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A YEAR AT THE SHORE.

A
YEAR AT THE SHORE

BY
PHILIP HENRY GOSSE, F.R.S.

WITH THIRTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR,
PRINTED IN COLOURS BY LEIGHTON BROTHERS

ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER
148, STRAND, LONDON
1865

EDINBURGH: T. CONSTABLE,
PRINTER TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNIVERSITY.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

A YEAR AT THE SHORE.

I.
JANUARY.

How grandly those heavy waves are rolling in upon this long shingle-beach! Onward they come, with an even deliberate march that tells of power, out of that lowering sky that broods over the southern horizon; onward they come, onward! onward!—each following its precursor in serried ranks, ever coming nearer and nearer, ever looming larger and larger, like the resistless legions of a great invading army, sternly proud in its conscious strength; and ever and anon, as one and another dark billow breaks in a crest of foam, we may fancy we see the standards and ensigns of the threatening host waving here and there above the mass.

Still they drive in; and each in turn curls over its green head, and rushes up the sloping beach in a long-drawn sheet of the purest, whitest foam. The drifted snow itself is not more purely, spotlessly white than is that sheet of foaming water. How it seethes and sparkles! how it boils and bubbles! how it rings and hisses! The wind sings shrilly out of the driving clouds, now sinking to a moan, now rising to a roar; but we cannot hear it, for its tones are drowned in the ceaseless rushing of the mighty waves upon the beach and the rattle of the recoiling pebbles. Along the curvature of the shore the shrill hoarse voice runs, becoming softer and mellower as it recedes; while the echo of the bounding cliffs confines and repeats it, and mingles it with the succeeding ones, till all are blended on the ear in one deafening roar.

A LOOK-OUT.

But let us climb these slippery rocks, and picking our way cautiously over yonder craggy ledges, leaping the chasms that yawn between and reveal the hissing waters below, let us strive to attain the vantage-ground of that ridge that we see some fifty feet above the beach. It is perilous work, this scrambling over rocks, alternately slimy with treacherous sea-weed, and bristling with sharp needle-points of honey-combed limestone; now climbing a precipice, with the hands clutching these same rough points, and the toes finding a precarious hold in their interstices; now descending to a ledge awfully overhung; now creeping along a narrow shelf, by working each foot on, a few inches at a time; while the fingers nervously cling to the stony precipice, and the mind strives to forget the rugged depths below, and what would happen if—(ah! that “if!” let us cast it to the winds): another long stride across a gulf, a bound upward, and here we are.

Yes, here we stand, on the bluff, looking out to seaward in the very eye of the wind. We might have supposed it a tolerably smooth slope of stone when we looked at the point from the sea, or from the various parts of the shore whence we can see this promontory. But very different is it on a close acquaintance. It is a wilderness of craggy points and huge castellated masses of compact limestone marble, piled one on another in the wildest and most magnificent confusion. We have secured a comfortable berth, where, wedged in between two of these masses, we can without danger lean on one breast-high, and gaze over it down upon the very theatre of the elemental war. Is not this a sight worth the toil and trouble and peril of the ascent? The rock below is fringed with great insular peaks and blocks, bristling up amidst the sea, of various sizes and of the most fantastic and singular forms, which the sea at high-water would mostly cover; though now the far-receding tide exposes their horrid points, and the brown leprous coating of barnacles with which their lower sides are covered is broadly seen between the swelling seas.

Heavily rolls in the long deep swell of the ocean from the south-west; and as it approaches with its huge undulations driven up into foaming crests before the howling gale, each mighty wave breasts up against these rocks, as when an army of veteran legions assaults an impregnable fortress. Impregnable indeed! for having spent its fury in a rising wall of mingled water and foam, it shoots up perpendicularly to an immense elevation, as if it would scale the heights it could not overthrow, only to lie the next moment a broken ruin of water, murmuring and shrieking in the moats below. The insular peaks and blocks receive the incoming surge in an overwhelming flood, which, immediately, as the spent wave recedes, pours off through the interstices in a hundred beautiful jets and cascades; while in the narrow straits and passages the rushing sea boils and whirls about in curling sheets of snowy whiteness, curdling the surface; or, where it breaks away, of the most delicate pea-green hue, the tint produced by the bubbles seen through the water as they crowd to the air from the depths where they were formed,—the evidence of the unseen combat fiercely raging between earth and sea far below.

SEA-GULLS.

The shrieking gusts, as the gale rises yet higher and more furious, whip off the crests of the breaking billows, and bear the spray like a shower of salt sleet to the height where we stand; while the foam, as it forms and accumulates around the base of the headland, is seized by the same power in broad masses, and carried against the sides of the projecting rocks; flying hither and thither like fleeces of wool, and adhering like so much mortar to the face of the precipice, till it covers great spaces, to the height of many fathoms above the highest range of the tide. The gulls flit wailing through the storm, now breasting the wind, and beating the air with their long wings as they make slow headway; then, yielding the vain essay, they turn and are whirled away, till, recovering themselves, they come up again with a sweep, only again to be discomfited. Their white forms, now seen against the leaden-grey sky, now lost amidst the snowy foam, then coming into strong relief against the black rocks; their piping screams, now sounding close against the ear, then blending with the sounds of the elements, combine to add a wildness to the scene which was already sufficiently savage.

But the spring-tide is nearly at its lowest; a rocky path leads down from our eminence to a recess in the precipice, whence in these conditions access may be obtained to a sea-cavern, that we may possibly find entertainment in exploring.

We reluctantly turn our backs upon the magnificent battle of sea and land, and following this sheep-track, scramble down, holding fast by the tufts of thrift, round and soft and yielding, but sufficiently firm to present some resistance, or by the tussocks of wiry grass, till we leap down on the great piled masses of marble that past ages have thrown from the cliffs upon the beach. Among these we find many basins and pools of still water, for we are in a deep recess of the promontory, whose shelter renders us almost unconscious of the fury of the winter wind without; and the masses of rock that lie piled about so curb and break the force of the incoming sea, that it percolates rather than rushes into these secluded nooks. Tall walls of stone, too, shut out much of the light of day; and as to the sun, only his most slant evening rays ever reach this spot: it is enshrouded in an obscurity which is most congenial to both the plants and the animals which resort to our shores; and here, doubtless, though the season is still midwinter, we shall find our searchings rewarded by not a few of those creatures, beautiful and wondrous, in which the devout naturalist delights to trace the handiwork of the God of glory.

TOP-SHELL.

At the very first glance into this little rock-hollow, all fringed with crimson and purple weed, lined with scales of lilac coralline, and partly shadowed by the olive fronds of the leathery tangle, we discern many forms of animal life. Here, for instance, is a fine handsome shelled mollusk, the Purple-spotted Top.[1] Before we take him up, let us notice for a moment with what an easy even movement he glides along over the leaves of the sea-weed, now over the stony projections of the pool, now on the broad weeds again. On lifting the shell, we find that the fine, fleshy, apricot-coloured animal clings with considerable force to the weed; and on transferring it to a glass bottle, we get a better sight of the organ by which it maintains both its stability and its movements. The under-surface of the creature, then, forms a long, nearly parallel-sided sole, abruptly pointed behind, where it stretches to a considerable distance in the rear of the shell, and bounded in front by a slightly-thickened transverse rim, a little arched, and projecting on each side. This organ is the foot, and it is composed of muscular fibres elaborately interwoven, much as in the human tongue, whereby great versatility and power of motion are communicated to it; indeed, when in motion, it strongly reminds one of the human tongue.

Plate 1.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
DOG-WHELK. PELICAN’S FOOT. TOP. COWRY.

The sensitive and muscular foot of our captive has already taken hold of the glass side of its prison, and it is now smoothly mounting up it. With a lens you may see that though it is one undivided area, yet in the arrangement of its muscles, it is separated into two portions by a line which runs down the middle; and that these two sides move alternately. The muscles of the right half, for example, are moved a little onward, and take a fresh hold of the ground, while those of the left remain clinging; then the right half clings, while the left relaxes and advances a little beyond the right, and again clings, when the right makes its forward move. So that the effect is exactly that of two feet advancing by alternate steps; and if your own two feet were enclosed in one elastic stocking, your own progress would appear very much like that of the Trochus. Indeed, some shell-fishes not distantly allied to this, as the pretty little Pheasant-shell,[2] which I occasionally find among these rocks, really have the foot divided into two distinct and separate halves, in which this alternate motion is, of course, more obvious.

Looked at from above, we discern that this foot thickens towards the middle, where it is overlapped by a broad wing-like expansion on each side. This, for manifest reasons, is known by the name of the cloak or mantle. In all cases it performs important offices in the economy of the animal, as I shall presently describe; and in this instance we see it is adorned along its edges with certain lappets and long fleshy taper threads (called cirri), which wave vivaciously to and fro as the creature crawls. These are probably the seats of a delicate sense; perhaps receiving impressions analogous to those of touch, from the strokes they continually make on the surrounding fluid.

In front we see a distinct head, with a broad flat muzzle not altogether unlike that of an ox. On each side of the back part of this head, there is another long taper thread: these are called tentacles, but neither in form nor in structure can we discern any difference between these and the cirri that fringe the mantle. In all probability they are alike organs of a highly delicate sense of touch.

THE TOP’S EYES.

Immediately behind each of these head-tentacles you see a little wart, which has a black bead set as it were in its substance. You have often, doubtless, observed the similar black points that are placed at the tips of the upper pair of the horns (tentacles) of the common garden snail; and I daresay, when a child, you have amused yourself by touching them, and noticing how instantaneously the sensitive creature would roll them in, so to speak, concealing them far in the interior of the inturned horns. And every child is taught that these black spots are the snail’s eyes; and so, indeed, they are; and these spots on our Top’s warts are its eyes too, notwithstanding that some learned naturalists, apparently from the mere love of paradox, have affected to doubt the fact that such is their function. If you could dissect out one of these points, and submit it to careful examination with a good microscope, you would find all the parts essential to an organ of vision; there is a sclerotic coat, a distinct little pupil and iris, a cornea in front, and a dark pigment layer within, with vitreous and aqueous humours, and even a crystalline lens for the condensation of the rays of light. Minute these parts are, to be sure, but not less exquisitely finished for that. Indeed, the more skill they require in the demonstrator, the more they reflect the inimitable skill of the Creator. Swammerdam, the Dutch physiologist, who so beautifully showed the structure of the snail’s eye, seems to have feared the doubts of his conclusions that would ensue from the difficulty of repeating his investigations. “But who will credit this?” he says; “for does it not seem impossible that on a point not larger than the nib of the pen with which I write, such exquisite art and so many miracles should be displayed?”

SPIRAL SHELLS.

Now, leaving the animal, though we might devote a few moments to the admiration of its rich colours, adorned as is its deep yellow hue with lines and clouds of deeper brown, let us look at the shell, the solid house of stone, which our friend Trochus has himself built up to cover his head in the hour of danger. How well has he combined the utile cum dulci!—the comfortable with the ornamental! Its general form is that of a cone of much regularity, but with an oblique base, and perhaps you may be surprised to learn that this conical form is but the result of the winding of a very long cone upon itself in a spire. But if you examine a dead shell with care, you will see that it is so. Supposing you had a very long and slender hollow cone of plastic material, and, beginning with the acute point, you twined the whole upon itself, descending in a spiral form, you would have the representation of a turbinate shell, which, by a little gentle pressure of the fingers, might be moulded, without at all losing its essential character, into the exact shape of our Trochus, in which the progress of the spire can without difficulty be followed as well by slight inequalities of surface as by the arrangement of the colours.

It is one of our showy shells. This specimen before us has for its ground colour a chaste, cool grey, occasionally varied with tints of reddish buff, but most conspicuously adorned with a series of large and regular spots of purplish crimson running along the lower angle of the spire from the base to the summit. Each of these spots passes off into an oblique line above, the repetition of which augments the beauty of the pattern.

The interior of the shell has a glory of quite another character. It is covered with a coat of nacre or pearl, of exceedingly brilliant and rich lustre, and the presence of this inward pearliness is quite characteristic of this genus, and of most of the others belonging to the same family, the Turbinidæ. Many of the fine large tropical species are specially conspicuous for this adornment, as I have seen in those that lie along the dazzling beach of coral-sand in lovely Jamaica. The pearl of these shells is used in the arts. De Montfort mentions a necklace which he had seen, that was made out of the nacred part of the shell of the Turbo smaragdus, and which was much more brilliant and beautiful than any of the finest orient pearls.[3] And Chenu observes:—“Les grandes espèces fournissent une fort belle nacre, employée pour les ouvrages de marqueterie. Quelques espèces ont reçu des noms sous lesquels les marchands les distinguent: il y a le Burgau ou Nacré; la Veuve Perlée, dont les tubercles extérieurs usés ressemblent à des perles; la Bouche-d’Or, dont la nacre est d’un beau jaune doré; la Bouche-d’Argent; le Perroquet, ou Turbo Impérial,” etc.[4]

At another time we may examine the structure of shell, and inquire by what instruments and with what materials the ingenious animal contrives to construct so strong and so elegant a dwelling. For the present, however, as the month is January, we shall, if we sit still longer, run the risk of “catching a cold,” if we catch nothing else, though the wind is in the south, and the temperature is so mild for the season.

THE DOG-WHELK.

Therefore, we will move about and pursue our researches among the rocks and under the loose stones. Well, we are rewarded with other specimens: here are several neat little shells, with a lengthened spire, and with a remarkably thickened lip. This is the little Thick-lipped Dog-whelk,[5] a very common mollusk with us under such stones as these at low water-mark. And here is another species of the same genus, the Netted Dog-whelk,[6] which is a much larger shell, being nearly twice as long as the former, and marked with close transverse furrows, which, crossing the longitudinal ribs at right angles, give a peculiar reticulate surface, on which the specific name is founded.

Comparing these shells with the Trochus, we see that they have a deep notch cut in the front part, of which no sign appears in the latter; and this mark, trivial as it may seem, is an important indication of the habits of the animal. The inhabitants of all shells which have this notch are carnivorous, while those with simple lips are herbivorous. The Trochus gnaws or rather rasps away the tender growth of marine vegetation, or the fronds of the grown Algæ, with its remarkable palate-ribbon, all studded with reversed points, of which I may find another opportunity to speak. The Dog-whelk, on the other hand, acts the part of a cannibal ogre, feeding on his simpler brethren of the bivalve shells; storming their stony castles, in which they seem so secure, by open violence.

Look at this old valve of a Mactra. Like hundreds more that you may pick up at high water-mark, it is perforated by a tiny hole near the hinge, so smooth and so perfectly circular, that you would suppose a clever artisan had been at work drilling the massive stony shell with his steel wimble. No such thing: the Dog-whelk has done it: this is the breach which he so scientifically effected in the fortress; and hence he sucked out the soft and juicy and savoury flesh of his miserable victim.

In order to understand his plan of operations, let us put down our captive, and see him crawl. He is not long before he begins to march, on his broad oblong foot, which, as you observe, is cream-coloured, elegantly splashed and speckled with dark-brown. But before he moves he thrusts out a long cylindrical proboscis from the front of his head, which he carries high aloft and waves to and fro; and this organ, we see, fits into the deep notch in front of the shell. This proboscis is his drilling-wimble.

