS, CLAMS, AND SEA-SHELLS 



As but few schools are situated near the seashore not 

 many pupils using this book will be able to see for them- 

 selves the interesting animals which live in the tide-pools 

 and on the rocks and sand floor of the coast. That a host 

 of curious creatures inhabit the sea is of course familiar 

 knowledge. The whales, dolphins, and porpoises, and 

 the thousands of kinds of fishes from the great sharks to 

 the tiny gobies and swarming herrings, are the marine 

 representatives of the vertebrates ; the invertebrates are 

 represented by the plant-like sponges and sea-anemones, 

 the colored corals, whose skeletons form great reefs and 

 islands, the translucent, delicately tinted jellyfishes that 

 swim gracefull}' through the water by opening and closing 

 their umbrella-like bodies, the crawling starfishes, the 

 spiny sea-urchins, and by the host of snail-like animals 

 that we commonly know by their houses, the various sea- 

 shells which are washed upon the beach. Some of these 

 ocean invertebrates live far out on the open sea, like the 

 jellyfishes, which swarm in tropical waters; some live on 

 the bottom, and even at great depths, like the sponges, 

 but the more familiar ones, such as the sea-anemones, 

 starfishes, and sea-urchins live in the tide-pools alon"- the 

 shore. Pupils who cannot observe the ocean animals 



124 



