THE OCEAN WORLD. LON DUN : IK1NTE1) bl WLLUAlt CLOWliS AN1) SONb, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING UROSb. Plate I. The Argonaut sailing in the open sen. THE OCEAN WORLD: BEING A DESCRIPTIVE HISTORY OF THE SEA AND ITS LIVING INHABITANTS. CHIEFLY TRANSLATED FROM ‘‘LA VIE ET 1.E8 MCEURS DES ANIMAUX ” By LOUIS F1GUIEH, AUTHOR OK “THE WORLD BEFORE THE DELUGE." “THE VEGETABLE WORLD," AND OTHER POPULAR WORKS. ILLUSTRATED BY FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN ENGRAVINGS, CHIEFLY DESIGNED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF M. CH. Bfi VALET, FROM SPECIMENS IN THE MUSEUMS OF PARIS. LONDON : CHAPMAN & HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 1868. *s Wellcome sNsmyn' LIBRARY frill | welfVIOmec m mr— / PREFACE. “ Our Planet is surrounded by two great oceans,” says Dr. Maury, .the eminent American savant : “ the one visible, the other invisible ; one is under foot, the other over head. One entirely envelopes it, the other covers about two-thirds of its surface.” It is proposed in “ The Ocean World ” to give a brief record of the Natural History of one of those great oceans and its living inhabitants, with as little of the nomenclature of Science, and as few of the repulsive details of Ana- tomy, as is consistent with clearness of expression ; to describe the ocean in its majestic calm and angry agitation ; to delineate its inha- bitants in their many metamorphoses : the cunning with which they attack or evade their enemies : their instructive industry : their quarrels, their combats, and then- loves. The learned Schleiden eloquently paints the living wonders of the deep: “It we dive into the liquid crystal of the Indian Ocean, the most wondrous enchantments are opened to us, reminding us of the fairy tales of childhood’s dreams. The strangely-branching thickets bear living flowers. Dense masses of Meandrineas and Astreas con- trast with the leafy, cup- shaped expansions of the Explanarias, and the variously-branching Madrepores, now spread out like fingers, now b VI PREFACE. rising in trunk-like branches, and now displaying an elegant array of interlacing tracery. The colouring surpasses everything ; vivid greens alternate with brown and yellow ; rich tints, ranging from purple and deepest blue to a pale reddish-brown. Brilliant rose, yellow, or peach- coloured Nullipores overgrow the decaying masses : they themselves being interwoven with the pearl-coloured plates ot the Rettjjoi es, rivalling the most delicate ivory carvings. Close hy wave the yellow and lilac Sea-fans (Gorgonia), perforated like delicate trellis-work. The bright sand of the bottom is covered with a thousand strange forms of sea-urchins and star-fishes. The leaf-like Flustrx and Eschar se ^ adhere like mosses and lichens to the branches of coral— the yellow, green, and purple-striped limpets clinging to their tiunks. The sea anemones expand their crowns of tentacula upon the lugged rocks or on flat sands, looking like beds of variegated ranunculuses, or sparkling like gigantic cactus blossoms, shining with brightest colours. « Around the branches of the coral shrubs play the humming-birds of the ocean : little fishes sparkling with red or blue metallic glitter, or gleaming in golden green or brightest silvery lustre ; like spirits of the deep, the delicate milk-white jelly-fishes float softly through the charmed world. Here gleam' the violet and gold-green Isabelle, and the flaming yellow, black, and vermilion-griped Coquette, as they chase their prey; there the band-fish shoots snake-like through the thicket, resembling a silvery ribbon glittering with rose and azure hue. Then come the fabulous cuttle-fishes, in all the diaphanous colours of the rainbow, but with no definite outline. “ When day declines, with the shades of night this fantastic garden is lighted up with renewed splendour. Millions of microscopic meins® and crustaceans, like so many glowing sparks, dance through the >| gloom. The Sea-pen waves in a greenish phosphorescent light- Whatever is beautiful or wondrous among fishes, Echmoder ms, je JT fishes and polypi and mdlma, is crowded into the warm and crystai waters of the Tropical ocean. ’ It is stated on the Title-page that « The Ocean World ” is chiefly translate:! from M. Louis Figuier’s two most recent works. In justice to that gentleman, we must explain this statement. The History of the Ocean is to a large extent, but not wholly, compiled from “ La Terre et les Mers,” one of the volumes of M. Figuier’s “Tableau de la Nature ; but the larger portion ot the work is a free translation of that author s latest work, “ La Vie et les Moeurs des Animaux other chapters, such as “ Life in the Ocean,” the chapter on Crusta- ceans, and some others, are compiled from various sources ; they will not be found in either of M. Figuier’s volumes ; but in other respects his text has been pretty closely followed. M. Figuier s plan is to begin the study of animals with the less perfect beings occupying the lower rounds of the Zoological ladder, his reason tor doing so being an impression that the presence of the gradually perfecting animal structure, from the simplest organisms up to the more perfect forms, was specially calculated to attract the reader. “ What can be more curious or more interesting to the mind,” he asks, “ than to examine the successive links in the uninterrupted chain of living beings which commence with the Infusoria and ter- minate in Man ?” The work, he hopes, is not without the impress of a true cha- racter ol novelty and originality; at least he knows no work in which t e strange habits and special interests of the Zoophytes and Molluscs can be studied, nor any work in which an attempt is made to represent hem by means of designs at once scientifically correct and attractive rom the picturesque character of the illustrations, most of which mve been made from specimens selected by Monsieur Ch. Bevalet from the various museums in Paris. One Of these chanmng plain-speaking children we sometimes meet lately sa,d to M. F.guier, “ They tell me thon art a vulgariser of Science. What is that?” b nser of He took the child in his arms, and carried if fn fir • , there was a beautiftl rose-tree in blossom, and invited Vlll PREFACE. The child gathered the perfumed flower, not without pricking itself cruelly with the spines ; then, with its little hands still bleeding, it went to distribute roses to others in the room. “ Thou art now a vulgariser,” said he to the child, “ for thou takest to thyself the thorns, and givest the flowers to others !” The parallel, although exaggerated, is not without its basis of truth, and was probably suggested by the criticism some of his works have met with : the critics forgetting apparently that these works are an attempt to render scientific subjects popular, and attractive to the general reader. W. S. 0. London. January, 1868. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Ocean Depth of the Sea . . . . Colour of the Ocean . . . Phosphorescence . . . . Local Colour CHAPTER If. Currents of the Ocean . . Trade-winds Gulf Stream Storms Tides . . . . ’ Polar Seas Antarctic Seas CHAPTER Ilf. Life in the Ocean CHAPTER IT. Zoophytes Foraminifera Infusoria CHAPTER V. ’OLYPIFERA . . . . . CHAPTER VI. PAGE PACK 3 | Corallines . . . 5 Tubiporinge . 122 13 Gorgon idas . 123 14 Isidians .... 17 CHAPTER YII. 31 33 ! 34 j Zoantharia . . Madreporidaj . . . . 151 Porites . 164 Actiniaria 3< 40 Minyadinians . . . . . 195 47 54 CHAPTER VIII. AcaLEPHvE . . . Medusas . 215 03 Rhizostoma .... 221 Vilelladaj . 231 71 Ctenophora . 256 78 CHAPTER IX. 80 Echinodkrmata . . . 261 Asterias . 282 Crinoidea 272 . 282 107 | Echinoida? . . X C< INTENTS. MOLLUSCA. General Definition .... CHAPTER X. Molluscoida Tunicata Ascidians CHAPTER XI. Acephalous Mollusca . . . Ostreadae CHAPTER XII. Acephalous Mollusca . . . Mytilidaa Cephalous Molluscs . . . . Their Characteristics . . . CHAPTER XIII. Pulmonary Gasteropods . . . Limneans CHAPTER XIV. N on-pulmonary Gasteropods . Buccinidse Purpura ....... Pterocera CHAPTER XV. PAGE Molluscous Pterofods . . . 441 CHAPTER XVI. Cephalopodous Mollusca . . 445 Acetabula 445 Tentaculifera 470 CHAPTER XVII. I Crustaceans 473 General Definition .... 473 Crabs and Crayfish . . . 480 Lobsters 490 FISHES. General Definition .... 493 CHAPTER XVIII. Cartilaginous Fishes . . . 499 Cyclostomata 499 Selachia 501 Sturiona 515 CHAPTER XIX. Osseous, or Bony Fishes . . 521 Plectognathi 522 Lophobranchii 526 Malacopterygii 528 Abdominales 552 Acanthopterygians . . . 578 Pharyngians 584 PAGE 303 305 311 312 319 324 361 361 391 391 393 404 407 416 426 436 ILLUSTKATIONS. PLATE I. The Argonaut Sailing before the Wind . IT. Sponge Fishing on the Coast of Syria. III. Coral Fishing on the Coast of Sicily . IV. Coral Island in the Pomotouan Archipelago . V. Sea Anemones (I.) VI. Sea Anemones (II.) VII. Agalma rubra VIII. Galeolabla Aurantiaca IX. Sea Urchins X. Fishing for Holothuria XI. Synapta Duverna:a XII. Dredging for Oysters .... I * * XIII. Oyster Parks on Lake Fusaro XIV. Pectinide XV. SPONDYLU8 XVI. Anodonta .... XVII. Tridacna gigantea XVIII. Venus and Cytherea XIX. Solenide ( Bazor-fish ) .... XX. .Temple of Serapis XXI. Conus XXII. Cyfreade : ... . PACK ( Frontispiece) 490 . . 