THE DOG-WHELK’S DRILL.

This organ is itself a study. Long as it is when extended, it can be thoroughly drawn within the body; and there it forms two fleshy cylinders, one within the other, exactly like a stocking half turned on itself. There are proper muscles attached to its walls, and to the interior of the head, by extremities which are branched in a fan-shape, so as greatly to strengthen their insertions; and these, by contraction, draw the one portion within the other. Then there is a broad hoop of muscle, which, passing round the inner cylinder, by contracting pushes it out, and lengthens it. Within the interior of this latter there is a long narrow ribbon of cartilage, which is armed with rows of sharp flinty points, turned backwards; and this tongue or palate, as it is variously called, is the Dog-whelk’s weapon.

We cannot induce the Whelk to attack his prey just when we please; but he has been detected in the operation, and I will describe it. With his broad muscular foot he secures a good hold of the bivalve, and having selected his point of attack, in general near the hinge—a selection which probably looks more at the superiority of the meat within than at any peculiar facility in the perforation—he brings the tip of his extended proboscis to the point, so that the silicious teeth can act on the shell. Hard as is the calcareous shell, it is not proof against the flint; for, without any solvent excretion, the aid of which some physiologists have been ready to suppose, these glassy points, grating round and round as on a pivot, soon wear away the substance, and gradually bore the tiny aperture which exposes the sapid morsel.

Continuing our researches, we find, deep in a rocky pool under a tuft of weed, a shell of a peculiar form, because of the enormous expansion of its outer lip. It is known as the Pelican’s-foot,[7] from the resemblance which this lip with its diverging ribs bears to the webbed toes of a water-fowl. This, too, is a carnivorous species; and though it is somewhat rare to detect the animal moving, even though kept alive in captivity, yet by carefully examining this one in its deep pool, before we disturb its equanimity, we can just see the proboscis protruding from the wide square notch in the shell, and discern that it is rather prettily coloured, being marked with spots of opaque white on a rose-coloured ground.

This species is interesting from the changes of figure which it undergoes in its progress from youth to maturity. While young the shell is simple, with no trace of the expanded lip; and it is only at mature age, and rather suddenly, that the shell makes its remarkable growth into these far-projecting points and angles, the augmented thickness of which is, moreover, at least equally conspicuous with the expanse.

THE COWRY.

But far more remarkable changes take place in the growth of the shell in a family of signal beauty, of which I discern a specimen in yonder cavernous hollow. The family I speak of is that of the Cowries; and this individual represents the only species that is indigenous to our seas—the little Furrowed Cowry.[8] Let us pause awhile to admire it, for it is one of the very loveliest of our marine animals.

The shell itself is doubtless familiar to most of my readers, for it is to be picked up on every sandy beach. It varies in size from that of a split pea to that of a large horsebean. It is elegantly marked all over with transverse ridges. These ridges are porcellaneous white, and the alternate furrows between are purplish, or flesh-coloured. The larger specimens commonly display three spots of dark brown, arranged lengthwise. But probably few are aware how very elegant a creature it is when tenanted by its living inhabitant, and crawling at ease in clear water. The foot, on which it glides with a slow but smooth motion over the surface of the rock on which it habitually dwells, or, if you please, on the bottom of the saucer of sea-water in which you are examining it, is a broad expansion spreading out to twice the superficies of the base of the shell. Above this is the fleshy mantle, which is so turned up as closely to invest the shell, conforming to its shape, and even fitting into the grooves between the ridges. This mantle can be protruded, at the will of the animal, so far that the two sides meet along the top of the shell, and completely cover it, or it can be completely retracted within the wrinkled lips beneath; and it is capable of all gradations of extension between these limits. From the front of the shell protrudes the head, armed with two straight and lengthened tentacles, answering in function and appearance to the upper pair of horns in a snail; except that the little black points which constitute the visual organs are not in this case placed at the tips, but on a little prominence on the outside of the base of each tentacle. Above and between these, which diverge at a considerable angle, projects the proboscis, a rather thick fleshy tube, formed by a flat lamina, with its edges bent round so as to meet along the under side. The interior of this proboscis is lined with delicate cilia, by whose constant vibrations a current of water is drawn into the tube and poured over the surface of the gills, for the purpose of respiration. This current may be readily perceived by any one who will take the trouble to watch, with a pocket-lens, a Cowry crawling along the side of a phial filled with sea-water. By placing the vessel between your eye and the light, and fixing your attention on the front of the proboscis, you will presently perceive the minute particles of floating matter (always held in suspension, even in clear water) drawn in various directions towards the tube, with a motion which increases in velocity as they approach, and at length rapidly sucked in, and disappearing one after another within. It is an interesting sight to see, and one that cannot be looked on without delight and admiration at this beautiful contrivance of Divine Wisdom, for the incessant breathing of the respiratory organs in water charged with vivifying oxygen.

Let us look at the vivid hues of all these organs. The foot, which expands to so great a length and breadth behind the shell, is of a buff or pale orange ground-colour, delicately striated with longitudinal undulating veins of yellowish white. The mantle which embraces the shell is of a pellucid olive, thickly mottled and spotted with black, and studded with glands protruded through its substance, of light yellow; and is often edged with a narrow border of red. The proboscis is vermilion-red, varying in brilliancy in different individuals. The tentacles are of a paler tint of the same colour, speckled with yellow.

Such, then, is the beauty of the animal which inhabits this familiar and plain little shell,—a beauty of which those who know it only in cabinets can hardly form an idea; while, as the observer gazes on it placidly gliding along, he cannot avoid an emotion of surprise that such an amplitude of organs can be folded within the narrow compass of the shell, and protruded through so contracted an aperture.

THE SCALLOP.

You would scarcely recognise in this shell, or in the Tiger Cowry, that one so often sees on chimney-pieces, the model of an ordinary convolute spiral shell, such as the snail or the whelk. But in infancy and youth the Cowry is a shell manifestly of such a character, scarcely to be distinguished from the Olives and Volutes; a shell with a distinct spire, a long wide aperture, and a thin-edged outer lip. But when the animal has arrived at mature age, a sudden deposition of shelly matter takes place on the lip, which is greatly thickened, and which expands above so as to conceal the spire, bending inward at the same time and approaching the inner lip, so as to reduce the aperture to a very narrow line. Finally, a thick coat of enamel, or glossy porcellaneous lime, is spread over the entire surface of the shell, from the narrow aperture to the back-line, which coat takes the form of those transverse folds which are so characteristic of the species and so elegant.

Here, clinging to the perpendicular wall of rock, sheltered snugly by an overshadowing stone, which I have just removed, is a lovely specimen of the Squin or Scallop.[9] In the ages of monkery, when men’s eyes were more directed to the land where the blessed Lord Jesus once sojourned than to the place where He now is, and pilgrimage to an earthly country was more valued than that to a heavenly, this shell affixed to the hat was the accepted sign that the wearer had visited Jerusalem; and received the homage of sanctity that such a pilgrim claimed.

“He quits his cell, the pilgrim staff he bore,

And fixed the scallop in his hat before.”[10]

Plate 2.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
SCALLOPS.

Some mystic connexion, some secret sympathy, was assumed to exist between the scallop and St. James, the brother of the Lord, first bishop of Jerusalem. What it was appears to be irrecoverably lost in the darkness of those very dark ages, and is doubtless not worth the hunting up. We may leave such puerilities, to consider the impress of His divine hand which the All-wise God has made on the shell of the mollusk that inhabits it.

These bivalves have been called the “butterflies of the sea,” as well on account of the vivid and varied colours with which their broad wing-like valves are painted, as of their agile fluttering and flying movements. We frequently see them, especially for some time after having been taken and put into an unfamiliar scene, as our aquariums, shoot hither and thither through the water, with irregular zigzag flights, accompanied with fitful openings and closings of the valves. These leaps and flights seem to have no determinate object, except “the letting off the steam” of their exuberant animal vivacity; but the creatures have the power of directing their leap by a forcible ejection of water from any given part of the compressed lips of the mantle.[11]

THE SCALLOP’S EYES.

It is a very pretty sight to see a healthy Pecten in a vessel of clear sea-water. The elegant valves are opened to a considerable width, perhaps to half an inch or more, and the entire aperture all round is filled by a curtain, which drops from one to the other, perpendicularly, a little way within the margin. This is the mantle, and it is generally painted with rich colours, in irregular patterns, often of spots and marbled clouds of black on a rich green ground, or pearly-green clouds on flesh-colour—sometimes pale-yellow clouds on velvet-black; but these hues have no perceptible relation with those of the shell. Looking closely, you see that the mantle is not single, but composed of two curtains, whose edges meet in the middle. And now these are slightly separating, and giving us a peep into the interior; but the most notable thing we see is the array of long white taper tentacles which proceed from each edge, and wave to and fro in the clear water; while another row of similar organs, but larger, is affixed to each curtain along the line where it starts from the shell. And along this same line, scattered between the bases of the larger tentacles, there is a row (and a corresponding one on the other curtain) of beads, which seem to be turned out of the richest and most lustrous gems. Even the unassisted eye is arrested by the flashing brilliance, but with a powerful lens they look like rubies set in sockets of sapphire, from which the light blazes forth with incomparable brilliance. These are the Pecten’s eyes, each of which possesses all the parts requisite for perfect vision.

The valves vary much in colour. Some are pure white; some white with a crimson line along the summit of each radiating ridge; some rosy, crimson, or lilac; some cream, straw-yellow, deep yellow; some dull brick-red, dark purplish-red, or sienna-brown; some are marbled with black on a red ground, making a very rich pattern.

The largest specimens, and those with greatest variety in hue, are found in deep water, and for the most part congregated in large numbers on some particular spot of the sea-bottom, which is called a scallop-bed. Such are found in Weymouth Bay, and in Torbay; and there the shell-fish can be obtained in sufficient quantity for the market. At Weymouth there is a considerable business done in these delicacies, which is, however, almost all in the hands of one dealer, from whom I have collected some details of interest.

The ordinary trawlers avoid the scallop-beds, if possible, because they are liable to have their nets torn by them; the sharp valves doubtless catching and cutting the meshes. But they often bring up many unintentionally, and a naturalist would find a trawler’s refuse a most productive field: for numbers of rare and valuable zoophytes and other forms of life come up attached to the shells, which might easily be saved, but are not: the men “have no time, for they are so anxious to get their craft into a berth, and then to take out the fish as soon as the trawl is up.”

Twenty bushels of scallops are sometimes taken at once; but this is rare. The average produce of the Weymouth trawlers is five bushels per week, which are readily sold at twopence per hundred; about seven hundred going to the bushel. The customers are “mostly the genteels,” who eat the morceaux stewed with flour or scolloped. The worthy woman who commands the supply had had the trade in her hands for twenty-eight years (in 1853); she had never heard them called by any other name than “Squins,” though she understood they were called Scallops in some places. “Squin” is by some said to be a corruption of “Quin,” after the actor and epicure of that name, who is reported to have been fond of the delicate mollusk; but I much doubt the derivation.[12]

As a proof of the tenacity of life possessed by this species, a fisherman assured me that he once put a quantity in a bag into a cupboard and forgot them, till, after the lapse of a week, turning them out he found them alive.

THE SEA-CUCUMBER.

But now another object of interest claims attention: for, in this cavern, closely squeezed in between the layers of stone, I see the satiny-white skin of a glorious Sea-cucumber. And now to get him out, there’s the rub. So firmly imbedded is he, so deeply ensconced, that no pushing with fingers or sticks will avail; indeed, I can but just touch his body with my finger-ends poked in to the utmost. No; we must cut away the rock above and below with the strong steel chisel, by means of well-directed strokes of a heavy hammer. Slow work it is, for the rock is awfully hard: the prize, however, cannot escape, and the chief point of solicitude is not to crush it in the process. At length a fortunate blow splits off a slice of rock, which leaves the unhappy skulker defenceless. Now I get my fingers gradually behind him, and force him out, gently and tenderly; sucker after sucker he is compelled to let go, and now here he is in my hand, shrunken indeed, and squeezed flat from his very shrinking in the close crevice, but all unbroken and none the worse.

This is a much more sluggish creature than any of the mollusks that we have been capturing: no sooner are they put into water than they are active, and at once display their attractions; this animal, on the contrary, will be perhaps several days in your tank before he will feel himself sufficiently at home to unfold his splendid array of tentacles. But then it is indeed a magnificent coronet of plumes wherewith the headless king is adorned.

The Sea-cucumber soon finds himself a snug berth among the rock-work of the tank; pressing his body between the pieces just as when we saw him first, but taking care to leave space to protrude his front. Then this part evolves, and a deep collar of dark purple is seen, from which a ring of ten somewhat thick stems arises, tapering to a point and arching outwards. These are of a purplish-black hue, and are studded with short branches set on in a spiral, which again branch and branch again, each terminal point bearing a white papilla; so that the whole constitutes a series of conical aggregations of white dots clustering about the black stems, something like pointed cauliflowers, and forming, as they wave to and fro in the clear water, a very charming spectacle.[13]

Plate 3.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
DOTTED SIPONCLE. SEA-CUCUMBER.

The suckers, which, when the animal first came into our possession, were apparent only as little warts, arranged in five clustered rows down the angles of the body, are now seen to be long tubes, each with an adhering disk at its extremity, by which it anchors to the surrounding stones. The mechanism of these suckers does not importantly differ from that of the same organs in the Star-fishes. Indeed, notwithstanding the very wide diversity of form and appearance between the two animals, the Cucumber and the Star are so nearly allied as to belong to the same class, that named Echinodermata; the Sea-urchins, creatures totally diverse in aspect from both, connecting the forms together.

And this Cucumber, again, is connected with the proper worms (Annellida) by some obscure animals which bear the name of Siponcles. Here is one which may illustrate the form, the Dotted Siponcle.[14] It has a cylindrical body, rounded and abruptly pointed behind, which is of a light-brown hue, with a satiny gloss; but the hue resolves itself under a powerful lens into a freckling of pale dots, excessively numerous, on a brown ground, and the lustre into a multitude of close-set annular wrinkles. What is curious in the creature is the protrusion and retraction of its trunk. From the front end of the body we see rapidly protruding, by evolution of the parts, a rather slender trunk, till it attains about one-third the length of the body; then its tip expands, and is seen to be surrounded by eight rows of black points, and within these a circle of slender, white, thread-like tentacles. These latter are the representatives of the gorgeous head-plumes of the Cucumber. Immediately the long trunk is turned out to the outmost, it begins to be rolled in again; and this process goes on with equal rapidity till it is quite concealed. Then again it is unrolled, and so on alternately. Doubtless the function of respiration is performed by this action; and perhaps also food is collected and swallowed.

THE HERMIT SIPONCLE.

One species of this creature, the Hermit Siponcle,[15] common enough with us, is in the habit of appropriating old deserted shells of univalve mollusca, as the periwinkle, or the pelican’s-foot, for its own residence. In this case it builds up a wall of sand-atoms, cemented by a glue of its own secreting, across the shell-aperture, leaving only a small central orifice, through which it may protrude its curious trunk.

