ANCHOK-PLATE IN 



344 EVENINGS AT THE SaCEOSCOPB. 



find, embedded in little papillae or warts, some highly 

 curious spicula or calcareous forms. Each consists of 

 an oblong plate, perforated with large holes in a regular 

 manner, and having a projection on its 

 surface near one extremity, to which is 

 jointed a second piece, having tlie most 

 singularly true resemblance to an an- 

 chor. The flukes of this anchor project 

 SYKAPTA. irom the skin, the sliank standing ob- 



liquely upward from the plate, to which it is articulated 

 by a dilatation, where the ring would be, which is cut 

 into teeth. 



Among the multitude of transparent creatures that 

 swim in the open sea, few are more interesting than 

 those which constitute the infant state of the very ani- 

 mals that we have lately been examining — ^the Sea- 

 urchins and their allies. It is a productive way of ob- 

 taining subjects for microscopic research, to go out in a 

 boat on a quiet summer's day, especially in the after- 

 noon, when the sun has been shining, or when evening 

 is waning into night, and with a fine muslin net 

 stretched over a brass ring at the end of a pole, skim 

 the surface of the smooth sea. At intervals you take 

 in your net, and having a wide-mouthed glass jar 

 ready, nearly filled with sea-water, invert the muslin 

 in it, when your captives, small and great, float ofi' 

 into the receiver. After a few such essays, unless you 

 have very bad success indeed, you will see even with 

 the naked eye, but much more with a lens, that the 

 water in your jar is teeming with microscopic life ; 

 and though many of your captives will not long sur- 

 vive the loss of their freedom, still meanwhile you 

 may secure many an interesting object, and examine it, 