115 . 140 . . 169 . 189 . . 191 . 241 . . 246 . 292 . . 297 301 . . 335 . 337 . . 347 . 350 . . 370 . 373 . . 378 . 380 . . 384 . 417 . . 418 xn ILLUSTRATIONS. PLATE PAGE XXIII. Voluta .423 XXIV. Capture of a Gigantic Cuttle-fish 459 XXV. Shark Fishing 511 XXVI. Sturgeon Fishing on the Volga 518 XXVII. Fishing for Electrical Eels 531 XXVIII. Greenlanders Fishing for Halibut 532 XXIX. The Herring Fishery 568 XXX. A Roman Feast - 582 XXXI. Fishing for Tunny in Provence 587 XXXII. Fishing for Mackerel off the Cornwall Coast . . . 590 THE OCEAN WORLD, CHAPTER I. THE OCEAN. Jkpi(TTnv n'ev SSup — " The best of all things is water.”— Pindar. We have said that the sea covers nearly two-thirds of the surface of the earth The calculation, as given by astronomers, is as follows : The surface of the earth is estimated at 31,625,625* square miles, that portion occupied by the waters being about 23,814,121 square miles, and at consisting or continents, peninsulas, and islands being 7,811 504 m! es; whence it follows that the surface covered witli water is to’ dry M t0, V2- The waters thua cover a little more than seven- tenths of the whole surface. “ On the surface of the globe,” Michelet remarks, “ water is the rule, dry land the exception ” thanl^l^ ^ im“msity an<1 dePth of tlle *“> aids rather n obstacles to the intercourse and commerce of nations ; the mari- time routes are now traversed by ships and steamers conveying cargoes miTrir 7'“ “ —* *■ land routes. One of the feat* of hdlff I! the ocean .site continuity; for, with the exception t o rle ’ 7s the CaSpian' the 8«. and some others whoZrtr °“« n,‘d mdiVi8iMe- As tlW P°et 1* “ it embraces the’ wliole earth with an uninterrupted wave.” nepl iratrav 0’ flKurtroutvov (tev/xan, JEschylus in Prometheus Vinctus. The mean depth of the sea is not very exactly ascertained i * certain phenomena observed in the movement of tides are sun ' 1 7 He incapable of explanation without admitting a mel^K* B 2 4 THE OCEAN WORLD. thousand five hundred fathoms. It is true that a great number of deep sea soundings fall short of that limit ; hut, on the other hand, many others reach seven or eight thousand. Admitting that three thousand fathoms represents the mean depth of the ocean, Sir John Herschel finds that the volume of its waters would exceed three thousand two hundred and seventy-nine million cubic yards. This vast volume of water is divided by geographers into five great oceans : the Arctic, the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Antarctic Oceans. The Arctic Ocean extends from the Pole to the Polar Circle ; it is situated between Asia, Europe, and America. The Atlantic Ocean commences at the Polar Circle and reaches Cape Horn. It is situated between America, Europe, and Africa, a length of about nine thousand miles, with a mean breadth of two thousand seven hundred, covering a surface of about twenty-five million square miles, placed between the Old World and the New. Beyond the Cape of Storms, as Cape Horn may he truly called, it is only separated by an imaginary line from the vast seas of the south, in which the waves, which are the principal source ol tides, have their birth. Here, according to Maury, the young tidal wave, rising in the circumpolar seas of the south, and obedient to the sun and moon, rolls on to the Atlantic, and in twelve hours after passing the parallel of Cape Horn is found pouring its flood into the Bay of Fundy, whence it is projected in great waves across the Atlantic and round the globe, sweeping along its shores and penetrating its gulfs and estuaries, rising and falling in the open sea two or three feet, hut along the shore having a range of ten or twelve feet. Sometimes, as at Fundy on the American coast ; at Brest on the French coast ; and Milford Haven, and the mouth of the Severn in the Bristol Channel, rising and falling thirty or forty feet, “ impetuously rushing against the shores, hut gently stopping at a given line, and flowing hack to its place when the word goes forth, ‘ Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.’ That which no human power can repel, returns at its appointed time so regularly and surely, that the hour of its approach and the measure of its mass may he predicted with unerring certainty centuries beforehand.” , . , The Indian Ocean, sometimes called Oceania, is hounded on the north by Asia, on the west by Africa, on the east by the peninsu a o Molucca, the Sunda Isles, and Australia. THE SEA. The Pacific, or Great Ocean, stretches from north to south, from the Arctic to the Antarctic Circle, being bounded on one side by Asia, the island of Sunda, and Australia ; on the other by the west coast of America. This ocean contrasts in a striking manner with the Atlantic: the one has its greatest length from north to south, the other from east to west; the currents of the Pacific are broad and slow, those of the other narrow and rapid ; the waves of this are low, those of the other very high. If we represent the volume of water which falls into the Pacific by one, that received by the Atlantic will be represented by the figure 5. The Pacific is the calmest of seas ; the Atlantic Ocean is the most stormy ocean. The Antarctic Ocean extends from the Antarctic Polar Circle to the South Pole. It is remarkable that one half of the globe should be entirely covered with water, whilst the other contains less of water than dry land. Moreover, the distribution of land and water, if, in considerin': the germ of the oceanic basins, we compare the hemispheres separated by the Equator and the northern and southern halves of the globe, is found to be very unequal. Oceans communicate with continents and islands by coasts, which are said to be scarped when a rocky shore makes a steep and sudden descent to the shore, as in Brittany, Norway, and the west coast of the British islands. In this kind of coast certain rocky indentations encircle it, sometimes above, sometimes under water, forming a labyiintk of islands, as at the Land’s End, Cornwall, where the Scilly Islands form a compact group of from one to two hundred rocky islets, rising out of a deep sea, or, in the case of the Channel, on the oppo- site coast of France, where the coast makes a sudden descent, forming steep clifls and leaving an open sea. The coast is said to be flat when it consists of soft argillaceous soil descending to the shore with a gentle slope. Of this description of coast there are two, namely, sandy beaches, and hillocks or dunes. What is the average depth of the sea ? It is difficult to give an exact answer to this question, because of the great difficulty met with in taking soundings, caused chiefly by the deviations of submarine currents. No reliable soundings have yet been made in water over five miles in depth. 6 THE OCEAN WOULD. Laplace found, on astronomical consideration, that the mean depth of the ocean could not be more than ten thousand feet. Alexander von Humboldt adopts the same figures. Dr. Young attributes to the Atlantic a mean depth of a thousand yards, and to the Pacific, four thousand. Mr. Airy, the Astronomer Royal, has laid down a formula, that waves of a given breadth will travel with certain velo- cities at a given depth, from which it is estimated that the average depth of the North Pacific, between Japan and California, is two thousand one hundred and forty-nine fathoms, or two miles and a hall. But these estimates fall far short of the soundings reported by navi- gators, in which, as we shall see, there are important and only recently discovered elements of error. Du Petit Thouars, during his scientific voyage in the frigate Venus, took some very remarkable soundings in the Southern Pacific Ocean : one, without finding bottom at two thousand four hundred and eleven fathoms ; another, in the equi- noctial region, indicated bottom at three thousand seven hundred and ninety. In his last expedition, in search of a north-west passage, Captain Ross found soundings at five thousand fathoms Lieutenant Walsh, of the American Navy, reports a cast of the deep-sea lead, not far from the American coast, at thirty-four thousand feet without bottom. Lieutenant Berryman reported another unsuccessful attempt to fathom mid ocean with a line thirty-nine thousand feet in length. Captain Denman, of H. M. S. Herald, reported bottom in the South Atlantic at the depth of forty-six thousand feet; and Lieutenant J. P. Parker, of the United States frigate Congress, on attempting soundings near the same region, let go his plummet, after it had run out a line fifty thousand feet long, as though bottom had not been reached. We