Thus we discern the infinite and inexhaustible resources of the Divine Wisdom in contrivances which have for their object the preservation, sustentation, and comfort of worms so obscure and humble as these. Discerning, let us adore!

II.
FEBRUARY.

What will Babbicombe Bay yield us this fine February morning? One thing at least it yields, a magnificent coast view; and this is scarcely affected by the season. Let there be only a moderately clear atmosphere, a sky chequered with blue spaces and white wind-borne clouds, and snatches of sunshine interchanging with shadows,—which last there will be, of course, with such a sky,—and such a prospect cannot fail to please.

And, indeed, this noble sweep of precipitous coast can hardly be surpassed for beauty all round the sea-girt shores of Britain. The forms of the cliffs are imposing: their broad masses of vivid colour alternating,—the white compact limestone, the bright red sandstone, becoming almost scarlet as the sun shines out full, yet prevented from being tawdry by its harmonies with the various hues of green that crown it, by its own breadth of light and shadow, by its dimming tints as it softens and mellows into the purple of the distance; the panorama of blue hills rising and fading far inland, the Tors and heights of Dartmoor and Exmoor; and the ever-changing sea, now laughing in its brightness, now frowning and chafing in its wrath, filling so vast an area as it does from this vantage height;—these are the broader features of a scene which I will pause a moment to depict in detail, before I descend to the beach.

VIEW FROM BABBICOMBE CLIFF.

I take my stand on the margin of the cliff that overlooks Oddicombe, my feet upon the short soft turf, marked with fairy rings, the Dog’s Head just on my left,—a remarkable projection of grey lichened limestone from the very cliff-edge, which, seen from the opposite side, bears a curious resemblance to the head of a lop-eared, cross-grained cur; but from my point of view far more forcibly presents the appearance of the face of a night-capped old man, grinning with pain;—and a fine vertical, and in some places overhanging, precipice just on my right, in whose horizontal strata scores of noisy jackdaws find resting ledges. I see them as they sit in conscious security only a few yards below the margin, their sleek grey polls wagging, and their black eyes now and then upturned, as others of the cawing tribe fly in, and seek sitting-room. Some of the strata are strangely distorted at the western end; and here a narrow and somewhat perilous track leads down below the cliff to a grassy plateau at its foot. I scramble down, and sit on a stony shelf, overhung with sheets of ivy, and mark the bright green tufts of Sea-spleenwort springing out of the clefts, unfortunately too high to be reached.

The eye roams northward. At foot a rough broken ground slopes steeply down, shaggy with thickets of brake and bramble, and of furze which glows even now with golden blossom, varied with great tracts of broken fragments of limestone, blackened by the weather. At length this merges into a broad beach of shingle, snowy white, on which I see ladies reclining, with books and parasols, as if ’twere July instead of February. The sea bounds the beach with a line of still whiter surf, ever renewing itself as it breaks, with a sweet whispering sound. At the back is a series of most picturesque cliffs of the reddest sandstone, on the top of which I find in June the beautiful blossoms of the Purple Gromwell, one of the rarest of British flowers. The ground at the summit is very uneven; and so my eye rests on the broad opposite slopes of Woodleigh Vale, chequered with fields and hedgerows, among which the ploughmen are busy, and the teams are toiling up the steep furrows.

The formation suddenly changes again, and the limestone is seen in the fine rounded projection of Petit Tor, whose front of white marble has been laid bare by the quarriers. Beyond this is the ruddy sandstone once more rising into lofty headlands of noble shapes. At the foot of one of these an isolated rock, called, from its figure, the Bell, stands in the sea, where, even while I am writing this paper, a mournful tragedy has occurred. Two Babbicombe fishermen went out at midnight to examine their crab-pots at this rock, and did not return. The morning revealed the keel of the boat bottom-up, moored by the pot-lines, and one poor fellow entangled by his feet in the same lines, while the sea washed his hair about the surface. The other has not yet been found.

Farther on, the bluff Ness marks the harbour of Teignmouth, and as the sunlight falls on the white villas that stud the opposite side, the scene looks attractive. Then the cliff-line rapidly diminishes in height as it recedes, and the heads of Dawlish project, and we see no more till at Exmouth the land trends to the eastward, and from its white terraces faintly seen in the slanting sun now, but to stand out full and clear in the afternoon, we follow the bold, varying, beauteous coast, beauteous in its outline, but dim in its detail, for some twenty miles farther, till the straining eye finally fails to discern it somewhere between Lyme and Bridport; though Portland itself is sometimes to be seen, and I have myself made it well out, stretching far forth upon the wide eastern horizon of blue sea. Now, however, along that shining line nothing is discernible but a white speck or two, and yon ocean steamer that passes down the Channel, with a long line of black smoke on the low sky behind her.

I forsake my sheltered seat, and climb to the down, making my way towards the left, in order to see the prospect to the right. Here is a track winding down the broken slope, leading through roods of the round leaves of the fragrant Butterburr. A month ago the whole air was loaded with the delicious perfume of its lilac blossom. I make my way, slippery and tenacious enough just now, along by the hedge of a field, till I come to the edge of an abrupt perpendicular cliff. How beautiful from hence is the sweet hamlet of Babbicombe the Nether! The rugged masses of Black Wall project from the foot of the slope into the sea, dividing Oddicombe from Babbicombe beach. Beyond it is the latter, a sweeping curve of pebbles and then of larger boulders, backed by an amphitheatre of picturesque fishing huts, and elegant villas, half hid in bowery plantations and woods, with peeps of lawns and gardens, all occupying the steep sides of the bay, up to the summit of the downs.

Beyond the beach, fine dark rock masses again project; and farther still, the prospect is abruptly shut in by a magnificent vertical cliff of great height, the northern boundary of that lovely spot of renown, Anstey’s Cove.

These features, which I feebly essay to paint with many successive words, and multitudes of others which I must fain leave untouched, the eye drinks in at once, grasping the whole grand and beautiful picture at a glance, steeped as it is in loveliness. Those who have seen it may possibly find an aid to memory in recalling it in these details of mine, for I write with the scene before me; those who have not will probably find little of interest in them.

BABBICOMBE BEACH.

It is at the farther end of yonder beach that we must commence our marine explorings to-day; there, where the pebbles at the lowest water-line merge into larger dark stones, and a little on this side of the bounding rocks. We might get down by this path to Oddicombe beach, scramble over Black Wall, and so make our way along Babbicombe beach to the spot; but the state of the tenacious soil at this season makes such a descent unpleasant. There is a better road to the eastward, which winds among the villas, and descends direct to the spot we seek. Let us therefore pursue our walk over the downs, along the margin of the cliff, enjoying fresh aspects of the coast view as we proceed, till we reach the road.

We are among the olive-coated stones at the verge of the far-receded tide, among which the springs from the cliffs having broken out from various points in the shingle beach, are making for themselves tortuous channels on their way to the deserting sea. Their water, originally fresh of course, has, by the time it arrives here, become so brackish by washing the salt stones and sea-weeds, that the sand-hoppers and worms which inhabit the hollows under the stones are bathed in it with impunity, though, in general, immersion in fresh water is fatal to marine animals. Great tufts of bladder wrack and other Fuci spring from the lower stones, and now lie flaccid about, awaiting the returning tide to erect them and wave their leathery leaves to and fro. Broad fronds of Ulva, too, like tissue paper of the tenderest green, irregularly crumpled and waved, and nibbled and gnawed into thousands of holes, lie crisp and tempting; and tufts of a darker, duller green, and others of purple-brown, and others again of rosy crimson, stud these rough stones, and vary their ruggedness with elegance and beauty; a beauty, however, far more appreciable, and far more worthy of admiration, if we could look upon it when the flowing tide creeps up, with its calm water clear as crystal, and covers the many-hued parterre, softening and displaying the graceful outlines and the brilliant colours. Then, too, those tiny creatures would be seen agilely swimming from weed to weed, or lithely twining among the fronds, which now we have to search for in their recluse hiding-places under these rocks.

Selecting a stone which experience teaches us is a likely one—-and only experience can teach this, though in general I may say that the heaviest and flattest beneath, those which appear to have been long undisturbed, and especially those which, instead of being imbedded in the soil, rest on other stones in such a partial way that there is room for free ingress and egress to minute creatures beneath, and which have a broad surface to which they may cling in congenial darkness, are the most promising—-selecting, I say, such a stone, we place both hands beneath one side, and heave with all our might to turn it bodily over. We must be careful, for many of these stones are so beset with the small shells of Serpula triquetra, that they cannot be handled with impunity. This is a worm which makes a tubular pipe for its defence, of hard shell, adhering to the rock throughout its length; the tube enlarges a little as it grows, and its most recent extremity, which is brilliantly white and clean, is defended by the projecting extremity of a ridge which runs along the back of the shell, the point of this ridge forming a very sharp needle-like prickle, which, as we apply our hands beneath the stone to lift, terribly cuts the fingers. On some stones we find hundreds of these treacherous shells, set as thickly as they can stand, and covering large patches; on others they are scattered, and some are quite free from them. In an aquarium the little worms protrude their breathing fans very constantly, and are pretty, though not conspicuous objects, being varied with bright blue, grey, and white. Pretty as they are, however, the collector wishes them further a hundred times during his collecting, for, in such an expedition as this, he is fortunate indeed if he come home without half of his fingers gashed with deep incisions, smarting from the sea-water, and all the slower to heal from the skin of the finger-tips being worn to thinness in handling the stones.

But these are trifles; the fortune of war; amply compensated by the joy of victory, when we succeed in capturing some rare or lovely creature, to be displayed in triumph within the glass walls of a prison. Such an one is this beauty, which is lurking in an angle of the block we have just overturned. It needs a sharp eye to detect it; for we see no beauty yet, nothing but a little lump of whitish jelly, dappled with orange-yellow, not bigger than the half of a split pea, clinging close to the stone. It requires some care to get it up without crushing; the end of a toothpick, or a penknife, or a bit of stick cut to a point, must be inserted under it; thus we lift it, and drop it into the ready phial of clear water. It opens instantly, sprawling even before it reaches the bottom, where it at once begins to crawl, and we detect in our prize the lovely little Triope.[16]

THE TRIOPE.

As it swiftly glides up the glass, we see that it has an oblong body of a pellucid white hue, curiously beset with finger-like appendages. There is a row of some half-dozen or so fringing the front of the head; and down a line on each side of the body, margining the mantle, there is a row of larger ones, and all these are tipped with the richest orange colour. Just behind the frontal points there are two club-shaped organs, which start up out of holes, the sides of which form sheaths for them, into which they can be withdrawn at the will of the animal. These organs carry a number of narrow plates set parallel to each other, diagonally pointing backwards and downwards. Doubtless, this structure is intended to augment the sensitive powers of these curious organs, which are understood to be the tentacles.

Then, in the middle line of the back, but placed a little nearer the tail than the head, there is an orifice, which is the vent; remarkable because the breathing organs are arranged partly around it. There are three tiny leaves cut like the fronds of a fern, which stand up over the orifice, and are endowed with the power of absorbing for the purposes of respiration the oxygen of the air commingled in the water.

But here is an animal which possesses all these peculiarities of structure, displayed on a much larger scale. It is a fine specimen of the Sea Lemon,[17] which we oftener find clinging to the sides of perpendicular rocks, or beneath projecting ledges, than on the undersides of stones. This fellow is two and a half inches long, and an inch and a quarter or more broad; but I have met with individuals much larger than he. Its back is rounded, and its outline generally reminds one of the half of a lemon cut longitudinally. The resemblance is heightened, too, by the round warts with which the whole surface is studded, and by the colour, a yellow more or less pure, often, however, clouded, as in this instance, with purple, by which its beauty is much enhanced.

Plate 4.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
SEA LEMON. CROWNED EOLIS. SPAWN OF BOTH.

The mantle, in this Doris, reaches down to the foot on all sides, and covers the head, and is not furnished with any appendages. The tentacles, which are plated, as in the Triope, pierce through the mantle, and are sheathed; the gill plumes are large and ample feather-like organs, eight in number, forming a complete circle round the orifice, in the manner of a beautiful expanded flower.

As the Doris crawls along, it now and then lifts and puckers the edge of the mantle, and displays its under surface and that of the foot, which are of a rich orange-scarlet hue.

THE CROWNED EOLIS.

But we have turned a stone beneath which lurk several specimens of a much lovelier creature yet. I see by the gleams of crimson and azure which shine out from it, that it must be the Crowned Eolis.[18] It looked a little heap of fibrous semi-pellucid flesh when out of water, and, like the Triope, must be immersed to display its beauties. Now in the phial of water, how elegant it is! Its body is long and slender, tapering away to an almost imperceptible point behind, of a clear translucent white. The head forms two long smooth taper tentacles, which wave hither and thither as the creature gracefully glides along; and besides these it has two other tentacles, distinguished as the dorsal pair, resembling, in their position and in their structure, those of the Doris and Triope, but not sheathed.

The chief glory of this exquisite animal, however, is in its breathing organs. These consist of clusters of finger-shaped papillæ, set transversely across the back, in about six rows, with the middle line of the back free. Each of these papillæ is pellucid, with a central core of the richest crimson, while a very brilliant flush of steel blue is reflected from the surface, and the tip is opaque white. The combination of these hues has a most charming effect.

You would scarcely suppose such lovely creatures were fierce and carnivorous; but they are the most determined enemies of the Sea Anemones. This beautiful Eolis I have often seen assaulting an Anemone, ferociously tearing away its tentacles, or gnawing great holes in its side, and, when touched, stiffening and erecting all its brilliant papillæ, as the porcupine does its quills.

All these creatures are Mollusca very closely allied to the Cowry and the Trochus which we lately examined, but destitute of a shell. The exposure of the breathing organs is a distinguishing character (these being more commonly, in the order, concealed in a cavity), whence they are called Nudibranchiata, or Naked-gilled Mollusks.

At this season, wherever we find the animals themselves, we may with confidence expect to find their spawn. This is deposited in masses, which possess characteristic forms. Thus this roll, which looks as if you had made a thin ribbon of paste, half an inch wide, and rolled it into a loose scroll of two or three turns, and then affixed it by its edge to the under side of a stone, is the spawn-mass of the Sea Lemon. And here is a much more elegant scroll, of which the constituent is a slender thread, twisted into a frilled or figure-8 form, as it goes on to make the spire.[19] This has been laid by the beautiful Crowned Eolis. If you examine either of these masses with a lens, you will see that it is composed of a vast multitude of white eggs, suspended in a clear jelly, in which they are arranged in transverse rows, giving the opaque appearance to what would else be colourless and transparent.

EGGS OF NUDIBRANCHS.

