71 
breath, the landing of the great prizes which the dredge had 
collected. His account of the glimpses from time to time as the 
dredge was coming in, of what seemed to be a large scarlet urchin, 
the disappearance of it now and then as if lost altogether, then its 
quiet settling down as a round red cake, and beginning to pant, — 
that he had to summon up some resolution before taking the weird 
little monster in his hand, — show the graphic power of the author 
no less than the enthusiasm of the naturalist. 
I cannot forbear giving another illuatration : — “ I do not believe 
human dredger ever got such a hank The special inhabitants of 
that particular region — vitreous sponges and echinodcrms — had 
taken quite kindly to the tangles, warping themselves into them, 
and sticking through them and over them, till the mass was such 
that we could scarcely get it on hoard. Dozens of great Holtenise, 
like 
Wrinkled head and aged. 
With silver beard and hair ; 1 
a dozen of the best of them breaking off just at that critical point 
where everything doubles its weight by being lifted out of the 
water, and sinking slowly away hack again to our inexpressible 
anguish ; glossy whisps of Hyalonema spicules ; a bushel of the 
pretty little mushroom-like Tisiphonia ; a fiery constellation of the 
scarlet Astropeden tenuispinus ; while a whole tangle was ensan- 
guined by the 4 disjecta membra 7 of a splendid Brisinga.” 
The effect of the brilliant phosphorescence of the contents of the 
dredge are vividly pourtrayed ; and the argument in favour of the 
urchins, which are only one-fourth of the size of others whose 
characters are indistinguishable from theirs, being dwarfed speci- 
mens of the same genus, is not easily forgotten “ The Shetland 
variety of Equus cabcdlus is certainly not more than one-fourth the 
size of an ordinary London dray-horse, and I do not know that 
there is any good reason why there should not be a pony form of 
an urchin as well as of a horse. ” 
Wyville Thomson had arranged with his colleagues to take part 
in an exploration of the deep sea to the south of Europe and the 
Mediterranean in 1870, hut he was prevented from doing so by an 
attack of fever. Yet he gave at second hand a brief account of the 
