II. 



SQUIRTS, POLYPS, AND JELLY-FISHES. 



Some of the pleasant minutes whiled away in the 

 water can be advantageously put to collecting, and 

 the bather who loiters among the grass-grown piles 

 that here and there lift their hoary heads out of the 

 water, or examines the wreck of some unfortunate 

 merchantman, cannot fail to meet with a number 

 of curious and interesting objects, which otherwise 

 might have readily passed among the uuknowables 

 of the sea-border. One or more forms of sea- 

 urchins or ' sea-eggs,' various squirts, polyps, and 

 corallines, and the goose barnacle, find here a con- 

 genial home, which already in olden time had 

 been discovered and made useful by the edible 

 muscle. Unfortunately, almost the entire New 

 Jersey coast is destitute of real rock, and conse- 

 quently lacks those cool rock-bound retreats which 

 on the l^ew England shores delight the star-fish and 

 the sea-anemone. This deficiency is in a measure 

 made good by the enclosed areas of piers and 

 wharves, which offer a safe harbor to a number of 

 forms which, in the matter of home comforts, could 

 obtain but little encouragement from the arid sands. 



Among these, perhaps the first to attract our 

 attention will be a small rounded yellowish body, not 

 much more than a half-inch across, which is found 

 64 



