266 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



obliges him, gives you a better opportunity for closer observa- 

 tion. Place only a sbell or stone covered with serpulas or 



cymospiras, into a vessel filled with 

 sea-water, and you will soon see how, 

 in every tube, a small round cover 

 is cautiously raised, which hitherto 

 hermetically closed the entrance, and 

 prevented you from prying into the 

 interior. The door is open, and 

 serpuk, attach^" to a shell. soon the inmate makes his appear- 

 ance. You now perceive small buds, 

 here dark violet or carmine, there blue or orange, or variously 

 striped. See how they grow, and gradually expand their 

 splendid boughs ! They are true flowers that open before your 

 eye, but flowers much more perfect than those which adorn youi 

 garden, as they are endowed with voluntary motion and animal 

 life. 



At the least shock, at the least vibration of the water, the 

 splendid tufts contract, vanish with the rapidity of lightning, 

 and hide themselves in their stony dwellings, where, undei 

 cover of the protecting lid, they bid defiance to their enemies. 



Not all the tubicole annelides form grottos or houses of so 

 complete a structure as those I have just described. Many 

 content themselves with agglutinating sand or small shell- 

 fragments into the form of cylindrical tubes. But even in 

 these inferior architectural labours of the Sabellas, Terebellas, 

 Amphitrites, &c, we find an astonishing regularity and art; « 

 for these elegant little tubes, which we may often pick up on 

 the strand, where they lie mixed with the shells and algas cast 

 out by the flood, consist of particles of almost equal size, so 

 artistically glued together, that the delicate walls have every- 

 where an equal thickness. The form is cylindrical, or funnel- 

 shaped, the tube gradually widening from the lower to the upper 

 end. Some of these tubicoles live like solitary hermits, others 

 love company ; for instance, the Sahella aheolaris, which often 

 covers wide surfaces of rock, near low-water mark with its 

 aggregated tubes. "When the flood recedes nothing is seen but 

 the closed orifices ; but when covered with the rising waters, the 

 sandy surface transforms itself into a beautiful picture. From 