The eggs, watched day by day under a good microscopic power, as they advance towards maturity, present a most interesting object of study. The yolk, which at first nearly fills the egg-shell, soon becomes a little elongated, with one end diagonally truncated, or, as it were, cut off obliquely; the truncated end then becomes two-lobed, “each lobe exhibiting an imperfect spiral, and having its margin ciliated. The now animated being is seen to rotate within its prison. Shortly the lobes enlarge, and a fleshy process, the rudimentary foot, is observed to develop itself a little behind them, on the medial line; a shell closely investing the inferior portion of the embryo, the lobes and rudimentary foot being uppermost. The shell rapidly increases, and assumes a nautiloid form; afterwards the foot displays, attached to its posterior surface, a circular operculum, which is opposed to the mouth of the shell. The lobes now expand into two large, flattened, ovate appendages, with very long vibratile cilia around the margins; and the larvæ are at length mature. The whole mass of spawn now presents the utmost animation. Hundreds of these busy atoms are seen, each within its transparent, membranous cell, rotating with great agility and ceaseless perseverance, the cilia all the while vigorously vibrating on the margins of the outstretched lobes. The membranous chorion [or transparent egg-shell], which by this time has become enlarged, ultimately gives way, no longer able to resist the perpetual struggle within; and the liberated larva, wending its way through the shattered shreds of the general envelope, boldly trusts itself to the open trackless water, where, doubtless, thousands and tens of thousands perish ere they find a fitting resting-place, some being swept away by resistless currents, others falling a prey to ever-watchful and innumerable enemies.

“When the larva is at rest, the oral lobes are pulled back into the shell, and the foot being drawn down, brings along with it the operculum, which closes the orifice. But when in action, the whole of these parts project beyond the opening of the shell, the foot lying back against the spire; and the oral lobes inclining forward, their cilia commence to vibrate, and the larva, with the mouth of the shell upwards, moves through the water with lively action, sinking or rising, or advancing onwards at its pleasure.”[20]

SPAWN OF EOLIS.

The fecundity of these mollusca is immense. An Eolis papillosa of moderate size in one of my aquaria, deposited successively nine strings of spawn between March 20th and May 24th. The strings were exactly alike in length and arrangement; each comprised about 105 convolutions, and each convolution 200 eggs, while each egg contained on an average two embryos. Thus the astonishing number of 378,000 embryos proceeded from this one animal in about two months.

Step by step we have crept along the beach, turning stones as we went, till we are come to the great masses of sandstone rock. Here are the Purples[21] by hundreds, with their strong massive shells, some of them pure white, which, however, becomes dingy with age, some banded with brown, and some, especially the young and half-grown ones, painted with a dull but soft purplish hue. The older specimens have the inner surface of the lip tinged with a rich rosy purple. This tint on the shell we may receive as the advertisement of the colorific property that resides within, a sort of sign-board to tell us that this is the “genuine” purple-shell. And there is little doubt that it is one of those enumerated by Pliny, as used by the ancients for obtaining the renowned dye of Tyre: though the principal, and that which yielded the richest hue, was probably the Murex trunculus, a common Mediterranean shell, which does not extend to our shores.

Plate 5.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
LIMPET. PURPLE. SLIT-LIMPET.

My readers are, I dare say, familiar with the pretty myth which professes to embody the discovery of the purple dye. The Tyrian Hercules was one day walking with his sweetheart along the shore, followed by her lap-dog, when the playful animal seized a shell that had just been washed up on the beach. Its lips were presently dyed with a gorgeous purple tint, which was traceable to a juice that was pressed out of the shell-fish. The lady was charmed with the colour, and longed to have a dress of it; and, as wishes under such circumstances are laws, the enamoured hero set himself to gratify her, and soon succeeded in extracting and applying the dye, which afterwards became so famous. I have elsewhere[22] recorded my own experiments on the stain yielded by the Purpura before us, with the remarkable changes through which it passes before the sunlight fully brings out the colour. The use of cochineal makes us independent of molluscan dyes, and the matter is merely one of antiquarian interest, or a question of zoological chemistry.

EGGS OF DOG-WINKLE.

Perhaps you may be more interested in the development of the Dog-winkle. Under the ledges of rocks we find in abundance groups of little yellow bodies, resembling ninepins in shape, set on their ends in close contact with each other, and varying in numbers from three or four to a hundred or upwards in a group. Some of them are tinged with purple at the tips; and while sometimes you find them closed, and full of a yellow creamy substance, at others they are open at the top, and empty.

These are the egg-capsules of this mollusk, and some very unusual circumstances connected with the birth of the progeny, and their development within these cases, have been discovered by Dr. Carpenter.[23] Each capsule contains 500 or 600 globules that cannot be distinguished from each other at first; but only twelve to thirty of these are developed into young animals, though their united bulk ultimately equals that of the whole mass. The greater number of these globules are not real eggs, but only “yolk-spherules,” destined to afford nutriment to the true embryos, which greedily swallow them, after certain changes have taken place, and increase rapidly in bulk. It is curious, however, that they do not advance in development during this absorption of nutriment, but are, so to speak, arrested until a great augmentation of size is thus attained; then they quickly acquire the form of little free-swimming nautiloids, closely like those of the Doris and Eolis, a form which indeed is common to the early stages of all the known higher mollusca, however various may be their adult conditions.

LIMPET.

Here are the familiar Limpets, too: let us look at them awhile.[24] They are not generally very attractive in appearance, the shell being coarse and rubbed, especially in the larger specimens; and in an aquarium they do not live long, and are so inert as to afford no amusement even while they survive. Yet we occasionally find examples prettily coloured; and there are facts in their economy which make them worthy of a few moments’ notice.

If you look carefully over the rocks, especially when these are of a somewhat soft nature, as the slates and shales, you will find oval depressions, sometimes but just discernible, at other times sunk to the depth of an eighth of an inch, corresponding in outline to the shell of a Limpet; and in many instances you will actually see a Limpet imbedded in such a pit, which it accurately fills. Strange as it may seem, it has been ascertained that these cavities are formed by the animals, which make them their ordinary resting-places, wandering away from them nightly to feed, and returning to them to rest early in the morning.

The force with which a Limpet adheres to the rock is very great, especially when it has had warning of assault, and has had time to put out its muscular strength. Réaumur found that a weight of twenty-eight or thirty pounds was required to overcome this adhesive force. His experiments seem to prove, however, that its power is mainly owing, not to muscular energy, nor to the production of a vacuum in the manner of a sucker. If an adhering Limpet were cut quite through perpendicularly, shell and animal, the two parts maintained their hold with unabated force, although of course a vacuum, if there had been one, would have been destroyed by the incision. The power is said to reside in a very strong glue, a very viscid secretion, deposited at the will of the animal. “If, having detached a Patella,” says Dr. Johnston, “the finger be applied to the foot of the animal, or to the spot on which it rested, the finger will be held there by a very sensible resistance, although no glue is perceptible. And it is remarkable that if the spot be now moistened with a little water, or if the base of the animal be cut, and the water contained in it allowed to flow over the spot, no further adhesion will occur on the application of the finger: the glue has been dissolved. It is nature’s solvent, by which the animal loosens its own connexion with the rock. When the storm rages, or when an enemy is abroad, it glues itself firmly to its rest; but when the danger has passed, to free itself from this forced constraint, a little water is pressed from the foot, the cement is weakened, and it is at liberty to raise itself and be at large. The fluid of cementation, as well as the watery solvent, is secreted in an infinity of miliary glands with which the foot is, as it were, shagreened; and as the Limpet cannot supply the secretion as fast as this can be exhausted, you may destroy the animal’s capacity of fixation by detaching it forcibly two or three times in succession.”

THE GILLS.

If we remove one of these Limpets from his selected area of rock,—which we may readily do, notwithstanding the strength of his cement, if we take him at unawares, and give him a smart sudden horizontal rap with a piece of wood, or a moderated blow with a hammer,—we shall obtain a view of a structure well worth looking at. The animal is essentially like a Trochus or a Purple inhabiting a conical shell; only in this case the cone is low and simple, whereas in the others it is tall and slender, and rolled into a spire. One of the most curious peculiarities in the Limpet is its gill or breathing organ. This, we perceive, completely encircles the animal, forming a ring interrupted only at one point. It lies in the fold between the mantle and the foot, commencing on the left side of the neck, and passing quite round the body, parallel with the edge of the shell, in front of the head, till it terminates close to the point where it began. It is a long cord closely beset with tiny leaflets, and thus forming a continual plume. Each leaflet, conical in outline, is permeated with blood-vessels, and clothed with minute cilia, whose constant vibrations cause the circumambient water ever to play over the surface of these organs in ceaseless currents, bringing fresh supplies of oxygen to be respired; and this is absorbed by the blood through the thin membrane by which they are protected.

There is a very pretty little shell, not uncommon in deep water off these coasts, but rarely found by the shore collector, though it does occasionally venture to peep at daylight at the verge of extreme low-tide. It is the Slit Limpet,[25] which by the older naturalists was placed in close alliance with the Limpets proper, as if a member of the same family. They were, however, deceived by paying too exclusive attention to the form of the shell, which is a cone, somewhat rounded, and nearly simple, the summit being slightly turned over in a backward direction. The margin of the shell is delicately notched, the points being the extremities of the radiating ridges; for the entire surface is covered with reticulations, one series of alternate furrows and ridges proceeding from the summit to the margin, and another series crossing these at right angles, running round the shell parallel with the margin. The animal has its sides ornamented with short fleshy processes, and possesses two symmetrical gill-plumes, one on each side. It is rather attractive in appearance, but I cannot tell you anything of its manners; for though I have kept specimens in the aquarium, they are so habitually sluggish, and so reluctant to allow one a peep beneath the edge of the jealous shell, that I could learn nothing about their ways;—if indeed they have any.

PHOLAS HOLES.

Another curious form closely related to this is the Keyhole Limpet,[26] whose shell is of a long oval outline, of a lower cone, reticulated, like the Slit Limpet, but pierced at the summit with a double hole, or rather a perforation apparently made of two holes broken into one, something like a keyhole. This orifice, like the slit in the former case, is for the discharge of the effete water taken in in breathing.

See! here is the soft red sandstone lying in great beds, pierced through and through with smooth round holes, just as if bored with a carpenter’s auger, big enough to admit a man’s thumb. What agency has been in operation to effect these perforations? Let us try to discover.

A few good blows with the stout hammer on the chisel-head serve to split off a great slice of the coarse red sandstone. The holes run through its substance, but they are all empty, or filled only with the black fœtid mud which the sea has deposited in their cavities. Yes; these are too superficial; they are all deserted; the stone lies too high above low-water mark: we must seek a lower level. Try here; where the lowest spring-tide only just leaves the rock bare. Ha! now we have uncovered the operators. Here lie, snugly ensconced within the tubular perforations, great mollusca, with ample ivory-like shells, which yet cannot half contain the whiter flesh of their ampler bodies, and the long stout yellow siphons that project from one extremity, reaching far up the hole towards the surface of the rock.[27]

We lift one from its cavity, all helpless and unresisting, yet manifesting its indignation at the untimely disturbance by successive spasmodic contractions of these rough yellow siphons, each accompanied with a forcible jet d’eau, a polite squirt of sea-water into our face; while, at each contraction in length, the base swells out, till the compressed valves of the sharp shell threaten to pierce through its substance.

Plate 6.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
RED-NOSE. FINGER-PHOLAS.

HYPOTHESES OF THEIR FORMATION.

Strange as it seems, these animals have bored these holes in the stone; and they are capable of boring in far harder rock than this; even in compact limestone. The actual mode in which this operation is performed long puzzled philosophers. Some maintained that the animal secreted an acid which had the power of dissolving not only various kinds of stone, but also wood, amber, wax, and other substances, in which the excavations are occasionally made. But it was hard to imagine a solvent of substances so various, and to know how the animals’ own shells were preserved from its action; while, confessedly, no such acid had ever been detected by the most careful tests.

Others maintained that the rough points which stud the shell enable it to serve as a rasp, which the animal, by rotating on its axis, uses to wear away the stone or other material; but it was difficult to understand how it was that the shell itself was not worn away in the abrasion.

Another zoologist, rejecting this hypothesis, maintained that the edges of the mantle and the short thick foot are the instruments employed; and that, though these fleshy organs seem little fitted for such work, they are really endowed with the requisite power in the shape of crystals of flint which are deposited thickly in their substance. Strange to say, however, other accurate observers fail to detect these siliceous crystals, and therefore reject the hypothesis.

Another suggested that the stone was removed in invisible particles by the constant action of currents in the water, produced by vibratile cilia seated on the soft parts of the animal; but this supposition was found untenable on examination.

Actual observation in the aquarium has proved that the second hypothesis is the true one. M. Cailliaud in France and Mr. Robertson in England have demonstrated that the Pholas uses its shell as a rasp, wearing away the stone with the asperities with which the anterior parts of the valves are furnished. Between these gentlemen a somewhat hot contention was maintained for the honour of priority in this valuable discovery. M. Cailliaud himself used the valves of the dead shell, and imitating the natural conditions as well as he could, actually bored an imitative hole, by making them rotate. Mr. Robertson, at Brighton, exhibited to the public living Pholades in the act of boring in masses of chalk. He described it as “a living combination of three instruments, viz., a hydraulic apparatus, a rasp, and a syringe.” But the first and last of these powers can be considered only as accessory to the removing of the detritus out of the way, when once the hole was bored, the rasp being the real power. If you examine these living shells, you will see that the fore part, where the foot protrudes, is set with stony points arranged in transverse and longitudinal rows, the former being the result of elevated ridges radiating from the hinge, the latter that of the edges of successive growths of the shell. These points have the most accurate resemblance to those set on a steel rasp in a blacksmith’s shop. It is interesting to know that the shell is preserved from being itself prematurely worn away by the fact, that it is composed of arragonite, a substance much harder than those in which the Pholas burrows. Yet we see by the specimens before us that such a destructive action does in time take place, for some of these have the rasping points much more worn than others, many of the older ones being nearly smooth.

The animal turns in its burrow from side to side when at work, adhering to the interior by the foot, and therefore only partially rotating to and fro. The substance is abraded in the form of fine powder, which is periodically ejected from the mouth of the hole by the contraction of the branchial siphon; a good deal of the more impalpable portions being deposited by the current as it proceeds, and lodging as a soft mud between the valves and the stone. Mr. Hudson,[28] who watched some Pholades at work in a tide-pool in the chalk, observed the periodic ejection of the cloud of chalk-powder, and noticed the heaps of the same material deposited around the mouth of each burrow. The discharges were made with no regularity as to time. Mrs. Merrifield[29] records a curious fact. “A lady, watching the operations of some Pholades which were at work in a basin of sea-water, perceived that two of them were boring at such an angle that their tunnels would meet. Curious to ascertain what they would do in this case, she continued her observations, and found that the larger and stronger Pholas bored straight through the weaker one, as if it had been merely a piece of chalk rock.”

