194 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



[October 



resemble nothing so much as the yellow boxwood cups containing 

 most palpable wooden eggs, which ingenious youths are accustomed 

 to transform into eggs of divers colours, by the simple expedient of 

 opening the box at another place. 



We must reach the extreme limit of the receding tide, and may 

 then find numerous specimens of the only British representative of 

 the Asiatic cowrie, Cypraa europaa. This lovely little creature is best 

 studied when crawling upon the upright glass side of an aquarium, its 

 long tentacles and trailing foot of rich red making it an object of con- 

 spicuous beauty. The cowrie has a curious habit of turning up each 

 lobe of the mantle until the free margins almost meet dorsally. Here, 

 likewise, are two species of Trochus or Top shells, T. zizyphinus and 

 T. cmereus. The odontophore of the former species is not difficult of 

 dissection, and will well repay the trouble of mounting. Wherever a 

 stone is turned are found the articulated shells of the Chitokidce, and 

 also in many cases, a sleepy specimen of the edible crab, Cancer 

 pagurus. A curious trait of this species is that it never attemps to 

 bite its captor, thereby presenting a marked contrast to another very 

 common species, Carcinus mcenas, the green shore crab. Manx speci- 

 mens of this Crustacean are almost invariably of the typical colour ; 

 those even on the shores of the Mersey rarely so, but vary from dirty 

 brown to ferruginous. An occasional specimen of the elegant purple 

 velvet crab, Portunns pitber, one of the swimming species, is occasion- 

 ally met with, but its capture is attended with considerable risk to the 

 fingers. 



Space will not permit us to detail a thousandth part of the wonders 

 of this zone. There are great hanging, strawberry-like Ascidians and 

 star-studded Botrylli, while every frond and stalk of laminaria has its 

 colony of the lovely Annelid, Spirovbis borealis {iiautiloides), and great 

 patches of sponge (Halichondria panicea) incrust the rocks, lending 

 them varying tints of yellow and green. A species of Chalina, some- 

 what resembling the Ceratose sponges, of which the bath sponge is a 

 type, but differing from them in possessing a spicular skeleton, is 

 occasionally seen ; likewise the deep orange-hued Clathvia seriata, 

 very soft and easily peeled off. Among the calcareous sponges, 

 Ascetta coriacea, resembling a network of fine lace, is common ; 

 Leucandva nivea, thin and incrusting ; L. gossei and L. johnstonii. 

 Some very fine patches of the latter are discovered, a very white, 

 firm sponge, with disproportionately large epiculse while a specimen 



