412 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



elegant and firm, often iridescent, fronds of Chond/rus cri&pus ; 

 and, lowermost, the thong-weed or Himanihalia lorea." 



Succeeding the shore-band, or littoral zone, we have the 

 region of the great lammaria or tangle forests, or in sandy 

 places the waving meadows of zostera, or grass-wrack. It extends 

 from the edge of low water to a depth varying in different 

 localities, but seldom exceeding fifteen fathoms, and is itself 

 divided into sub-regions, marked by belts of differently tinted 

 algae. This zone above all others swarms with life, and is the 

 chief residence of fishes, mollusks, crustaceans, and invertebrata 

 of all classes, remarkable for brightness and variety of colouring. 

 " Here," says Mr. Godwin Austen, " is the chosen haunt of the 

 nudibranchiate mollusks, animals of exceedingly delicate texture, 

 extraordinary shapes, elegance of organs, and vividness of paint- 

 ing. Their bodies exhibit hues of a brilliancy and intensity 

 such as can match the most gorgeous setting of a painter's 

 palette. Vermilion red, intense crimson, pale rose, golden 

 yellow, luscious orange, rich purple, the deepest and the brightest 

 blues, even vivid greens and densest blacks, are common tints, 

 separate or combined, disposed in infinite varieties of elegant 

 patterns, in this singular tribe. Our handsomest fishes are con- 

 gregated here, the wrasses especially, some of which are truly 

 gorgeous in their painting. Here are gobies and more curious 

 blennies, swimming playfully among these submarine groves. 

 Strange worms crawl serpent-like about their roots, and for- 

 midable Crustacea are the wild beasts who prowl amid their 

 intricacies. The old stalks, and the surfaces of the rocky or 

 stony ground on which they usually grow, are incrusted like 

 the trunks of ancient trees or faces of barren rocks with lichenous 

 investments. But whereas in the air these living crusts are 

 chiefly if not all of vegetable origin, in the sea they are more 

 often constructed out of animal organisms. Some of them are 

 sponges, others are true zoophytes, others polyzoa or bryozoa, 

 beings that have proved to belong to the class of mollusks, 

 however unlike they may seem to shellfish. 



"In the middle and lower part of the Laminarian region 

 around our shores the tangles become less plentiful as we 

 descend, and at last become exceptional and disappear. But 

 other sea-weeds are very abundant, especially those that delight 

 in red or purple hues. Tender sea-mosses, exquisitely delicate 