Mr. Ross, of Rhyl, having a Pholas in his aquarium, prepared a piece of wood, by excavating a shallow cavity, about a quarter of an inch deep, in which he set the animal, whose shell was two inches long. “After a short time the animal attached its foot to the bottom of the hole and commenced swaying itself from side to side, until the hole was of sufficient depth to allow it to proceed in the following manner:—It inflated itself with water, apparently to its fullest extent, raising its shell upwards from the hole; then holding by its muscular foot, it drew its shell gradually down. This would have produced a perpendicular and very inefficient action, but for a wise provision of nature. The edges of the valves are not joined close together, but are connected by a membrane (extension of the mantle), and instead of being joined at the hinge (umbo) like ordinary bivalves, they possess an extra plate, attached to each valve of the shell, which is necessary for the following operation:—In boring, this mollusk, having dilated itself with water, draws down its shell within the hole, gradually closing the lower anterior edges until they almost touch. It then raises its shell upwards, gradually opening the lower anterior edges, and closing the upper, thus boring both upwards and downwards. The spines are placed in rows, like the teeth of a saw; those towards the lower part of the shell being sharp and pointed, while those above, being now useless, are not renewed.”[30]

RED-NOSES.

In this limestone cliff we shall find other borers, for you may see even at a considerable distance how holed and honeycombed its surface is; the cavities being so numerous, so close, and so irregular in their direction, that the whole face of the rock is fashioned into small sharp-edged shapeless points. Nor need we be long in finding the industrious masons who thus rough-point acres upon acres, nay miles upon miles, of limestone rock. Here in ten thousand orifices you discern little double-tipped knobs of crimson flesh, which, as soon as you disturb them, shoot at you a column of water and then disappear within their fortress, having exhausted their artillery. The fishermen know them well, and use them for bait, applying to them the familiar but expressive soubriquet of Red-noses.[31]

It is not so easy to get at these as at the Pholades, because of the superior hardness of the stone which they excavate. With the chisel, however, we need not fail of uncovering a few, especially as their burrows are but shallow. Here they are, half-a-dozen in a block as big as your fist. Ugly, uncouth, bemired, the valves not nearly containing the shapeless flesh, they are not particularly attractive creatures, maugre the brilliant hue of their blushing siphons. Like Mrs. Merrifield’s Pholas, these Saxicavæ habitually break into one another’s houses, as we see here, and even cut one another’s shells and bodies through and through most ruthlessly. They will live very well out of the rock, and may be kept a considerable time in the aquarium.

There is no doubt that the burrowing Mollusca are slowly but surely effecting changes in the configuration of rocky coasts, by destroying the rock. It is true their excavations extend but a few inches in depth; but then, as the force of the elements readily breaks down the thin partitions left standing, and discovers a new face, so the borers are continually renewing their attacks on this; and so in time the cliffs are worn away, while the debris of impalpable mud is deposited upon the shallows, entering into new combinations, and filling up estuaries and harbours.

III.
MARCH.

Perhaps the most effective aid to the investigation of natural history which the present age has produced is the invention of the aquarium, and particularly its application to marine forms of life. Depending on that grand principle of organic chemistry, of world-wide prevalence, that the emanations from animals and vegetables are respectively essential to the continued life each of the other, it was discovered that the relative proportions of number and bulk in which organic beings of the two kinds could healthfully live together was easily determined; and since the fact that the creatures were inhabitants of water, whether fresh or salt, presented no exception to the universality of the law, they had but to be placed together in a suitable ratio, enclosed in a vessel containing water, and an aquarium was established. Improvements in the form of the vessel, in the mode of exposing the contents to observation, in the impact of the rays of light, in the arrangement of the interior, and other points of value, have indeed been progressively made; whereby the practical availability of the invention for the purposes of experimental natural history has been augmented; but some of us have found little difficulty, even from the very first announcement of the discovery, in maintaining the collections of sea-water, with their living plants and animals, unchanged from year’s end to year’s end. I may be perhaps excused for observing, that I have at present in use a large tank, full of marine creatures, in which the water has been unchanged for four years, and on which I look with peculiar interest, because it was the first tank ever made for private use. This very aquarium has afforded, and still affords the opportunity for the observation of many interesting details of the structure and habits of the lower forms of animal life, details which constitute the basis not only of my works on marine natural history already published, but of the present series of papers also. We collect the creatures, indeed, abroad, and there gather up some broad facts of interest concerning their modes of life; but it is at home, in the quiet of the study, with conveniences and aids to examination, experiment, and record at command, that they must be studied. The aquarium becomes in fact an apparatus, whereby we bring a portion of the sea, with its rocks, and weeds, and creatures, to the side of our study-table, and maintain it there.

USE OF THE AQUARIUM.

Thus an opportunity of close and valuable familiarity with sea-productions is open to multitudes who have never seen the broad expanse of ocean, nor searched its prolific shores; and facilities for extending the bounds of zoological science are everywhere enjoyed, which till lately were restricted to a very few naturalists, whose residences were situated on certain favourable spots upon the coast. Yet both modes of investigation are necessary. He who has never seen marine animals except in the confinement of an aquarium, cannot but be conscious of many chasms in his knowledge, which are filled up by him who is in the habit of collecting his own specimens in their proper haunts; and who, by finding them in ferâ naturâ, can, when he studies them at leisure in his tanks, make such allowances as are necessary for the variations in habit which may be dependent on the difference between their present artificial, and their original natural, conditions of existence.

While we rejoice then in tanks and vases of crystal water, filled with the lovely forms and brilliant hues of sea-weeds and sea-anemones, I invite my readers to accompany me on a few hours’ visit to the charming creatures at their own homes. The season is propitious; the sun has just passed the vernal equinox, and the genial warmth of spring is diffusing new life into the cold blood of the animals that dwell beneath the waters; the equinoctial storms that lately raged have blown themselves out, and are succeeded by a quietude whose effect is delightfully seen in yonder mirror-like ocean: it is the time of spring-tide; and the near approach of the hour of lowest water will afford us unusual facilities for finding species only to be invaded under such conditions.

Let us then scramble down to the beautiful Anstey’s Cove, along the steep path tangled with briers and ferns; where the swelling buds of the hawthorn and honeysuckle are already bursting, while the blackbird mellowly whistles in the fast-greening thicket, and the lark joyously greets the mounting sun above us. Yonder on the shingle lies a boat, newly painted in white and green, for the attraction of young ladies of maritime aspirations; she is hauled up high and dry; but the sinewy arms of honest Harry Bate, who hearing footsteps has come out of his little grotto under the rock to reconnoitre, will soon drag her down to the rippling waves, and, “for the small sum of a shilling an hour,” will pull us over the smooth and pond-like sea, whithersoever we may choose to direct him.

“Jump aboard, please, Sir! Jump in, ladies! jump in, little master!” And now, as we take our seats on the clean canvas cushions astern, the boat’s bottom scrapes along with a harsh grating noise over the white shingle-pebbles, and we are afloat.

SEA-CAVERN.

First to the caverns just outside yonder lofty point. The lowness of the tide will enable us to take the boat into them, and the calmness of the sea will preclude much danger of her striking the rocks; especially as watchful Bate will be on the alert, boat-hook in hand, to keep her clear. Now we lie in the gloom of the lofty arch, gently heaving and sinking and swaying on the slight swell, which, however smooth the surface, is always perceptible when you are in a boat among rocks, and which invests such an approach with a danger that a landsman does not at all appreciate. Yet the water, despite the swell, is glassy, and invites the gaze down into its crystalline depths, where the little fishes are playing and hovering over the dark weeds. The sides of the cavern rise around us in curved planes, washed smooth and slippery by the dashing of the waves of ages, and gradually merge into the massive angles and projections and groins of the broken roof, whence a tuft or two of what looks like samphire depends. But notice the colonies of the Smooth Anemone or Beadlet[32] clustered about the sides; many of them are adhering to the stone walls, several feet above the water. These have been left uncovered for hours, and are none the worse for it. They are closed, the many tentacles being concealed by the involution of the upper part of the body, so that they look like balls, or hemispheres, or semi-ovals of flesh; or like ripe fruits, so plump and succulent and glossy and high-coloured, that we are tempted to stretch forth the willing hand, to pluck and eat. Some are greengages, some Orleans plums, some magnum-bonums,—so various are their rich hues; but look beneath the water, and you see them not less numerous, but of quite another guise. These are all widely expanded; the tentacles are thrown out in an arch over the circumference, leaving a broad flat disk; just like a many-petalled flower of gorgeous hues: indeed, we may fancy that here we see the blossoms, and there the ripened fruit. Do not omit, however, to notice the beads of pearly blue that stud the margin all round, at the base of the over-arching tentacles. These have been supposed by some to be eyes; the suggestion, however, rests on no anatomical ground, and is, I am afraid, worthless; though I cannot tell you what purpose they do serve.

Plate 7.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
SNOWY ANEMONE. DEAD-MAN’S FINGER. ROSY ANEMONE. LUCERNARIA. SMOOTH BEADLET.

TANGLE FORESTS.

Away! for I wish to explore another scene not less romantic than this, and which I know by experience to be much more prolific in strange and beautiful forms of life. Harry shall pull us round yonder low point, which bears the appellation of Hope’s Nose, calling on the way to look at some one of the inlets that lie between the long projecting points at the foot of Black Rock. Here the boat floats over dense forests of great brown sea-weeds, the Laminariæ, which lift their dark masses, and wave to and fro, with a majestic dignity. Here is the narrow crumpled blade of the Oarweed, of a rich yellow brown; and the wavy stem of the Furbelows springing from its hedgehog-like bladder; but chiefly is the forest composed of vast plants of the Tangle, whose broad deep-brown fronds of a substance like stout leather, French-polished, divide into many long straps, slide over each other, and flap to and fro in the heave of the sea. Yonder we see on the broadest part of a frond, just before it divides, what seems a flower, as large as a chrysanthemum, but of the liveliest pea-green hue, every long petal tipped with rosy pink. Hand over the boat-hook, and carefully lift the tangle to the surface. Now we have it fully in view. It is the green variety of the Opelet;[33] so called because it is scarcely capable of infolding the walls of the body over the disk and tentacles; these therefore remain habitually open, though the animal is at times much less expanded than at others. We now see it in its most charming condition; the short fawn-coloured column inflated, the mouth elevated on a strong cone in the centre of the wide saucer-shaped disk, and the numerous tentacles arranged in groups, as if several stems sprang from the same root, long, slender, very flexible, twisting about like the snaky locks of Medusa’s head, all of the most delicate light green, with a rich satin lustre, and all tipped with the richest crimson-lilac or light rose,—a most beautiful harmony of colours. The animal adheres by a broad base firmly to the disk of the tangle, and awaits, as it waves hither and thither, the approach of one of the little fishes that play heedlessly at bo-peep among the fronds. No sooner does one of them touch the far-stretching tentacles, than a virulent and penetrating poison shoots through its frame; its vigour is benumbed in an instant; it ceases to struggle; its powerful fins strike the water no more; others of the fatal tentacles enwrap themselves around it, and drag it towards the mouth, already protruding and expanding in expectation of the morsel; where it is in a few minutes engulfed, and soon digested in that capacious maw.

Plate 9.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
GREEN OPELET. ORANGE-DISK ANEMONE.

It is not very uncommon for a single specimen of this species to become two by a perpendicular division. The whole process has been observed. A little notch first appears in the margin of the disk, which extends, cutting through the tentacles of that side, splitting the disk across, proceeding through the tentacles on the opposite side till it divides the margin there also. Meanwhile, it has advanced downward in an equal ratio, till it has reached the base; and at length there are two half-opelets still adhering in the closest proximity. Now, however, the two raw and open surfaces close up, and the bases glide gradually apart. A thick wall of flesh forms between the stomach and the wound, and new tentacles develop themselves on this. The two Opelets are complete.

RAISED BEACHES.

Half-an-hour’s vigorous pulling has doubled the long promontory of Hope’s Nose, a wilderness of stones, like what I suppose, from published descriptions, the foot of Mount Sinai to be, and brought us, between two raised beaches, into the pretty cove of Meadfoot, capped by elegant villas. These beaches, evidences of the lifting of the land, for they surely once stood, as beaches stand now, at the sea-level, are situate, the one on the main, the other on the Thatcher, a rocky islet some two hundred yards off shore. A few minutes more, and we are in a wild scene indeed. Isolated rocks stand up, in angular masses, upright columns, and sharp peaks, out of the sea, which is quite deep, even at lowest spring-tide. The coast itself too is rugged, precipitous, and in many spots quite perpendicular; one bold promontory, which runs out with a narrow knife-edge summit, is perforated by a natural archway of lofty elevation, of very striking aspect. It is distinctly visible for miles along the shores of Torbay, and is dignified with the name of London Bridge.

Here, then, is our fishing-ground to-day. Threading the slender passages between the perpendicular rocks, or creeping-in close under their overhanging landward sides, where no ray of the sun has ever penetrated, we hang on by the points and groins, and eagerly peer below. Into one lane our boatman hesitates to venture. It is but just wide enough to allow the boat to pass; indeed here and there she cannot without rubbing her gunwales; and if a stronger swell than usual were to roll-in from seaward while entangled, her side might be stove-in before she could be extricated. However, its gloom looks so tempting, and the water among the islets is so very smooth, that we succeed in persuading him, and we push and drag into the very midst of the watery alley. The rocks rise close on either hand like lofty walls, and descend as perpendicularly, deep and far down beneath our keel; as we can well see, for the water is of lustrous transparency.

LIFE ON SEA-ROCKS.

And what a sight is here! Hundreds of Anemones of many species are studding the walls almost as thick as they can be packed. Every tiny crevice, every hollow, every hole left by Pholas or Saxicava (and the rock is riddled and honeycombed by these burrowing mollusks), holds its little knob of plump flesh; some lolling out with a dewdrop hanging from the end; some just filling the cavity, and allowing the tips of the crowded tentacles to peep out as a speck of white, or of orange, or of rosy lilac, according to the species; and some retreated to the bottom of their stony fortress, to be detected only by the probing touch. Other forms too there are;—dead men’s fingers, white and yellow; worms, green and brown and grey, twining in and out, and grasping the sharp edges of the rock; tunicate mollusks, simple and compound; univalves and bivalves; sponges of all bright colours by hundreds:—what a maze, what a teeming world of life it is!

All this is at and above the level of the eye. Now let us bend over the boat’s gunwale, and gaze below, with our faces brought nearly to the surface of the sea. Here the sight is far more wonderful, and far more attractive; for here the life is seen in all its fullest activity, every creature performing its functions, and pursuing its instincts with the most single earnestness, self-contained, and altogether regardless of the myriad fellow-beings that surround it and press upon it, in this eager contest and struggle for maintained existence.

DEAD MAN’S FINGER.

A yard or two below the surface the eye is caught by a great oyster projecting from the vertical wall. It is a strange situation for an oyster to be in, but it shows how the infant young, in their free-swimming form, so different from their ultimate condition, may be carried by the aid of their own cilia, and the sea-currents, into the most improbable situations, and may there find circumstances congenial for permanent settlement.[34] Perhaps, however, its brown and rough shell would scarcely have attracted our notice, but for the rider that sits upon it. A specimen of the Dead-man’s finger,[35] of noble dimensions, has selected this shell as the seat of its dominion; and we can discern the three or four great lobes of which it consists all surrounded by the gauzy cloud that tells of the thousands of translucent polyps projected from every part of its periphery. Fine as is that specimen, however, there are scores of others, many of which are of equal dimensions, and more easily accessible. By the aid of the hammer and cold-chisel, we may easily secure a specimen without harming it, after searching a while to select one which is seated on some projection of the rock that can be struck off. Thus removed, and at once transferred to one of our collecting jars, the curious compound animal will in captivity display its beauties, though, it must be confessed, it is often rather bashful before company. The lobes into which the mass is divided are sufficiently like stumpy fingers to have given it a popular designation, while their dull white hue has suggested that the fingers are those of a corpse. The animal is sometimes, however, called Cows’ paps, and sometimes Mermaids’ gloves; but I think this latter is a book name.