have the authority of Lieutenant Maury for saying, however, that “ there are no such depths as these.” The under-currents of the deep sea have power to take the line out long after the plummet has ceased to sink, and it was before this fact was discovered that these great soundings were reported. It has also been discovered that the line, once dragged down into the depths of the ocean, runs out unceasingly. This difficulty was finally overcome by the ingenuity of Midshipman Brooke. Under the judicious patronage of the Secretary to the United States Navy, Mr. Brooke invented the simple and ingenious apparatus (Fig. 1), by which soundings are now made, in a manner DKPTH OF THE OCEAN. which not only establishes the depth, but brings up specimens of the bottom. The sounding-line in this apparatus is attached to a weighty rod of iron, the lower extremity of which contains a hollow' cup for the reception of tallow or some other soft substance. This rod is passed through a hole in a thirty-two pound spherical shot, being supported in its position by slings a, which are hooked on to the line by the swivels a. When the rod strikes the bottom, the tension on l'ig. I. litookc’s Sounding Apparatus the line ceases, the swivels are reversed, the slings n are thrown out ol the hooks, the ball falls to the ground, and the rod, released from its weight, is easily drawn up, bringing with it portions of the bottom attached to the greasy substance in the cup. By means of this ap- paratus, specimens of the bottom have been brought up from the depth of four miles. 8 THE OCEAN WORLD. The greatest depth at which the bottom has been reached with this plummet is in the North Atlantic between the parallels of thirty-five and forty degrees north, and immediately south of the great bank of rocks off Newfoundland. This does not appear to be more than twenty-five thousand feet deep. “ The basin of the Atlantic,” says Maury, “ according to the deep sea soundings in the accompanying diagram, is a long trough separating the Old World from the New, and extending, probably, from pole to pole. In breadth, it contrasts strongly with the Pacific Ocean. From the top of Chimborazo to the bottom of the Atlantic, at the deepest place yet reached by the plummet in that ocean, the distance in a vertical line is nine miles.” “ Could the waters of the Atlantic be drawn off, so as to expose to view this great sea gash which separates continents, and extends from the Arctic to the Antarctic Seas, it would present a scene the most rugged, grand, and imposing ; the very ribs of the solid earth with the foundations of the sea would be brought to light, and we should have presented to us in one view, in the empty cradle of the ocean, ‘ a thousand fearful wrecks,’ with the array of ‘ dead men’s skulls, great anchors, heaps of pearls, and inestimable stones,’ which, hi the poet’s eye, lie scattered on the bottom of the sea, making it hideous with the sight of ugly death.” The depth of the Mediterranean is comparatively inconsiderable. Between Gibraltar and Ceuta, Captain Smith estimates the depth at about five thousand seven hundred feet, and from one to thiee thousand in the narrower parts of the straits. Near Nice, Saussure found bottom at three thousand two hundred and fifty. It is said that the bottom is shallower in the Adriatic, and does not exceed a hundred and forty feet between the coast of Dalmatia and the mouths of the Po. The Baltic Sea is remarkable for its shallow waters, its maximum rarely exceeding six hundred teet. It' thus appears that the sea has similar inequalities to those observed on land ; it has its mountains, valleys, hills, and plains. The Deep Sea Sounding Apparatus of Lieutenant Brooke has already furnished some very remarkable results. Aided by it, Di. Maury has constructed his fine orographic map of the basin of the Atlantic, which is probably as exact as the maps which represent Africa 01 Australia. DEPTH OF THE OCEAN. i) Dr. Maury has also published many charts, giving the depths of the ocean, the substance of which is given in the accompanying map, which represents the configuration of the Atlantic up to the tenth degree of south latitude, not in figures, as in Dr. Maury’s charts, but in tints ; diagonal lines from right to left, representing the shores of both hemi- spheres, indicate a depth of less than a thousand fathoms ; from left to right, indicate' bottom at one thousand to two thousand; horizontal lines, two to three thousand fathoms ; cross lines show an average depth of three to four thousand fathoms ; finally, the perpendicular lines in- dicate a depth of four thousand fathoms and upwards. Solid black Tig. 2. Chart of the Atlantic Ocean. indicates continents and islands; waving lines, surrounding both con merits at a shoit distance from the shore, indicate the sands which surround the coast line at a little distance from the shore. The question is sometimes asked, What useful purpose is served bv taking soundings at great depths ? To this we may quote the answer o ranklin to a similar question, addressed to aeronauts “ What purpose is served by the birth of a child ?” Every fact in phvsics is interesting m itself ; it forms a rallying point, round which, Liner or later, others will meet, m order to establish some useful truth ; and the 10 THE OCEAN WORLD. importance of making and recording deep sea soundings is established by the successful immersion of the transatlantic telegraph. At the bottom of the Atlantic there exists a remark- able plateau, extending from Cape Eace in Newfoundland, to Cape Clear in Ireland, a distance of over two thousand miles, with a breadth of four hundred and seventy miles : its mean depth along the whole route is estimated at two miles to two miles and a half. It is upon this telegraphic plateau, as it has been called, that the attempt was made to lay down the cable in 1858, and it is on it that the enterprise has been so successfully completed, during the year 1866. The surface of this plateau had been pre- viously explored by means of Brooke’s apparatus, and the bottom was found to be composed chiefly of microscopic calcareous shells ( Foraminijera ), and a few siliceous shells ( Diatomaceee ). These delicate and fragile shells, which seemed to strew the bottom of the sea, in beds of great thickness, were brought up by the sounding-rod in a state of perfect preservation, which proves that the water is re- markably quiet in these depths,— an inference which is fully borne out by the condition in which the cable of 1858 was found, when picked up in 1866. The first exploration of this plateau was undertaken by the American brig Dolphin , which took a hundred sound- ings one hundred miles from the coast of Scotland, after- wards taking the direction of the Azores, to the north of which bottom was found, consisting of chalk and yellow sand, at nine thousand six hundred feet. To the south of Newfoundland, the depth was found to be sixteen thousand five hundred feet. In 1856, Lieutenant Berryman, of the American steamer Arctic, completed a line of soundings from St. John, Newfoundland, to Yalentia, off the Irish coast, and in 1857, Lieutenant Dayman, of the English steamship Cyclops, repeated the same operation : this last line of soundings, the result of which is represented in the accompanying section, dil'tered slightly from that followed by Lieutenant Berryman. DEPTH OP THE OCEAN. 11 In the Gulf of Mexico, the depth does not seem to exceed seven thousand feet ; the Baltic does not in any place exceed eleven hun- dred. The depth of the Mediterranean is, as we have said, very variable. At Nice, according to Horace de Saussure, the average depth is three thousand three hundred feet. Between the Dalmatian coast and the mouth of the Po, bottom is found at a hundred and forty feet. Captain Smith found soundings at from one thousand to nine thou- sand feet in the Straits of Gibraltar, and at ten thousand feet between Gibraltar and Ceuta, where the breadth exceeds sixteen miles. Between Rhodes and Alexandria, the greatest depth is ten thousand feet. Between Alexandria and Candia it is ten thousand three hun- dred. A hundred and twenty miles east of Malta it is fifteen thousand. The peculiar form of the Mediterranean has led to its being compared to a vast inverted tunnel. The Arctic Ocean has, probably, no great depth. According to Baron Wrangel, the bottom of the glacial sea, on the north coast of Siberia, forms a gentle slope, and, at the distance of two hundred miles from the shore, it is still only from ninety to a hundred feet. Nevertheless, in Baffin’s Bay, Dr. Kane made soundings at eleven thousand six hundred feet. The inequalities of the basin of the Pacific Ocean are, comparativelv, unknown to us. The greatest depth observed by Lieutenant Brooke in the great ocean is two thousand seven hundred fathoms, which he found in fifty-nine degrees north latitude and one hundred and sixty- six degrees east