A Summer Afternoon by the Sea. 157 



Though to the unassisted eye the whole animal appeared to 

 be destitute of colour, with the exception of the black eye- 

 specks which are just discernible — the microscope shows that 

 the skin is studded with minute scarlet dots, arranged somewhat 

 sparsely in linear rows on the median line of the back, along 

 the cirri, and irregularly scattered or grouped on the sides, 

 fin-processes, and tail. 



A few hours' captivity sufficed to deprive this delicate or- 

 ganism, before so agile and so vigorous, of motion and of life. 

 It is strange that many of the low forms of animal life whicli 

 swim freely in the open sea, are so excessively impatient of 

 confinement, as to exhaust themselves even in what seems to be 

 an ample supply of pure water. Many a tiny creature less than an 

 inch in length, caught as it frolics in its abounding vivacity at 

 the surface of the wide ocean, and transferred, without contact 

 with anything firmer than its own pure element, to a bucket 

 fall of water, dies of utter exhaustion in a few hours. How 

 and why is this ? It cannot be that the oxygen has been all 

 taken up in so brief a time. It is as if a man shut up beneath 

 the dome of St. Paul's should be found dead by daylight for 

 want of air to breathe. Are the gills of an Anneloid or a 

 Mollusk more exigeant than the lungs of a man ? 



Explanation op the Illusteation. — Fig. 1. — Tomopteris 

 onisciformis magnified six diameters, a, the fins, or lateral 

 processes ; b, antennas ; c, tentacular cirri ; d, eyes ; e, aper- 

 ture of mouth (in fig. 2) ; f, oesophagus ; g, alimentary canal ; 

 h, cloaca (?); i, tail-processes, and contiguous glands. Fig. 2. 

 — Inferior surface of the head, more highly magnified ; showing- 

 the insertion of the lens of the eye in the pigment mass ; and 

 the aperture of the mouth (e). Fig. o. — Antenna highly mag- 

 nified. Fig. 4. — One of the joints of the tail, with the rudi- 

 mentary fins, and the reniform glands. 