When we examine it in the aquarium, after it has recovered its equanimity disturbed by the rude shocks of the hammer battering about its castle, we see that the lobes are greatly swollen and sub-pellucid, from the imbibition of water into the canals with which its whole substance is penetrated. When out of water the surface was studded with shallow pits, as if the poor thing had at some period of its history been afflicted with the small-pox. Now, however, these pittings reveal their true character; for each has protruded itself in the form of a long but slender polyp, of exquisite translucency and perfect symmetry. It resembles a tubular flower with eight narrow pointed petals, which arch outward like those of a campanula or tulip. Each petal carries on its edges a row of very slender transparent filaments, arranged like the teeth of a comb, which also arch downward, and greatly augment the beauty of the flower-like polyp.

Structurally, this polyp is closely allied to the common forms of the Sea Anemones; the most obvious peculiarity being, that a multitude are combined into one mass, with a common life animating the whole. The fleshy mass is of a spongy texture, full of branching water-canals, and containing a multitude of calcareous spicula of characteristic forms. They resemble gnarled branches of oak, with the branchlets broken off, leaving ragged ends. The skin of the polyps contains, at certain fixed spots, groups of similar spicula, but much more minute. The microscope is necessary to discern these, as well as some other details of the organization of this very interesting creature.

The technical character by which this animal with its allies is distinguished from the proper Anemones, is that its plan of organization is fashioned on the number eight, whereas the true Anemones have six, as their characteristic number. Thus, however numerous the tentacles of an anemone may be,—and in the case of the Daisy or the Plumose, they often amount to several hundreds,—the young animal began with six, and the increase is normally a multiplication of six, though accidental irregularities do occur. On the other hand, the tentacles of the Alcyonium are permanently eight, as are the vertical partitions of the interior of the body; and by consequence, the chambers into which those membranous partitions divide it.

But we must not allow the interest attaching to these forms to divert our attention from the Anemones themselves. All the species which we saw on the rock above the water, are here below it, and all displaying their beauties in an incomparably more charming fashion. We can compare the whole submerged wall to nothing else than a parterre of most brilliant flowers, taken bodily and set on end. The eye is bewildered with their number and variety, and knows not which to look at first. Here are the Rosy Anemones,[36] with a firm fleshy column of rich sienna-brown, paler towards the base, and with the upper part studded with indistinct spots, marking the situation of certain organs which have an adhesive power. The disk is of a pale neutral tint, with a crimson mouth in the centre, and a circumference of crowded tentacles of the most lovely rose-purple, the rich hue of that lovely flower that bears the name of General Jacqueminot. In those specimens that are most widely opened, this tentacular fringe forms a blossom whose petals overhang the concealed column, expanding to the width of an inch or more; but there are others in which the expansion is less complete in different degrees, and these all give distinct phases of loveliness. We find a few among the rest, which, with the characteristically-coloured tentacles, have the column and the disk of a creamy white; and one in which the disk is of a brilliant orange, inclining to scarlet. Most lovely little creatures are they all.

SCARLET-FRINGED ANEMONE.

Commingled with these charming Roses, there are others which attain a larger size, occurring in even greater abundance. They are frequently an inch and a half in diameter when expanded, and some are even larger than this. You may know them at once by observing that the outer row of tentacles, and occasionally also some of the others, are of a scarlet hue, which, when examined minutely, is seen to be produced by a sort of core of that rich hue pervading the pellucid tentacle. The species is commonly known as the Scarlet-fringed Anemone.[37] The inner rows of tentacles, which individually are larger than those of the outer rows, are pale, marked at the base with strong bars of black. The disk is very variable in hue, but the column is for the most part of the same rich brown as we saw in the Rosy. Yet, though these are characteristic colours, there are specimens which diverge exceedingly from them, and some approach so near the Roses, as to be scarcely distinguishable from them. Generally, however, the scarlet-cored outer tentacles, and a peculiar habit of throwing the tentacular margin of the disk into crumpled folds, will be found sufficient to determine this very handsome kind of Anemone from its nearest allies.

PLUMOSE ANEMONE.

There are multitudes too of a charming little kind, which, on account of the pure whiteness of the crown of tentacles, is known as the Snowy.[38] The disk is of the same spotless hue; and the column of a light drab deepening into pale olive towards the summit. With the exception of its colours, this species has a very close resemblance to the Rosy, with which it is generally associated, even as we see it here. And here is the Orange-disk,[39] one of exceeding loveliness, which you might fancy a cross-breed between the Rosy and the Snowy, having the rich brown column of the former, and the white tentacles of the latter; but that it has a character of its own in the disk being of the most brilliant orange-red. All these are scattered in the most abundant profusion, looking like gems sown on the rough rock; or, as I compared them before, like gorgeous composite flowers, of which you might easily fancy the little tufts of green and purple Algæ to be the proper leaves. There are also others, less conspicuous, the Daisy, the Sandalled, the Cave-dweller, the Translucent,[40] more or less numerously mingled with the rest, of which I have not space here to speak, but whose history I have elsewhere written in detail.[41] And we see here and there, for the most part crowded into groups, another interesting kind, the Plumose,[42] which differs much in appearance from its associates, having a taller column much more pellucid, and a crown of tentacles so short, so numerous and so dense, as to form a large confused tuft of frills, which cannot be separated into rows. This kind is always of self-colours, which, however, may be light olive, fawn-brown, orange, flesh-colour, or pure white. Those which the tide has left exposed, loll out of their holes and droop; but under the water they stand erect, with a noble boldness. Each group generally contains individuals of all sizes, and may be considered as a single family of several generations, or, to speak more correctly, of several series of offsets, of different ages. For it is highly characteristic of this species to increase by spontaneous division. When a large individual has been a good while adherent to one spot, and at length chooses to change its quarters, it does so by causing its base to glide slowly along the surface on which it rests;—the glass side of the tank, for instance. But it frequently happens that small irregular fragments of the edge of the base are left behind, as if their adhesion had been so strong, that the animal found it easier to tear its own tissues apart than to overcome it. The fragments so left soon contract become smooth, and spherical or oval in outline; and in the course of a week or fortnight each may be seen furnished with a margin of tentacles and a disk; transformed, in fact, into perfect though minute Anemones. Occasionally a separated piece, more irregularly jagged than usual, will, in contracting, constringe itself, and form two smaller fragments, united by an isthmus, which goes on attenuating until a fine thread-like line only is stretched from one to the other; this at length yields, the substance of the broken thread is rapidly absorbed into the respective pieces, which soon become two young Anemones.

All the kinds which we have seen in this locality belong to one great family, the Sagartiadæ, a group which includes nearly one-third of the seventy species of Anemones and Corals which we have on the British coast; and certainly the most beautiful and the most known, taking them one with another. They are distinguished by a remarkable peculiarity; the skin of the body is pierced with minute holes, capable of being opened and closed at will, out of which can be forced curious slender threads, which ordinarily lie coiled up in great profusion in the interior of the animal. These threads are almost entirely composed of those extraordinary capsules, called cnidæ, or nettling-cells, found indeed in most of the tissues, but nowhere in such abundance as here, which eject with amazing force a poisonous filament having the strength and elasticity of a wire, and furnished with reversed barbs, but of almost inconceivable tenuity. The filaments, projected by myriads at the pleasure of the animal, penetrate deeply into the flesh of other soft-bodied creatures, and cause immediate paralysis and speedy death.[43]

DAHLIA WARTLET.

The waning day and the turning tide warn us homeward; but we shall have time to visit a fine dark overarched pool in the rocks which I know on our route. Here it is; noticeable because of its being the chosen residence of a colony of that magnificent species, the Dahlia Wartlet.[44] All round the curving sides of the sea-washed basin, crowding one upon the other beneath the projecting angles, or seated in single majesty on some prominence, we see them flaunting the most gorgeous colours, and attaining a diameter of expanse that no other, at least of our common forms, can rival or approach. The wide but low column, rough with coarse warts, may be olive, or deep green, or purple-crimson, or light green splashed and streaked with scarlet like an apple; the disk is equally varied, but generally displays diverging bands of rich red which fork and embrace the tentacles; while the tentacles, short, stout, and conical, may be white with pellucid rings, deep crimson, or of the highest flush of rose, with a broad ring of lilac. Widely expanded, the Crassicornis is as good a mimicry of the great dahlias of our gardens, as the Sagartiæ are of the daisies and pompone chrysanthemums. Even bees are occasionally deceived. Mr. Couch, when once looking at a fine specimen which was expanded so close to the surface that only a thin film of water covered the disk and tentacles, saw a roving bee alight on the tempting surface, evidently mistaking the anemone for a veritable blossom; the tenacious tentacles instantly seized it, and though it struggled a good deal for its liberty, retained the disappointed bee till it was drowned, when it was soon consigned to the insatiable stomach. The story reminds us of the well-known fact that the flesh-flies, deceived by the carrion smell of some of the Stapeliæ, sometimes lay their eggs on the flowers; both cases showing that animal instinct is not quite so unerring as it is frequently represented.

Plate 8.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
DAHLIA WARTLET.

LUCERNARIA.

Attached to the thin crumpled leaf of an Ulva in this pool is an animal, having much of the texture, and somewhat of the form, of an Anemone. Formerly, indeed, it was associated in the same group, but it is now ascertained to have more affinities with the translucent and often colourless free-swimming jelly-fishes. From its resemblance to an elegant lamp, it is called Lucernaria.[45] We must suppose a Medusa to be turned hollow upwards, and an adhesive foot to be produced from what was before the summit of its “umbrella;” and little more is necessary to constitute a Lucernaria. The most observable peculiarity is that the tentacles, which are very minute, and have the form of a globose head seated on a short stem, are disposed in compact groups of as many as seventy, which groups, eight in number, like so many round balls, are seated on projecting angles of the margin; while from the centre of the hollow rises a mouth, with four protrusile lips in form of a square. The colour is a dull dark red or liver brown. The animal preys on other creatures, which it captures by means of poison-capsules, and swallows, much as the anemones do.

And thus we wend our way homeward; meditating much as we glide across the smooth bay, on the wondrous elegance of form, the exquisite brilliance of colours, the great variety, the instincts, the powers, the most elaborate apparatus, bestowed on these humble creatures, of no apparent use whatever to man; indeed, until quite recently, utterly neglected by him and unknown, though exhibiting their loveliness under his very eyes, and close to his doors. We meditate on these things, and ask, For what purpose is all this profuse expenditure of power, wisdom, taste, skill? We hear the answer in the choral praise of those who know more of these matters than we can yet attain to,—“Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are, and were created.”

IV.
APRIL.

Shall we explore the sands to-day? A bright sandy beach well exposed to the sea is no bad hunting-ground for the naturalist, bare as it looks, and proverbial as is its character for sterility,—“barren as the sand on the sea-shore.” And specially is it likely to be productive, when, as is often the case, the wide reach of yellow sand is interrupted by one or more isolated areas of rough rocks. Goodrington Sands, lying in the hollow of Torbay, afford just these conditions; and thither will we bend our steps this April morning.

So we make our way along the dusty highroad, that leads from Torquay southward, skirting the shore, now and then getting peeps of the rocks and the retiring tide, over the massive sea-walls, as the successive coves open and again shut-in by bounding hedgerows as we cross the bases of the intervening headlands. Wild hyacinths are peeping among the rank foliage of the arums and nettles; and harts-tongue ferns, and primroses are everywhere, clustering in great masses, or studding the green banks in single stars; the bright rose-campion smiles, and the ever lovely germander speedwell, brightest, sweetest of spring flowers, gladdens us here and there, like “angels’ eyes,” as our rustics poetically call these pretty azure flowers.

As we proceed, we pause to wipe our foreheads, and turning round, see Torquay behind us, covering and crowning its amphitheatre of hills, like a queenly city, surely the most beauteous of all our watering-places;—and beyond it on the left, we see the old church tower of Marychurch, on its elevated plateau, standing out massive and dark against the sky.

We pass through the outskirts of the long straggling village of Paignton, and mark how picturesquely it is embosomed in the midst of its apple orchards; the old-fashioned cottages buried in the trees, so that only the time-stained roofs of brown thatch rise here and there, like islets in a wide sea of blushing blossom. And now extensive osier grounds lie on either side; the young tender-green shoots, the hope of the harvest, rising thickly from the uncouth pollard stumps; while the still water glimmers everywhere around their roots.

A narrow lane leads off abruptly on our left, into which we turn, and in a moment are in a mossy, flowery, ferny region. The open gate of a villa reveals a little girl “perambulating” a baby amid the bowers and blossoms of a sweet garden, whose numerous old tamarisk trees, rough and bristling, guard the wall, just breaking into their plumy foliage. And then we open the expanse of shore and sea, and the wheels of the carriage are suddenly six inches deep in the soft sand. How brightly the wide silver sea is glancing and sparkling under the climbing sun! Scarcely a breeze breaks its mirrory face, though far out in the offing lines and bands of deep blue show that there are intermitting puffs ruffling the water; and the craft that creep along the horizon have evidently got a working breeze, though the yachts in the half-distance sit like white swans, their motionless prows pointing every way, and “floating double,” on the molten looking-glass.

GOODRINGTON SANDS.

These are the Goodrington Sands; for there on the left is the projecting bluff of red sandstone, horizontally stratified, known as Roundham Head, and beyond it in the distance we see Hope’s Nose, and its two guardian islets, the Orestone and the Thatcher. On the other side, the long wall of land terminating in Berry Head projects to an equal distance, and we are in the bottom of the deep bight, nearly equidistant from both.

Immediately in front of the debouchure of the little green lane, beginning some way down the beach, and stretching away into the sea, there is a mass of low black rock, leprous with barnacles, and draped with ragged tufts of oar-weed and tangle and bladder-wrack, sweltering and blackening in the sun. It is much broken up, and narrow winding lanes paved with sand pierce it in all directions; and shallow pools of quiet water sleep everywhere in the hollows. Sweet little sea-gardens are these pools: bright green leaves of ulva float like tinted cambric in the water; tufts of chondrus are glittering with steely reflections of gemmeous blue; large broad leaves of dulse, richly, darkly red, afford fine contrasts with the green sea-lettuce; and one and all give ample shelter to thousands of vigilant, busy, happy, living creatures. It is treacherous walking; for the footing is very uneven, and the glare of the sun on the water renders it difficult to see where to tread; while the advance and recess of the wavelets on the sand between, give to the bewildered brain the impression that everything is sliding from under the foot.

PAIGNTON COCKLE.