longitude. Applying the theory of waves to the billows propelled from the coast of Japan to California, during the earth- quake of the 23rd of December, 1854, Professor Bache calculated that the mean depth of this part ot the Pacific is fourteen thousand four hundred feet. In the Pacific Ocean, latitude sixty degrees south and one hundred and sixty degrees east longitude, he found soundings at fourteen thousand six hundred feet— about two miles and a half. Another cast of the lead in the Indian Ocean was made in seven thousand and forty fathoms, but without bringing up any soil from the bottom. Among the fragments brought up from the bottom of the Coral Sea, a remarkable absence of calcareous shells was noted, whilst "he siliceous fragments ot sponges were found in great quantities. Other soundings made in the Pacific, at a depth of four or five miles, were 3xamined by Ehrenberg, who found a hundred and thirty-five different 12 THE OCEAN WORLD. forms of infusoria represented, and among them twenty-two species new to him. Generally speaking, the composition of the infusoria ol the Atlantic are calcareous ; those of the Pacific, siliceous. These ani- malcules draw from the sea the mineral matter with which it is charged — that is, the lime or silica which form their shell. These ! shells accumulate after the death of the animal, and lorm the bottom of the ocean. The animals construct their habitations near the surface ; when they die, they fall into the depths of the ocean, where they accumulate in myriads, forming mountains and plains in mid ocean. In this manner, we may remark, en passant, many of the existing con- tinents had their birth in geological times. The horizontal beds of marine deposits, which are called sedimentary rocks, and especially the cretaceous rocks and calcareous beds of the J urassic and Tertiary periods, all result from such remains.* The sea level is, in general, the same everywhere. It represents > the spherical form of our planet, and is the basis for calculating all . terrestrial heights ; but many gulfs and inlands open on the east are • supposed to be exceptions to this’ rule : the accumulation of waters, , pressed into these receptacles by the general movement ol the sea t from east to west, it is alleged, may pile up the waters, in some cases, to a greater height than the general level. It had long been admitted, on the faith of inexact observation, that : the level of the Eed Sea was higher than that of the Mediterranean. . It has also been said that the level of the Pacific Ocean at Panama is- higher by about forty inches than the mean level of the Atlantic at! Chagres, and that, at the moment of high water, this difference was- increased to about thirteen feet, while at low it is over six feet in the? opposite direction. This has been proved, so far as the evidence goes, . to he error in what concerns the difference in level of the Eed Sea and! Mediterranean, and the opening of the Suez Canal, which is near att hand, will probably furnish still more convincing proofs. It is probable that errors, of measurement have also occurred, so far as the Pacific! and Atlantic are concerned. It has been calculated that all the waters of the several seas; gathered together would form a sphere of fifty or sixty leagues im diameter, and, supposing the surface of the globe perfectly level, that: + “ World before tlic Delude.” Second edition. BLUE WATER. 13 these waters would submerge it to the depth of more than six hundred :feet. Again, admitting the mean depth of the sea to he thirteen thousand feet, its estimated contents ought to he nearly two thousand two hundred and fifty millions of cubic miles of water ; and, if the sea could be imagined to he dried up, all the sewers of the earth would require to pour their waters into it for forty thousand years, in order to fill the vast basins anew. If we could imagine the entire globe to be divided into one thousand seven hundred and eighty-six parts by weight, we should find approxi- mately, according to Sir John Ilerschel, that the total weight of the oceanic waters is equivalent to one of these parts. The specific weight of sea water is a little above that of fresh water, the proportion being as a thousand to a thousand and twenty-seven. The Dead Sea, which receives no fresh water into its bosom to main- tain itself at the same level as other seas, acquires a higher degree of saltness, and is equal to a thousand and twenty-eight. The specific gravity of sea water is about the same as the milk of a healthy woman. The colour of the sea is continually varying. According to the testimony of the majority of observers, the ocean, seen by reflection, presents a fine azure blue or ultramarine ( cseruleum mare). When the air is pure and the surface cahn this tint softens insensibly, until it is lost and blended with the blue of the heavens. Near the shore it becomes more of a green or glaucus, and more or less brilliant, according to circumstances. There are some days when the ocean assumes a livid aspect, and others when it becomes a very pure green ; at other times, the green is sombre and sad. When the sea is agitated, the green takes a brownish hue. At sunset, the surface of the sea is illumined -with tints of every hue of purple and emerald. Placed in a vase, sea water appears perfectly transparent and colourless. According to Scoiesby, the Polar Seas are of brilliant ultramarine blue. Castaz says of the Mediterranean, that it is celestial blue, and Tuckey describes the equinoctial Atlantic as being of a vivid blue. Many local causes influence the colours of marine waters, and ^ive :hem certain decided and constant shades. A bottom of white sand tVlU communicate a greyish or apple-green colour to the water, if not 14 THE OCEAN WORLD. very deep ; when the sand is yellow, the green appears more sombre ; the presence of rocks is often announced by the deep colour which the sea takes in their vicinity. In the Bay of Loango the waters appear of a deep red, because the bottom is there naturally red. It appears white in the Gulf of Guinea, yellow on the coast of Japan, green to the west of the Canaries, and black round the Maidive group of islands. The Mediterranean, towards the Archipelago, sometimes becomes more or less red. The White and Black Seas appear to be named after the ice of the one and the tempests to which the other is subject. At other times, coloured animalcules give to the water a particular tint. The Bed Sea owes its colour to a delicate microscopic algae ( Tryehodesmium erythraeum), which was subjected to the microscope by Ehrenberg ; but other causes of colouration are suggested. Some microscopists maintain that it is imparted by the shells and other remains of infusoria; others ascribe the colour to the evaporation which goes on unceasingly in that riverless district, producing salt rocks on a great scale all round its shores. In the same manner sea water, concentrated by the action of the solar rays in the salt marshes of the south of France, when they arrive at a certain stage of concentration take a fine red colour, which is due to the presence of some red-shelled animalcules which only appear in sea water of this strength. Strangely enough, these minute creatures die when the waters attain greater density by further concentration, and also if it becomes weaker from the effects of rain. Navigators often traverse long patches of green, red, white, or yellow coloured water, all of which are due to the presence of microscopic crustaceans, medusae, zoophytes, and marine plants ; the \ ermilion Sea on the Californian coasts is entirely due to the latter cause. The phenomena known as Phosphorescence of the Sea, is due to analogous causes. This wonderful sight is observable in all seas, but is most frequent in the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Gulf, and other tropical seas. In the Indian Ocean, Captain Kingman, of the American ship Shooting Star, traversed a zone twenty-three miles in length so filled with phosphorescent animalcules that at seven hours forty-five minutes the water was rapidly assuming a white, milky appearance, and during the night it presented the appearance of a vast field of PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEAS. 15 snow. “ There was scarcely a cloud in the heavens,” he continues, “yet the sky, for about ten degrees above the horizon, appeared as black as if a storm were raging ; stars of the first magnitude shone with a feeble light, and the ‘ Milky Way ’ of the heavens was almost entirely eclipsed by that through which we were sailing.” The animals which produced this appearance were about six inches long, and formed of a gelatinous and translucent matter. At times, the sea was one blaze of light, produced by countless millions of minute globular creatures, called Noetilucee. The motion of a vessel or the plash of an oar will often excite their lucidity, and sometimes, after the