The Zoologist at Scarborough. 87 



much less frequently than the patella above noticed. On the 

 contrary, there was a rich profusion of sea-anemones [Actinia] . 

 Their crimson bulbs studded the shady pools in groups, often 

 spreading their petal-like arms with charming effect. An un- 

 usually large individual, revelling in orange and green, was espe- 

 cially attractive ; and almost every crevice was filled with what 

 at first sight appeared to be little hemispherical heaps of clean 

 gravel, but which were, in truth, the closed bodies of Actiniae, 

 awaiting the coming of the tide and their dinner-time. Per- 

 haps these " flowers of the deep " are among the most enter- 

 taining .denizens of the rock-pools, for their beauty and variety 

 never fail to arrest the attention of the most casual observer. 



Again the relentless tide drove me back. Yet, lingering 

 over the pleasant recreation, I next raised a stone, which the 

 Actinia on its edges told me had not been moved for some time. 

 Its bottom was a scene of confusion and distress. Here a long 

 worm wriggled out of sight; there a crustacean, all legs, scuttled 

 over the edge and dropped into the water. A Chiton sealed its 

 values hermetically to the stone; Littorince and Trochi shut 

 themselves up. They need not have been alarmed, for their 

 disturber's eyes were fixed on the spot where five pearly drops 

 of irridescent blue indicated as many of my lately-discovered 

 prizes, which I now determined to be Trochus helicinus. 

 Though not quite so fine as those on the algae, they were more 

 numerous ; and before I was finally driven in by the waves, I 

 managed to obtain about twenty from this new habitat, a num- 

 ber increased nearly fivefold on a subsequent visit. This 

 pretty univalve does not appear to range far to the south of 

 Scarborough, though it is found a long way up the coast of 

 Scotland ; but doubtless a close inspection would discover it in 

 many similar localities on our own shores. 



Retiring slowly over the gently sloping beds of lias, I was 

 next struck by the recent look of the holes of boring -shells, 

 and presently detected the valves of Pholas crispata and Tapes 

 pullastra. A little industry in the use of a clasp-knife soon 

 cut them out of the saturated and softened rock, but I was un- 

 able to get any living specimens. The many theories which 

 have been invented to account for the way in which these ani- 

 mals bore their habitations may be instructively studied, both 

 here and at Filey. I would draw attention to one important fact, 

 viz., the ease with which the wet rock is cut, compared with 

 the difficulty of smashing it when dried by exposure to the 

 atmosphere. It is ever so, whether the material be the lime- 

 stones of Yorkshire and Dorset, the chalks of Flamborough and 

 elsewhere, or the red sandstones of Torquay and its neigh- 

 bourhood. 



Here my operations came to a close for the time. The)- 