What is that object that lies on yonder stretch of sand, over which the shallow water ripples, washing the sand around it and presently leaving it dry? It looks like a stone; but there is a fine scarlet knob on it; which all of a sudden has disappeared. Let us watch the moment of the receding wave, and run out to it. It is a fine example of the great spinous cockle,[46] for which all these sandy beaches that form the bottom of the great sea-bend of Torbay are celebrated. Indeed the species is scarcely known elsewhere; so that it is often designated in books as the Paignton cockle. A right savoury bonne bouche it is, when artistically dressed. Old Dr. Turton, a great authority in his day for Devonshire natural history, especially in matters relating to shells and shell-fish, says that the cottagers about Paignton well know the “red noses,” as they call the great cockles, and search for them at the low spring-tides, when they may be seen lying in the sand with the fringed siphons appearing just above the surface. They gather them in baskets and panniers, and after cleansing them a few hours in cold spring-water, fry the animals in a batter made of crumbs of bread. The creatures have not changed their habits nor their habitats; for they are still to be seen in the old spots just as they were a century ago: nor have they lost their reputation; they are indeed promoted to the gratification of more refined palates now, for the cottagers, knowing on which side their bread is buttered, collect the sapid cockles for the fashionables of Torquay, and content themselves with the humbler and smaller species,[47] which rather affects the muddy flats of estuaries than sand beaches, though not uncommon here. This latter, though much inferior in sapidity to the great spinous sort, forms a far more important item in the category of human food, from its very general distribution, its extreme abundance, and the ease with which it is collected. Wherever the receding tide leaves an area of exposed mud, the common cockle is sure to be found; and hundreds of men, women, and children, may be seen plodding and groping over the stinking surface, with naked feet and bent backs, picking up the shell-fish by thousands, to be boiled and eaten for home consumption, or to be cried through the lanes and alleys of the neighbouring towns by stentorian boys, who vociferate all day long,—“Here’s your fine cockles, here! Here they are! Here they are! Twopence a quart!”

COCKLE-FISHING.

It is on the north-western coasts of Scotland, however, that the greatest abundance of these mollusca occurs, and there they form not a luxury, but even a necessary of life to the poor semi-barbarous population. The inhabitants of those rocky regions enjoy an unenviable notoriety for being habitually dependent on this mean diet. “Where the river meets the sea at Tongue,” says Macculloch, “there is a considerable ebb, and the long sand-banks are productive of cockles in an abundance which is almost unexampled. At that time (a year of scarcity) they presented every day at low water a singular spectacle, being crowded with men, women, and children, who were busily employed in digging for these shell-fish as long as the tide permitted. It was not unusual also to see thirty or forty horses from the surrounding country, which had been brought down for the purpose of carrying away loads of them to distances of many miles. This was a well-known season of scarcity, and, without this resource, I believe it is not too much to say, that many individuals must have died for want.”[48]

The isles of Barra and North Uist, in the Hebrides, possess also enormous resources of the same character. “It is not easy to calculate,” says Mr. Wilson, “the amount of such beds of shell-fish, but we may mention that, during a period of great distress which prevailed a good many years ago, all the families in the island (then about two hundred in number) resorted, for the sake of this food, to the great sands at the northern end of Barra. It was computed that, for a couple of summers at the time alluded to, no less than from one hundred to two hundred horse-loads were taken at low water every day of the spring-tides during the months of May, June, July, and August. We were pleased to hear it observed that the shell-fish are always most abundant in years of scarcity.”[49]

These Barra beds are of great antiquity. A very old writer, Dean Monro, thus notices them:—“This ile is full of grate cokills, and alledgit be the auncient countrymen that the same cokills comes down out of the foresaid hill throw the said strype in the first smalle forme that wee have spokyn of, and aftir theyr comying down to the sandes growis grate cokills allways. Ther is no fayrer and more profytable sandes for cokills in all the worlde.”

But all this time our fair “cokill” has been lying at our feet, snapping, and gaping, and thrusting forth and back his great coral foot, waiting our leisure to take him up. No longer shall he be neglected. The bivalve shell is a fine solid house of stone, massive, strong, and heavy, elegantly fluted with prominent ribs that radiate regularly on both valves from the curved beaks, which ribs are beset with polished spiny points. The hues of the shell are attractive, though not at all showy; they consist of tints of yellowish and reddish browns, rich and warm, arranged in concentric bands, and gradually fading to a creamy white at the beaks. Unlike the scallops, the cockles have the two valves alike in shape, and from the bent beaks meeting each other, and the curvature of the outline, they present, when viewed endwise, a very regular and beautiful heart-shape, whence the scientific name of the genus is derived, Cardium, from καρδία, the heart.

The animal which inhabits this strong fortress is handsomer than bivalves usually are. The leaves of the mantle are thick and convex, corresponding to the shell-valves; the edges are strongly fringed in the neighbourhood of the siphons, which are short tubes of considerable diameter, soldered, as it were, together. The mantle has a soft spongy character towards its edges, but towards the back, where it lines the valves, it is very thin and almost membranous. The hue of the former parts is very rich, a fine brilliant orange, with the shaggy fringe of tentacles paler; the siphons are also orange, with the inner surface of the tubes white, having a pearly gleam.

FOOT OF THE COCKLE.

But what was that scarlet knob that we saw protruded and retracted but now? Ha! as it lies, slightly gaping, the lips of the mantle recede, and we catch a peep within of the gorgeous colour. Suddenly the valves open to their full extent, like the folding doors of a drawing-room, allowing exit to a richly dressed lady. Here comes the vermilion tenant! Place for my lady! But what is she? And what is she about to do in her gorgeous raiment? Nay; ’tis but the cockle’s foot; a monopod he is: this is all the foot he has. It is clad in neither shoe nor stocking; and truly it needs it not. Never was the silken-hosed foot of cardinal arrayed like this. But see to what an extent the organ protrudes! four inches from the valves’ edges does its tip reach; smooth, lubricous, taper, with a knee at the upper part, and the toe bent in the form of a hook. As to its general appearance when thus extended, I have compared it to a finger of polished carnelian; but Mr. Kingsley thinks that this resemblance will not hold, the foot being too opaque for that gem: he likens it to a long capsicum, which is, however, too dull and too dark; and he tells a story of a certain (mythic, I fear) countess who, seeing it for the first time, exclaimed, “Oh, dear! I always heard that my pretty red coral came out of a fish, and here it is, all alive!”

Nay; after all, it is what it is; and those comparisons just help one who has never seen it, to form some conception of its appearance; but by one who has, all will be rejected as inadequate.

And as to what the brilliant organ is going to do, that we see. For the long taper foot being thrust to its utmost, feels about for some resisting surface, that stone, half buried in the sand, for instance; which no sooner does it feel than the hooked point is pressed stiffly against it, the whole foot by muscular contraction is made suddenly rigid, and the entire creature,—mantle, siphons, foot, shell and all—is jerked away in an uncouth manner, “quite permiscous,” as the fisherman hard-by says, to a distance of some foot or more. But the cockle can leap on occasion much more vigorously; one has been seen to throw itself clear over the gunwale of a boat when laid on the bottom-boards.

ITS BURROWING FUNCTION.

Thus we see one use of the hooked tip is to afford a stronger spring; but it has a more direct bearing on the burrowing habits of the animal. Like all the rest of its beautiful tribe, this species is a dweller in the deep sand, into which it can penetrate with considerable power and rapidity. In order to do this, the foot is straightened, and the sharp point is thrust perpendicularly down into the wet sand. The muscular force exerted is sufficient to penetrate the soft sand to the whole length, when the point is suddenly bent sidewise, thus obtaining a strong holdfast. The whole organ is now strongly contracted in length, and the animal and shell are dragged forcibly to the mouth of the burrow, the edges of the valves downward and piercing the sand a little way. The straightened point is then pushed an inch or two farther down; again hooked, and another pull is made. The shell descends a little farther into the yielding sand, and the same interchange of processes goes on till the animal is sufficiently buried. To read this description you would suppose it a most clumsy, and ineffective, and slow business; but indeed this is very far from its character. The elongations and contractions are made with great rapidity; and almost with the quickness of thought the unwieldy cockle, when in full vigour and thoroughly alarmed, disappears into his sandy fortress; so fast, indeed, that you must be very alert to overtake him and prevent his descent, if you have no appliances but your two hands.

Cuvier, in his elaborate and beautiful dissections of the Mollusca, has demonstrated that this important organ is mainly composed of an immense multitude of muscles, circular, longitudinal, and transverse, wonderful in their complexity and arrangement, but most perfectly adapted to impart variety, force, and precision to its movements. In these respects the human tongue perhaps presents the closest parallel to its organization. It is remarkable that at its upper or basal part it is hollow, and encloses some of the viscera of the body.

BANDED VENUS.

Here, under this low-lying ledge of rock, is another shell, which in beauty perhaps excels even the gorgeous cockle. It belongs to a genus pre-eminent for loveliness, to which the name of the Goddess of Love has been assigned. This is the Banded Venus.[50] The most prominent and obvious character is that the shell-valves are covered with ribs, more or less strongly marked, which, instead of running fan-like from the beaks to the edges, as in the cockles, are concentric, being parallel with the edges. In this species these ribs are well marked, about a dozen in number, broad, flat, sharply defined, and nearly equally distant. They impart to the shell, which is very convex, and nearly round, an aspect of great strength combined with elegance. The colours, too, are very ornamental: broad bands of brownish lilac, varied with warmer tints, widening as they go, radiate from the beaks to the margins, relieved by a whitish ground. The hues vary in different individuals; the bands being sometimes rusty brown, or purple; and the ground yellow, or pale orange; and the contrasts are in some better marked than in others; but when fresh and unrubbed the shell is always a beautiful one.

Plate 10.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
SPINOUS COCKLE. BANDED VENUS.

The specimen before us is alive. I will drop it into this shallow pool in the rock. See, the valves are opening, and a large foot of a waxy whiteness, almost semi-pellucid, protrudes, thicker and more ovate than that of the cockle, but not capable of such elongation. The siphons, however, are proportionally longer; they are separate at their extremities, and project considerably from the shell.

But while we are gazing at the beauty of our little Venus, we become cognizant of the presence of another spectator. He has slowly come out from beneath the shadow of that long dark-brown leaf of Laminaria, that floats like a crumpled ribbon across the pool, and now rests on the tuft of Iridæa, that fine scarlet weed of leathery texture, that grows in the shaded corner. It is a Prawn;[51] and a fellow of noble dimensions. Is he too attracted by the fair shell? or rather is not his attention occupied by us? Yes; the latter is the true case; as you may discern by his long-stalked eyes, steadily staring upwards. He wonders what our two faces can mean; and, as we remain still, he ventures forth to take a fuller view.

Plate 11.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
COMMON SHRIMP. GREAT PRAWN.

THE PRAWN’S ARMS.

An elegant creature is the common prawn, or rock-shrimp, as the fishermen designate him, by way of distinction from another sapid crustacean that inhabits these shores. His armour of proof, composed of plates that slide so smoothly one under another, sustains the most lustrous polish, and is ever subject to the animal’s efforts to keep it so; for, whenever he has a moment’s leisure from more pressing avocations, he is constantly engaged in cleaning it with the brushes which those slender fore-limbs of his carry. Like a true soldier, like a knight of chivalry, the Prawn lives, eats, sleeps in armour. How completely is his body encased in defensive mail; and he carries his tempered weapon too. Look at the serrate sword which he always points at the foe whom he faces! Who would rashly provoke such a weapon as this? Stiff and firm in substance, long, pointed, two-edged, keen on both edges, curved sabre-like, and cut into acute teeth; it does seem a most formidable affair: and yet, truth to tell, I do not know what use the owner makes of it. Though I have been for many years in the practice of keeping these elegant animals in my aquaria, I have never seen one smite a foe with his two-edged sword. Perhaps like the cane over the looking-glass in a nursery, its mere presence is sufficient to keep in awe encroaching enemies, whose hearts sink when they behold the sharp-toothed weapon.

Exquisitely painted is the Prawn. His ground colour is semi-pellucid olive-grey, on which transverse lines of black are drawn; and specks and dashes of sparkling white, symmetrically arranged and well defined, are scattered here and there, especially upon the broad swimming plates that serve as his principal instruments of locomotion. His limbs, too, are ringed with blue and orange, a felicitous combination!

I have just alluded to the tail as a motive power. It is a very curious organ, consisting of five plates, so hinged that they can play over each other, or be spread out in shape of a fan, and each plate beset on its edges with a most delicate fringe of stiff bristles. To see its use, you have only to approach the animal. He instantly darts away with force; all the while, however, keeping his face to the foe, as becomes a soldier so armed. Now this retrocessive power is his great cheval de bataille. When gently exploring, he crawls among the weeds on the tips of his long feet; when swimming at ease, he glides gracefully along by the rapid paddling of the false feet, of which he carries five pairs beneath his abdomen. But when alarmed, he forcibly throws forward this plated tail, expanded to the utmost, bending the last joints of the body from the hump on his back, and thus strikes a powerful forward blow on the water, by the impact of which the whole prawn is jerked backward to a distance of several inches.

But he is gone; and it were useless to look for him any more in this wilderness of sea-weeds, and amid the cavernous recesses of those rocky ledges, where he enjoys ample means of retreat and concealment. For, even if you did catch a momentary glimpse of him again, it would be only as he darts from one shelter to another, and he would presently be far out of your reach in the obscurity of some inexplorable hole.

Let us turn to the beach and follow the water’s edge. Let us see what this fisherman is so busy about, and what that horse is doing as he paces backward and forward belly-deep in the sea, from one end of the beach to the other, then retracing his steps, as if he were ploughing the shallows. And why does the fisherman watch the horse so attentively? Hark! what says he? He shouts to the diminutive urchin that rides the horse to come in; and now he eagerly goes down to the edge of the sea, as the beast and his little rider come ashore. We will go and see.

KEER-DRAG.

The man is civil and communicative, and lets us into the whole secret; though now indeed that we are on the spot, it is sufficiently patent. The horse draws behind him an implement called a keer-drag; a net, which is stretched upon an oblong iron frame, that forms its mouth. Behind, the net tapers to a point, but is left open there in the making, and only tied with a string. The iron frame keeps the net-mouth open, and being attached by a bridle to a rope, which is fastened to the horse’s harness, scrapes the sea-bottom as he proceeds; whatever is collected passing into the net, and accumulating at the narrow point.

Now the shallows just here are alive with swarms of another edible species of crustacea, the Shrimp,[52] par excellence; or, as the people here say, the sand shrimp, to distinguish it from the prawn, which, as I have observed, they call the rock shrimp. And this sand shrimp finds a ready sale in the Torquay market; the fisherman getting, as he tells us, a shilling a quart from the fishmongers.