ebb of tide, the rocks and seaweed of the coast are glowing with them. Various other tribes of animals there are which contribute to this luminous appearance of the sea. M. Peron thus describes the effect produced by Pyrosoma Atlanticum, on his voyage to the Isle of France : “ The wind was blowing with great violence, the night was dark, and the vessel was making rapid way, when what appeared to be a vast sheet of phosphorus presented itself floating on the waves, and occupying a great space ahead of the ship. The vessel having passed through this fiery mass, it was discovered that the light was occasioned by animalcules swimming about in the sea at various depths round the ship. Those which were deepest in the water looked like red-hot balls, while those on the surface resembled cylinders of red-hot iron. Some of the latter were caught : they were found to vary in size from three to seven inches. All the exterior of the creatures bristled with long thick tubercles, shining like so many diamonds, and these seemed to be the principal seat of its luminosity. Inside also there appeared to be a multitude of oblong narrow glands, exhibiting a high egree of phosphoric power. The colour of these animals when in repose is an opal yellow, mixed with green; but, on the slightest movement, the animal exhibits a spontaneous contractile power, and assumes a luminous brilliancy, passing through various shades of deep red, orange green, and azure blue.” TLe phosphorescence of the sea is a spectacle at once imposing and magnificent. The ship, in plunging through the waves, seems to advance through a sea of red and blue flame, which is thrown off by the keel like so much lightning. Myriads of creatures float and play on the surface of the waves, dividing, multiplying, and reunitin., so as to form one vast field of fire. In stormy weather the luminous’ 1G THE OCEAN WOULD. waves roll and break in a silvery foam. Glittering bodies, which might be taken for fire-fishes, seem to pursue and catch each other — lose their hold, and dart after each other anew. From time immemorial, the phosphorescence of the sea has been observed by navigators. The luminous appearance presents itself on the crest of the waves, which in falling scatters it in all directions. It attaches itself to the rudder and dashes against the bows of the vessel. It plays round the reefs and rocks against which the waves beat, and on silent nights, in the Tropics, its effects are truly magical. This phosphorescence is due chiefly to the presence of a multitude of mollusks and zoophytes which seem to shine by their own light ; they emit a fluid so susceptible of expansion, that in the zigzag movement pursued they leave a luminous train upon the water, which spreads with immense rapidity. One of the most remarkable of these minute mollusks is a species of Pyrosoma, a sort of mucous sac of an inch long, which, thrown upon the deck of a ship, emits a light like a rod of iron heated to a white heat. Sir John Herschel noted on the surface of calm water a very curious form of this phospho- rescence ; it was a polygon of rectilinear shape, covering many square feet of surface, and it illuminated the whole region for some moments with a vivid light, which traversed it with great rapidity. This phosphorescence may also result from another cause. When animal matter is decomposed, it becomes phosphorescent. The bodies of certain fishes, when they become a prey to putrefaction, emit an intense light. MM. Becquerel and Breschet have noted fine phos- phorescent effects from this cause in the waters of the Brenta at Venice. Animal matter in a state of decomposition, proceeding from dead fish which floats on the surface of ponds, is capable of producing large patches of oleaginous matter, which, piled upon the water, com- municates to a considerable extent the phosphorescent aspect. AVhateVer may be the case elsewhere, there are local causes which affect the colour of the waters in certain rivers, and even originate their names. The Guainia of the Bio Negro or Black Kiver, is of a deep brown, which scarcely interferes with the limpidity of its waters. The waters of the Orinoco and the Casiquaire have also a brownish colour. The Ganges is of a muddy brown while the Djumna, which it receives, is green or blue. The whitish colour SALTNESS OF THE SEA. 17 belongs to the Rio Bianco, or White River, and to many other rivers. The Ohio in America, the Torgedale, the Groetha, the Trauu at Ischl, and most of the Norwegian rivers, are of a delicate limpid green. The Yellow River and the Blue River in China are distinguished by the characteristic tint of their waters. The Arkansas, the Red River, and the Lobregat in Catalonia, are remarkable for their red colour, which, like the Dart and other English rivers, they owe to the earth over which they flow, or which their waters hold in suspension. The water of the sea is essentially salt , of a peculiar flavour, slightly acrid and bitter, and a little nauseous. It has an odour perfectly sui yeneris, and is slightly viscous. In short, it includes a great number of mineral salts and some other compounds, which give it a very dis- agreeable taste, and render it unfit for domestic use. It contains nearly all the soluble substances which exist on the globe, but princi- pally chloride of sodium, or marine salt, and sulphates of magnesia, of potassium, and of lime. Pure water is produced by a combination of one volume of oxygen and of two volumes of hydrogen, or in weight 100 oxygen and 12'5() hydrogen. Sea water is composed of the same ; but we find there, besides, other elements, the presence of which chemistry reveals to us. In 1000 grains of sea water the fodowing ingredients are found : Water . . . 962-0 Chloride of sodium . . . 27' I Chloride of magnesium ... 5-4 Chloride of potassium ... 0'4 Bromide of magnesia ... 01 Sulphate of magnesia ... 1-2 Sulphate of lime . . . 0-8 Carbonate of lime ... 0-1 Leaving a residuum of . ... 2-9 1000 consisting ol sulphuretted hydrogen, hydrochlorate of ammonia, iodine, iion, copper, and even silver in various quantities and proportions, according to the locality of the specimen. In examining the plates of copper taken from the bottom of a ship at Valparaiso which had been long at sea, distinct traces of silver were found deposited by the sea. Finally, we find dissolved in the ocean a peculiar muciJ which seems of a mixed animal and vegetable nature; organic matter 18 THE OCEAN WORLD. proceeding from the successive decomposition of innumerable genera- tions of animals which have disappeared since the beginning of the world. This matter has been described by the Count Marsigli, who designates it sometimes under the name of glu, sometimes as an unctuosity. The numerous salts which exist in the sea can neither be deposited in its bed, nor exhaled with the vapour, to he again poured upon the soil in showers of rain. Particular agents retain these salts in solution, transform them, and prevent their accumulation. Hence sea water always maintains a certain degree of saltness and bitterness, and the ocean continues to present the chemical characters which it has exhibited in all times, varying only in certain localities where more or less fresh water is poured into the sea basin from rivers : thus the salt- ness of the Mediterranean is greater than that of the ocean, probably because it loses more water by evaporation than it receives from its fresh- water affluents. For the opposite reason, the Black and the Caspian Seas are less charged with these salts. The Dead Sea is so strongly impreg- nated with salt that the body of a man floats on its surface without sinking, like a piece of cork upon fresh water. The supposed cause is excessive evaporation and the absence of rivers of any importance. The saltness of the sea seems to be generally less towards the Poles than the Equator ; but there are exceptions to this law. In the Irish Channel, near the Cumberland coast, the water contains salt equal to the fortieth of its weight; on the coast of France, it is equal to one thirty-second ; in the Baltic, it is equal to a thirtieth ; at Tenerifle, a twenty-eighth ; and off the coast of Spain, to a sixteenth. Again, in many places the sea is less salt at the surface than at the bottom. In the Straits of the Dardanelles, at Constantinople, the proportion is as seventy-two to sixty-two. In the Mediterranean, it is as thirty- two to twenty-nine. It is also stated that as the salt increases at a certain depth, the water becomes less bitter. At the mouth ot the great rivers it is scarcely necessary to add that the water is always less saline than on shores which receive no supplies of fresh water ; the same remark applies to sea water in the vicinity of polar ice, the melting of which is productive of much fresh water. A recent analysis of the water of the Dead Sea by M. lloux gives about two pounds of salt to one gallon of water. No mineral