THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 59 



A Representative Fauna. — The shore-fauna is cer- 

 tainly the most representative of all faunas. What pic- 

 tures rise in the mind ! Swiftly moving Infusorians lash- 

 ing their way through the water ; Foraminifera with 

 beautiful shells of lime slowly ghding on the fronds of sea- 

 weed ; calcareous sponges like little vases and more irregular 

 fliaty- and- horny sponges, sometimes coating the rocks like 

 the common crumb-of -bread sponge, sometimes growing 

 in beds Uke the plants they were once supposed to be ; 

 hydroid zoophytes Uke miniature trees on rock or sea- 

 weed ; sea-anemones and corals often like beds of flowers, 

 living an easy-going life, waiting for food to drop into 

 their mouths, or stinging small passers-by ; unsegmented 

 worms such as the ' living films ' which gUde on the sea- 

 weeds or stones like mysteriously moving leaves, and the 

 Nemertines or ribbon-worms, also covered with ciha, but 

 provided with a remarkable protrusible proboscis, some- 

 times ejected so violently as a weapon that it breaks ofi 

 altogether and wriggles like a worm itseK ; the higher 

 ringed worms or Annelids in extraordinary numbers, Uke 

 Nereis, Phyllodoce, and Aphrodite itseH, so beautiful in 

 themselves and in their names that we can understand 

 the enthusiasm of the expert who is said to have named 

 his seven daughters after seven favourite Polychsets ; the 

 starfish creeping up the rocks with their strange hydrauUc 

 locomotor system, the brittle-stars using their Uthe arms 

 like gymnasts, the sea-urchins tumbUng along on the tips 

 of their teeth, and the sluggish sea-cucumbers plunging 

 their tentacles into the mud and then into their mouths ; 

 the beautiful colonies of ' Moss-animals ' or Bryozoa, 

 crusting stone and weed as if with lace, or forming leaf-Uke 

 fronds like the sea-mat (Flustra), which was one of the 



