THE EUROPEAN SEAS. 



7! 



(on the north), may be readily collected at twenty, 

 and on the last-named coast, some species even as- 

 cend into the littoral region, which, with ns here 

 in the south, keep within ten to eleven fathoms." 



The great tree Alcyonium, a branched zoophyte 

 of leathery texture, alluded to by Professor Loven, 

 is a very wonderful and characteristic production 

 of the abysses of the Boreal seas. The lines of the 

 fisherman, when fishing for the red-fish, or uer, 

 become entangled in its branches, and draw up 

 fragments of considerable dimensions, so large, in- 

 deed, that the people of the country believe it to 

 grow to the size of forest-trees, an exaggeration, in 

 all probability, but nevertheless one founded in un- 

 usual magnitude. It appears to me that many of 

 the bodies to which geologists have given the name 

 of Fucoids, and too hastily assumed to be plants, 

 were creatures allied to these Alcyonia, and, pos- 

 sibly, some of them to Alcyonidium, a similar body 

 of a different class. This notion of their nature is 

 much more consistent with the character of the 

 strata in which they occur and that of the fossil 

 fauna with which they are occasionally associated. 

 The number and beauty of kinds of sea-urchins, 

 star-fishes, and sea-cucumbers, give a characteristic 

 feature to the Boreal seas, which, in this respect, 

 are more prolific than the Celtic, and probably also 

 than the Mediterranean province. It is true that 

 we count as many species in our British lists, but 

 then a portion — and no inconsiderable one — of the 