water, if we except that of the Salt Lake of Utah, is so largely impregnated with saline substances; the quantity ot bromide ot magnesia is 0 do grammes SALTNESS OF THE SEA. 19 to the litre. The water of the Dead Sea is, according to these pro- portions, the richest natural depository of bromide, which it might be made to furnish abundantly. The waters of the great Lake Utah and Lake Ourmiah in Persia are both highly saline. In Lake Ourmiah, as in the Dead Sea, the proportion of salt is six times greater than in the ocean. Many of our fresh-water lakes were probably salt originally, but have by degrees lost their saline properties by the mingling of their Waters with those of the rivers which traverse or flow into them. Among the lakes which appear to have been divested of their saline properties may be mentioned the great lakes ot Canada and the Sea of Baikal, in all. of which seals and other marine animals are still found, which have become acclimatized as the water gradually became fresh. The saltness of sea water increases its density, and at the same time its buoyancy, thus adapting it for bearing ships and other burdens on its bosom ; moreover, to abbreviate slightly Dr. Maury’s remark, “ the brine of the ocean is the ley of the earth.” From it the sea derives dynamical power, and its currents their main strength. It is the salt of the sea that imparts to its waters those curious anomalies in the laws ot freezing and ot thermal dilatation, that assist the rays of heat to penetrate its bosom ; the salts of the sea invest it with adaptations which fresh water could not possess. In the latter case, the maximum density would be thirty-nine degrees five seconds instead of twenty- five degrees six seconds, when the dynamical force of the sea would be insufficient to put the Gulf Stream in motion. Nor could it regulate those climates we call marine. We have said that sea water contains nearly all the soluble sub- stances which exist m the globe. “The water which evaporates from the sea,” says Youman, in his “ Chemistry,” “ is nearly pure, containing but very minute traces of salts. Falling as rain upon the land, it washes the soil, percolates through the rocky layers, and becomes charged with saline substances, which are borne seaward by the returning currents. The ocean, therefore, is the great depository of all substances that water can dissolve and carry down from the surface of the continents; and, as there is no channel for their escape thev would constantly accumulate, were it not for the creatures which inhabit the seas, and utilize the material thus brought within their reach. These substances are chloride of sodium or marine salt THE OCEAN WOULD. 20 sulphates of magnesia, potassa, lime, and other substances which the water of various seas is found to contain. In the year- 1847, I made an analysis of water taken a few leagues from the coast at Havre, which gave the following result, from one litre (1 pint -760773) :* Chloride of sodium . Chloride of magnesium . Sulphate of magnesia Sulphate of lime . Sulphate of potassu . Carbonate of lime Silicate of soda Bromide of sodium Bromide of magnesium . Oxide of iron, carbonate and phosphate of mag-1 Only nesia, and oxide of manganese . . . . / traces. 32-657 Grammes 25704 2-905 2-462 1-210 0-094 0-132 0-017 0-103 0-030 The water of the Mediterranean contains more salts than that of the ocean. The following are, according to M. Usiglio, who was one of a commission sent to examine the different kinds of salt water in the south of France, the component parts of one hundred gallons of Mediterranean water : Chloride of sodium . Chloride of potassium Chloride of magnesium Sulphate of magnesia Chloride of calcium . Sulphate of lime . Carbonate of lime Bromide of sodium . Protoxide of iron . 29-524 0- 405 3-219 2-477 6080 1- 557 0114 0356 0-003 Total 43-735 We conclude, from the quantity of sea salt contained in the wate of the ocean, that, if it were spread over the surface of the globe, it would form a layer of more than thirty feet in height. * Exan.cn Cmnpuratif des Principalcs euux Miuemles Salines de Frunce ct d’Alle- magne, par MM. 1, Figuier ot Mialhc. Read at the Academe de Medec.n, -ml of May, 1848. SALTNESS OF THE SEA. 21 The salt contained in sea water gives it a greater density than fresh water; its average specific weight is 1-027. The density of the water of the Mediterranean is, according to M. Usiglio, l- 025 when at the temperature of seventy degrees. But the saltness of the sea varies very much under the influence of a great many local circum- stances, among which we must count principally currents, winds favourable to evaporation, rivers coming from the continents, &c. It has been remarked that the sea is less salt towards the Poles than at the Equator ; that the saltness increases, in general, with the distance from land, and the depth of the water ; that the interior seas, such as the Baltic, the Black Sea, the White Sea, the Sea of Mar- mora, and the Yellow Sea, are less salt than the ocean. The Mediter- ranean is an exception to this last rule ; it is, as we have seen, salter than the ocean. This difference is explained by the fact that the quantity of fresh water brought into it by rivers is less than that lost by evaporation. The Mediterranean must therefore grow salter with time, unless its water is discharged into the ocean by a counter current, which would run under the current coming from the Atlantic by the Straits of Gibraltar. The Black Sea, on the contrary, the water of which has a density of only 1-013, receives from rivers more fresh water than it loses by evaporation. The saltness of this interior sea is only half as intense as that of the ocean. The Sea of Azov and the Caspian Sea are still less salt than the Black Sea. The following table shows the relative composition of the water in these three interior seas : In ion Gallons of Water. Black Sea. Density, 1*013. Sea of Azov. Density, 1 009. Caspian Sea Density, 1*005. Chloride of sodium . . Chloride of potassium . Chloride of magnesium Sulphate of magnesia. . Sulphate of lime . . ’ ’ Bicarbonate of magnesia Bicarbonate of lime Bromide of magnesium 14*0195 91892 1-3045 1-4704 0*1047 0*2080 0-3646 0*0052 9-6583 0*1279 0*8870 0*7642 0*2879 01286 0*0221 0*0035 3*6731 0*0761 0*6324 1-2389 0*4903 00129 0*1705 traces 17-6663 11-8795 6*2942 22 THU OCEAN WORLD. In lakes without any outlet, as the Dead Sea, and the Lake of Ural, the degree of saltness has considerably augmented. Numerous experiments have proved that the water of the Dead Sea is six times salter than that of the ocean. MM. Boutron and O’Henry analysed, in April, 1850, after the rainy season, some water of the Dead Sea, taken at about two leagues from the mouth of the Jordan; its density was then L10. The saltness of sea water makes it more fitted to carry ships, because its density is increased by the salts which are dissolved in it. Besides this, these salts contribute to prevent what is called the corruption of water , caused by decomposition of the organic matter contained in it. By the table representing the composition of the water of the ocean and of that of the Mediterranean, we see that salts of lime and potassium, as well as iodine and silicium, are only found in infinitely small quantities. Nevertheless, the lime and silicium contained in the sea water are of very great importance, for these quantities, which appear to us so small in the table of a chemical analysis, become enormous in the entire extent of the ocean. The marine plants take in the lime, the silicium, the potassa, and the iodides which are dissolved in the sea water ; these mineral substances enter into their textures. It is from the carbonate of lime and silicium that the marine animals form their solid covering, their shell or carapace. The infusoria make use of the lime, silicium, and potassa for the same purpose. It is by the life and habits of the polypi that we explain these Coral Islands found in the sea, the existence of which has been a subject ot much astonishment, and ought, therefore, to find a place in this chapter. The Pacific and Indian Oceans are studded with islands in a state of formation, which owe their origin to the polypi and corallines. These zoophytes extract from the sea water the lime and silicium which are found there in the state of soluble salts. In order to grow and develope, they must be continually under water. They are con- stantly producing calcareous deposits ; these deposits rise rapidly, and at last reach the surface of the water. Then the seaweed and rubbish of all kinds that the sea carries along with it, arrested by these emerged masses, cover them with a layer ot fertile soil which is soon covered with vegetation, as the birds and the waves bring seeds thither. The Coral Islands of the Pacific are formed in this way. (JURAL ISLANDS. These islands are in general well wooded. It is almost always the case that the summits