62 EXAMINATION OF THE HAUL. 



are very numerous on the downs above, when he fell 

 over. Thirteen hours he lay helpless at the bottom, 

 in the hardest frost of the winter of 1849-50, and was 

 then found with a broken arm and thigh, but with no 

 other important injuries. 



But up with the dredge ; let us see our success. 

 It feels pretty heavy as it mounts, and here as it 

 breaks the surface we can already see some bright- 

 hued and active creatures in its capacious bag. A 

 wide board resting on two thwarts serves for a table, 

 and on this, — a few of the more delicate things that 

 appear at a glance, having been first taken out, — the 

 whole contents are poured. The empty dredge is 

 returned to the deep for another haul, while we set 

 eagerly to work with fingers and eyes on the heap 

 before us. 



What a pleasure it is to examine a tolerably prolific 

 dredge-haul ! I am not going to enumerate all the 

 things that we found ; it would make a pretty long 

 list. Nunlbers of rough stones, and of old worm-eaten 

 shells, half of a broken bottle, and other strange 

 matters were there ; every one, however rude, worthy 

 of close examination, because studded with elegant 

 zoophytes, the tubes of Serpulat and other Anne- 

 lida, bright-coloured pellucid Ascidians, graceful 

 nudibranch Mollusca, the spawn of fishes, and endless 

 other things. Brittle-stars, by scores, were twining 

 their long spiny arms like lizards' tails among the 

 tangled mass ; arrayed in the most varied and most 

 gorgeous hues, of all varieties of kaleidoscopic pat- 

 terns {See Plate IV) ; and Sand-stars not a few. 

 The latter are much more delicate in constitution 