The horse, doubtless nothing loath, for his toil must be great, wading on soft sand in three feet of water, and dragging that heavy apparatus behind him, walks to dry land, where, as soon as the keer-drag is ashore, the man seizes it, cries “whow!” to the obedient animal, and, having spread a cloth on the sand, proceeds to untie the string, and pour out on the cloth the struggling contents. “It is a very good haul,” says the fellow; “there’s more nor two quart there!” So, being in a good humour, and naturally civil besides, we venture to propound a bargain; that, for a small coin of the realm, we may be allowed to pick out all the “rubbish;” i.e., everything that is not a shrimp, and convey it to our own private reservoirs; a pleasant agreement for both parties; for the net gathers many curious creatures of great interest to the naturalist, though of no value whatever to the fisherman. Shrimps, however, are the staple; there are probably a hundred of these to one of all other kinds, lumping these latter all together. And very fine these shrimps are. Mr. Bell gives two inches and a half as the total length of the species,[53] and I do not remember that I ever before saw one that exceeded that size: but here, the great majority are upwards of three inches; and a very considerable number are full three and a half. They are mostly females loaded with spawn, which they carry entangled among the false feet beneath the body.

SHRIMP.

In general figure the shrimp resembles the prawn: it, however, carries no sword-like rostrum; and the front pair of feet, instead of terminating each in a pair of claws, have a strong hook which bends down upon a short spine. The limbs too are very much shorter, and the animal is less elegant. The colour is a pale warm brown; but when examined closely this is seen to resolve itself into a freckling of black, grey, brown, and orange specks, arranged so as to make a kaleidoscopic sort of pattern. When highly magnified many of the dots take star-like forms.

It is amusing to see how rapidly and cleverly the shrimp takes its place in the sand. If there be an inch or two’s depth of water, the animal quietly sinks on the bottom; then, in a moment, you see a little cloud of dust (so it seems) rise up along each side, and the body sinks till the surrounding surface is nearly level with its back. Then you perceive the value of the peculiar style of colouring: the freckling of specks of various tints of brown, grey, and red, so exactly resembles the hues of the sand, that you might look close at a shrimp so sunken, and yet not discern it. The eyes, however, which are set on the top of the head, like a Dutchman’s garret windows, are keeping a bright watch upward, and here it lies, quiet and, against most enemies, safe. The iron lip of the drag, however, scrapes up with its edge the upper inch of sand-bottom, routs out the poor shrimps, which dart upwards, to find themselves within the mouth of the ever-advancing net. The agency in the burrowing is the false feet, which, waved rapidly to and fro, brush up the fine sand with the currents that they make in the water, and throw it up in those clouds on each side, presently to fall again on the body, and help to conceal it.

FLAT-FISHES.

But there are more things than shrimps in the gleaming, working, struggling mass of life before us. Not to mind the uncouth soldier-crabs, dragging about their despoiled shells, which, numerous and conspicuous as they are, we shall neglect for another occasion,—we have other fish to fry. Here are sundry examples of that remarkable race, the proper Flat-fishes. These thin, brown, long-oval ones are specimens of Soles, of which there are two kinds here, the Common Sole, uniform dull brown, and the Lemon Sole, of a more freckled tint, pale orange brown, with darker spots.[54] The fisherman considers them marketable if they are not less than four or five inches long, and bundles them into his common depository, under the title of tea-dabs, a name which sufficiently indicates their destiny.

Now every one has looked at hundreds of pairs of soles raw and ready, but perhaps not all have ever adequately remarked the singular anomaly presented by their structure, or are aware how unique their tribe is among animals. That one surface is positively coloured, while the other is fleshy white, is no great matter; for many creatures, and fishes in particular, are darker above and paler below. The flat Rays are equally abject, and show a like contrast of hues; but, structurally, the colours in the Sole are not respectively on the back and belly, though they are certainly above and below. These fishes, in fact, swim and lie on one side; and so they have one side dark and one side light.

This habit, however, imposed upon them, involves other very important aberrations from ordinary forms. Let us suppose that the eyes had been placed, like those of the Chætodons (very thin, wide, and flat fishes of the tropical seas), one on each side of the head. That eye which belonged to the white or inferior side, would be rendered useless, since it would be almost perpetually buried in the mud of the bottom. Hence, by an unprecedented exception to the symmetry which marks the organs of sense in all other vertebrate animals, both of the eyes are placed on the same side of the head, one above the other. They are, however, frequently not in the same line, and one is often smaller and less developed than the other.

In addition to these peculiarities, we may remark, that the spine makes a sudden twist near the head to one side; that the bones of the head are not symmetrical; that the two sides of the mouth are unequal; that the pectoral and ventral fins of the under side are generally smaller than those of the upper; and that the dorsal and anal fins generally correspond to each other, the one fringing the whole length of the dorsal, the other that of the ventral edge of the body.

YARRELL ON FLAT-FISHES.

We must not suppose that these peculiarities are defects and mistakes; nor, like Buffon, when he found some structure or habit which was at variance with his preconceived notions of fitness, accuse the all-wise God of bungling in His work. They are merely examples of that inscrutable wisdom, those inexhaustible resources of power and skill, which can and often do delight to attain the most worthy ends by the most unexpected roads, in which we can only follow, as the way is opened up to us, and wonderingly adore. Let us hear what Yarrell says on these strange modifications. “The Flat-fishes ... are, by this depressed form of body, admirably adapted to inhabit the lowest position, and where they occupy the least space, among their kindred fishes. Preferring sandy or muddy shores, and unprovided with swimming-bladders, their place is close to the ground, where, hiding their bodies horizontally in the loose soil at the bottom, with the head only slightly elevated, an eye on the under side of the head would be useless; but both eyes placed on the upper surface afford them an extensive range of view in those various directions in which they may either endeavour to find suitable food, or avoid dangerous enemies. Light, one great cause of colour, strikes on the upper surface only; the under surface, like that of most other fishes, remains perfectly colourless. Having little or no means of defence, had their colour been placed only above the lateral line on each side, in whatever position they moved, their piebald appearance would have rendered them conspicuous objects to all their enemies. When near the ground they swim slowly, maintaining their horizontal position; and the smaller pectoral and ventral fins on the under side are advantageous where there is so much less room for their action, than with the larger fins that are above. When suddenly disturbed, they sometimes make a rapid shoot, changing their position from horizontal to vertical; if the observer happens to be opposite the white side, they may be seen to pass with the rapidity and flash of a meteor; but they soon sink down, resuming their previous motionless, horizontal position, and are then distinguished with difficulty, owing to their great similarity in colour to the surface on which they rest.”[55]

On several occasions I have, when examining the contents of the shrimpers’ nets, found a pretty little species of flat-fish, which, though we find it not at this moment, is a pretty constant inhabitant of these sandy beaches. It is too small and too worthless for the fisherman to have a distinctive name for it, but our systematic books call it a Topknot,[56] and assign to it near consanguinity with the majestic and delicious turbot. It is marked as very rare; but I have seen three or four come up at a haul of the drag, and have found it among the rocks. Not long ago, I took a specimen by turning over a flat stone in a sandy pool in this ledge. It was indeed small, not exceeding an inch and a half in length; the ordinary size of those that occur as the shrimps’ companions in captivity; but their utmost growth scarcely attains five inches.

Plate 12.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
SAND-LAUNCE. TOPKNOT.

TOPKNOT.

The specimen I allude to I took home, and observed at leisure. In a white saucer it was a charming little object, though rather difficult to examine, because, the instant the eye with the lens was brought near, it flounced in alarm, and often leaped out upon the table. When its fit of terror was over, however, it became still, and would allow me to push it hither and thither, merely waving the edges of its dorsal and ventral fins rapidly as it yielded to the impulse. The shape of these fins gives to the outline of the fish a form resembling an oblong parallelogram with the corners rounded, and the fan-like tail projecting; but the outline of the body is much more oval. The first ray of the dorsal is a little lengthened; whence the name of Topknot. We have two little species of Turbot with this peculiarity, called Muller’s Topknot, and Bloch’s Topknot. This was the former. Yarrell, indeed, distinguishes the two by saying that this one has “the first ray of the dorsal not longer than the succeeding rays;” or, in other words, that it has no topknot at all. It may be that it is obliterated in age, but in this half-grown specimen, it was quite conspicuous, projecting like a little horn from the forehead, about one-fourth longer than the second and following rays. In Bloch’s Topknot it is, indeed, more marked, for it there runs off into a slender filament, of more than twice the length of the rays. The fins were exquisitely delicate, and were very pretty in their markings, every tenth or twelfth ray being black interrupted with white; the middle ray between these was black at the tip, and the central one of these subordinate divisions was again more slightly specked. This had a very pretty effect. The body was pellucid yellowish brown, studded with irregular faint clouds and stronger specks of dark brown, and bearing one conspicuous ring-like mark near the tail The flesh was so translucent, that the stomach and principal viscera could be distinctly seen, and the accumulation of the chief blood-vessels here, gave a crimson flush to these parts.

Alarm had a curious effect, probably dependent on the quickening of the circulation. When I tried to catch the little fish, all the spots and markings became instantly deepened and vivified, and particularly those of the fins, so that the change seemed magical. I have observed the same thing in the Gobies, and some other fishes.

The eyes were very beautiful and interesting. As in all this family of Flat-fishes, they are set close together on the same side of the head, the upper one inclined slightly upward, the lower downward. Viewed with a lens, the iris was seen to be pale green, with radiating dark bands, and the pupil surrounded by an edge-line of ruddy gold. The iris projects into the pupil with an angle, making it crescent-shaped. The eyes move quite independently of each other, and very curious it was to look down with a lens upon the quaint little face, and see one eye quickly turned up towards the beholder, while the other remained still, or presently turned in the opposite direction.

Now and then it curved the head and tail downwards, and leaped out of water, clearing the side of the saucer in which it was confined; then, when put back, it lay some seconds on its back (or rather on its wrong side), with the dorsal and ventrals incurved, and thus the whole body concave, as if in tetanus; but when turned over it soon recovered.

SAND-LAUNCE.

What is this writhing, wriggling thing, that looks like a narrow tape of burnished silver? It is a Sand-launce,[57] and very slyly is it endeavouring to make its way down to the rippling edge of the wave, to liberty and life. But not so fast, pretty Launce! we want to have a look at you, and to introduce you to a very jolly set in our aquarium at home. Now don’t flounce and dart round the jar so angrily: you can’t get out, and may as well be philosophic.

Do you see the remarkable projection of the lower jaws? With that sort of spade the little silvery fish manages to scoop out a bed for itself very quickly in the wet sand, and so lie hid. It is numerous enough in these bays, and it is in request among fishermen, who use it largely as bait, and who, to obtain it, cast a seine, and enclose vast multitudes, which are thus dragged up on the beach high and dry.

A short time ago I saw a paragraph in the Times, from some Jersey correspondent, who complained of the recent scarcity of fish, and accounted for it by the following curious catenation of links. A number of sharks had recently appeared in the offing, which frightened away the shoals of porpesses, which ordinarily came to feed on the fishes, which fed on the Sand-launce. Now when the porpesses were there the fishes were driven with the Launce into the shallows, and were readily taken; but, on being relieved of these persecutors by the intruding sharks, were free to retire to the deeper water, where the fishers could less easily entrap them. The writer stated, however, that at length the sharks had departed, the porpesses had returned, the fishes were consequently driven in shore, and were again devouring the Launce. The whole account has something of the “House that Jack built” twang, and I do not quite pin my faith on the philosophy of the explanation.

LAUNCE IN THE TANK.

Be that as it may, I can vouch for the Launce making a very attractive tenant of an aquarium, where it will live a considerable time. The pearly gleams of lustre from its sides are very beautiful, and such as no pictorial art can reproduce.

V.
MAY.

We are far from having exhausted the treasures of the teeming sands. Another visit to their broad expanse may yield other objects of interest not inferior to those we lately discovered there. Let us, then, seek the shore, where our humble friend the shrimper, with his wading horse, under the guidance of his shrill-voiced little son, still pursues his indefatigable calling.

Again the keer-drag is drawn up the tawny beach, the bag is untied, and the sparkling, crawling, jumping heap spreads itself over the sand, beyond the limits of the insufficient cloth.

A little silvery fish wriggles from the mass, and, by a few lateral vibrations, in an instant buries himself in the soft wet sand, all but the upper surface of his head and back. Our attention is drawn towards this object; but our friend the shrimper shouts rather abruptly a note of warning. “Mind what ye be ’bout! that ’ere’s pison! He’s a sting-bull, he is.” Thus armed, we use caution in our approaches, and look well before we touch. As we see it now, it certainly presents a noteworthy appearance. A large head, with a wide mouth opening at very upward angles; two staring eyes, set in the crown so as to look upward instead of sideways, and intently watching our intentions; a short fin on the back, of which the membrane is of the deepest velvet black, and the rays, which are stout sharp spines, are white; these rays are now stretched to the utmost, like a fan widely expanded, so as to offer the threatening points in all directions to a foe;—these are all the features we can discern, except a narrow line of olive presently lost in the sand, which marks the buried body.

WEEVER.

In spite of the good man’s earnest warnings to have nothing to do with so venomous a creature, we must contrive to take possession of it for study at home; and by the aid of our hand-net we find no difficulty in lifting it and transferring it, an unwilling guest, to a glass jar of sea-water. We now discern it more fully and distinctly; though it manifests its indignation at this tyrannical suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, by flouncing around the glass, and scattering the water hither and thither. This wrath, however, gradually subsides, and our captive philosophically makes up his mind to his fate.

It is the Lesser Weever;[58] a name corrupted from the French, who call it Vive, from the length of time which the fish will live out of its native element. It also bears the names of sting-fish, sting-bull, and sea-cat, among English fishermen; on the shores of the Mediterranean it bears the title of spider, and the ancient Romans called it sea-dragon. The specific names,—vipera and draco, viper and dragon—which are appropriated to this species and another which is nearly allied to it, make up an extensive list of aliases, all combining to give this pretty little fish a thoroughly bad reputation. All these titles point to a habit and a power possessed by it of inflicting severe wounds, which without doubt are of a highly inflammatory character, and are slow and difficult to cure. These are effected by the rays of the first dorsal fin, which, as we have just seen, are erected and spread in a way which indicates a perfect consciousness of their power, and by certain spines, long and acute, set on the gill-covers, one on each, pointing backward. These all are of needle-like sharpness, and are wielded most effectively. Yarrell tells us that if trod upon, or only touched, while on the watch, nearly buried in the sand at the bottom of the water, it strikes with force either upwards or sideways; and Pennant says that he had seen it direct its blows with as much judgment as a fighting cock. Fishermen hold it in great dread; and the name of sting-bull is said to be due to its power of piercing even the proverbial thickness of a bull’s hide.

Plate 13.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
FIFTEEN-SPINED STICKLEBACK. LESSER WEEVER.

VENOM OF ITS SPINES.

Cuvier considers the imputation of venom to the wounds made by the Weever as a popular error. He says, “They cannot inject into the wounds they inflict with their spines any poisonous substance, properly so called; but, as these spines are very strong and sharp-pointed, and can no doubt pierce the flesh to a considerable depth, these wounds, like all others of the same description, may produce dangerous consequences if care is not taken to enlarge them, and to allow the blood to flow; this perhaps, is the most certain, as the simplest remedy, and much preferable to the boasted applications of the ancients.”