of the Coral Islands, which emerge simultaneously round another submarine summit, join and form a circuit in the shape of a ring, the centre of which is a little lake, in which are found large quantities of shells producing pearls and mother-of-pearl. The islands of Oeno and Whitsunday, in the archipelago of Pomotou, are of this kind. With time, this ring grows broader ; the openings, which gave access to the interior lagoons, close ; and when the little interior lake has been filled or dried up, the island becomes gradually like an ordinary island. The archipelagoes of the Maldives, Chagos, and the Laccadives, in the south of India, are all of madreporic origin. Among those islands, designated under the name of atolh, there are some so recent that our fathers might have seen them rise from the bed of the ocean. These aggregations form numerous reefs. The large islands of this archipelago are surrounded by a barrier of reefs, the slow work of the polypi, which, rising at a certain distance from the coast, renders the approach very dangerous. The eastern coast of Aus- tralia, between nine and twenty-five degrees of south latitude, is provided with a belt of this sort. The coral bank, called the Great Barrier, is a thousand and sixty-two miles long, and has an average breadth of thirty miles, giving a surface of thirty-one thousand eight hundred and sixty square miles. The walls formed by the polypi are always perpendicular, and the sea is often of great depth in the neighbourhood of these islands. Sometimes the first plateau is destroyed, and lowered by the action of the water; the polypi then begin their edifice again upon this new base. . The island of Tahiti rests on a volcanic shell, the sum- mit of which is about a mile and a quarter above the level of the sea. Mr. Darwin has given a very interesting description of the atolls of the bunda group. We borrow from this description some details rela- tive to these extraordinary formations. It was formerly believed that the circular structure of coral reefs was caused by old volcanic craters, upon which the polypi built up their edifices. But this theory does not accord with fact, and it seems in general, difficult to believe in a volcanic upheaval of the ground as the base of madreporic formations; for the polypi cannot live under 24 TIIE OCEAN WORLD. very deep water, and it would be impossible to admit that the bottom of the sea has everywhere Yisen to the same level. It is, therefore, more probable that the foundations of the Coral Islands are only natural elevations of the bottom of the sea, or submerged mountains, not far from the surface of which the polypi have taken possession, in order to raise their structures. It is a curious fact that the barriers of coral which run parallel to the coast are always sepa- rated by a broad canal, analogous to the lagoons in the atolls, and of a breadth varying from one to twelve miles. One of these reefs in- closes at times a dozen rocky islands. In the island of Bolabola, the barrier is transformed into dry land ; but the white line of enormous reefs, with small islands crowned with cocoa-nut trees scattered here and there, separates the dark ocean from the placid surface of the interior canal, whose limpid water bathes an alluvial soil covered with a tropical vegetation. This many-coloured riband stretches out at the foot of the wild and abrupt mountains of the centre. In the year 1858, Mr. Darwin explored in particular the island of Keeling, or of cocoa-nuts, to the south of Sumatra. It is formed of a circle of reefs, crowned by a wreath of very narrow islets, which leave towards the north a passage for ships. In the interior of the anchor- age the water is a calm and transparent lagoon, so pure that the white and level bottom is clearly seen ; this lagoon is many miles broad. Mr. Darwin landed with Captain Fitzroy upon an islet at the farther end of the lagoon, in order to see the waves break on the reefs to windward. The cocoa-nut palms formed festoons of emerald-green, clearly defined, against the deep blue of the sky ; the flat, calcareous beach, with scattered blocks of white stone, was bathed by the foaming waves Besides the substances named, sea water also contains, in infinitesi- nlally small quantities, metals such as iron, copper, lead, and silver. The old copper collecting round the keels of ships sometimes contains so much silver that it has been thought worth extracting ! A curious calculation has been attempted, based on the age of ships and the distance they have gone during all their voyages, to show that the sea contains in solution two million tons of silver.* * Sir .T. Herschel's “ Physical Geography,” p. 22, gives the basis and details of this calculation. CORAL ISLANDS. 25 The following question is one that the uneducated often asks himself without being able to find a satisfactory answer; and the learned have not been more fortunate in their interrogations : Whence comes the salt and other substances held in solution in the ocean ? In other terms, what is the cause of the saltne3s of sea water ? Some persons take delight, very foolishly, in satisfying childish curiosity by silly answers. Born near the shores of the Mediter- ranean, with the sea always before my eyes, I once, when quite a child, addressed this question to those who were near me. Some persons, who pretended to be very clever, told me that the sea was salt, because certain ships were charged to throw into it regularly large pyramids of salt like those we see heaped up on the banks of our salt-pits. It is not irreverent to say that the theories presented by certain savants to account for the saltness of the sea are not much more to the purpose than the naive explanation with which I was answered in my childhood. Some of them, indeed, state that the salt is engendered spontaneously at the bottom of the sea; others, that the tributary rivers are sufficient to supply it. If our readers will turn back to the first few pages of “ The World before the Deluge,” they will understand the very simple geological explanation that we are going to give ot the origin of different substances dissolved in sea water. In the first stage ol our planet, before the watery vapours contained in the primitive atmosphere were condensed, and before they had begun to fall on the earth in the form of boiling rain, the shell of the earth contained an infinite variety of heterogeneous mineral substances, some soluble in water, others not. When rain fell on the burning sur- face for the first time, the waters became charged with all the soluble substances, which were reunited and afterwards deposited ; accumu- lating in the large depressions of the soil. The seas of the primitive globe were thus formed of rain water, holding in solution all that the earth had given up, collected in large basins. Chloride of sodium, sul- phates of soda, magnesia, potassium, lime, and silicium, in the form of soluble silicate; in a word, every soluble matter that the primitive globe contained formed part of the mineral contingent of this water. If we reflect that through all time up to the present dav none of the "eneral laws of nature have changed— if we consider that the soluble substances contained in the water of the primitive seas have remained there, 26 THE OCEAN WOULD. and that the fresh water of the rivers constantly replaces the water which disappears by evaporation — we have the true explanation of the saltness of sea water. “ It is a very simple theory, it is true,'1 adds M. Figuier, “ but one that we have found nowhere, and the responsi- bility of which we therefore claim. The chloride of sodium is by no means the only substance dissolved in sea water. It con'ains, besides, many other mineral substances : in short, every soluble salt on the face of the globe, and, along with them, portions of different metals in infinitely small quantities.” The mean temperature of the surface of the sea is nearly the same as the atmosphere, so long as no currents of heat or cold interpose their perturbing influence. In the neighbourhood of the Tropics, it ap- pears that the surface of the water is slightly wanner than the ambient air, but experiments on the temperature of the sea from the surface to the bottom reveal, according to our author* “ some evidence which establishes a curious law. In very deep water a perfectly uniform temperature of four degrees below zero prevails, which corresponds, as physics have established, to the maximum density of water. Under the Equator this temperature exists at the depth of seven thousand feet. In the Polar regions, where water is colder at the surface, this temperature is maintained at four thousand six hundred feet. The isothermal lines of four degrees form a line of demarcation between the Zones, where the surface of the sea is colder, and those where it is warmer than the bed of four degrees below zero.” This is more clearly shown in Fig. 4, which represents a section of the ocean, the curved line which touches two points at the surface indicating the depths where the temperature is constantly fixed at four degrees. Dr. Maury’s account of this phenomenon is asserted with less confi- dence. The existence of an isothermal floor of the ocean, as he calls it, was first suggested by the observations of Kotzebue, Admiral Beechey, and Sir James C. Boss. “ Its temperature, according to Kotzebue, is thirty-six degrees Falrr., or four degrees Cent.; the depth of this bed, of invariable and uniform temperature, is twelve hundred fathoms at the Equator ; thence it gradually rises to the parallel of about fifty-six degrees north and south, when it crops out, and there the temperature of the sea from top to bottom is conjectured * I.,, Terre et les Mew,” p. 7. Troisieinc E<1. USES OF SALT SEAS. to bo permanent at thirty-six degrees. The place of this outcrop, no doubt, shifts with the seasons, vibrating north and south, after the manner of the Calm belts. Proceeding onwards to the Frigid zones, this aqueous stratum of an unchanging temperature dips again, and QJ 3 -d PolrTT Equa tor Fig. 4. Thermal Lines of equal Temperature. continues to incline till it reaches the Poles at the depth of seven hundred and fifty fathoms ; so that on the equatorial side of the out- crop the water above the isothermal floor is the warmer, hut in Polar seas the supernatant water is the colder.” In the saline properties of sea water Maury discovers one of the principal forces from which currents in the ocean proceed. “The brine of the ocean is the ley of the earth,” he says ; “ from it the sea derives dynamical powers, and its currents their main strength. Hence, to understand the dynamics of the ocean, it is necessary to study the effects of their saltness upon the equilibrium of the waves. Why is the sea made salt ? It is the salts of the sea that impart to its waters those curious anomalies in (he laws of freezing and of thermal dilatation. It is the salts of the sea that assist the ravs of heat to penetrate its bosom.” The circulation of the ocean is indis- pensable to the distribution of temperature -to the maintenance of the meteorological and climatic conditions which rule the develop- ment of life; and this circulation could not exist— at least the character of its waters would be completely changed— if they 'were resh in place of salt. “ Let us imagine,” says M. Julien “ that he sea, now entirely composed of fresh water, of one uniform temperature from the Pole to the Equator, and from the surface to 28 THE OCEAN WORLD. its greatest depths; the solar heat would penetrate the liquid beds nearest to the Equator; it would dilate them, so as to raise them 1 1 above their primitive level ; by the single effect of gravitation, they would glide on the surface towards the polar zones. The absence of: all solar radiation would tend, on the contrary, to cool and contract them without this tendency. An exchange would be established! from the extremities towards the centre; in other words, a counter: current of cold and heavy water, calculated to replace the losses occa- • sioned by the action of solar radiation, would descend from the Poles,, but quite maintaining itself beneath the light and warm current fromi the Equator.” In a like system of general circulation, the physical properties of: pure water, which attains its maximum of density four degrees below zero, would produce the most singular consequences. As its tempera- ture rose above that point, the water would become lighter, having, consequently, a tendency to ascend towards the upper beds. After r this, the equatorial current, meeting in its progress towards the Poles- the cold water, would itself be cooled down ; and when its temperature: had reached four degrees below zero, being now heavier than the polarr current, would change places with it, descending until it reached water: equally dense, while the polar current would ascend. Hence would! arise a sort of confusion of currents which would give to a fresh-water ocean the strangest results, disarranging every instant the regular r circulation of its waters. It could not be so, however, in an ocean of: salt water, which attains its maximum specific gravity at two degrees^ below zero. By evaporation at the surface it is concentrated and pre- cipitated, and thus rendered denser than that immediately below the surface. It consequently sinks, while the lower beds come up to replace, . in order to modify it, and in turn to be precipitated in the same manner. “In this manner we find established a continually ascending andi descending movement, which carries down into the depths of ocean: the water warmed at the surface by the solar rays of the Torrid zone. This double vertical current facilitates and prepares the grand horizon- tal current which puts these submarine reservoirs of heat in com- munication with the lower beds of the glacial sea. In the Arctic basin the clouds, the melted snow, and the great rivers, which have, their mouths on the north of both .continents, produce considerable, quantities of fresh water, which, mixing with the waves of the Polar: USES OF SALT SEAS. 29 • Sea, form a lied of mean density light enough to maintain itself and flow off towards the Atlantic Ocean. These surface movements deter- mine in the lower regions certain contrary movements, whence origi- nate the powerful counter currents which ascend the Straits from Baffin’s Bay and reappear in the mysterious Polynia of Kane, diffus- ing there its treasure of heat brought from intertropical seas.” Dr. Kane, in his interesting Narrative, reports an open sea north of the parallel of eighty-two degrees which he and his party crossed a barrier of ice eighty miles broad to reach, and before he reached it the ther- mometer marked sixty degrees. Beyond this ice-hound region he found himself on the shores of an iceless sea, extending in an unbroken sheet of water as far as the eye could reach towards the Pole. Its waves were dashing on the beach with the swell of a great ocean ; the tides ebbed and flowed. Now the question arises, Where did those tides have their origin ? The tidal wave of the Atlantic could not have passed under the icy bamer which De Haven found so firm ; therefore they must have been cradled in the cold sea round the Pole ; in which case it follows that most, if not all, the unexplored regions about the Pole must he covered with deep water, the only source of strong and regular tides. Seals were sporting and waterfowl feeding in this open sea, as Dr. Kane tells us, and the temperature of the water which rolled in and dashed at his feet with measured beat was thirty-six degrees, while the bottom of the icy barrier of eighty miles was probably hundreds of feet below the surface level. “The existence of these tides,” says Maury, “with the immense flow and drift which annually take place from the Polar Seas and the Atlantic, suggests many conjectures as to the condition of these unex- p ored regions. Whalemen have always been puzzled as to the breed- ing place ot the great whale. It is a cold-water animal, and, following up the train of thought, the question arises, Is not the nursery for the great whale m this Polar Sea, which is so set about and hemmed in by a hedge of ice that man may not trespass there ?” One or two points worthy ot notice may be recorded here. Shallow a ei, and water near the coast, or covering raised sand-hanks, is colder than water m the open sea. Alexander von Humboldt explains tl is phenomenon by supposing that deep waters of higher tenner,, “ and mingle with'thl 30 THE OCEAN WORLD. Fogs are frequently formed over sand-banks, because the cold water which covers them produces a local precipitation of atmospheric vapour. The contour of these fogs are perfectly defined when seen from a distance : they reproduce the form and accidents due to the sub- marine soil. Moreover, we often see clouds arrested over these points, which look from afar like the peaks of mountains. CHAPTER II. CURRENTS OP THE OCEAN. seas that sweep The three-decker's oaken mast.” Tfnnyson. The ocean is a scene of unceasing agitation ; “ its vast surface rises and falls,” to use the image suggested by Sclileiden, “ as if it were gifted with a gentle power of respiration ; its movements, gentle or powerful, slow or rapid, are all determined by differences of temperature.” Heat increases its volume and changes the specific gravity of the water, which is dilated or condensed in proportion to the change of temperature. In proportion as it cools, water increases in density and descends into the depths until it reaches a constant temperature of our degrees twenty-five minntes below zero, which it preserves in all •tWndes at the depth of a thousand yards, according to M. D’Urville It the water continues to cool, and reaches zero, it becomes lighter than was at four degrees twenty-five minutes, and ascends in a nataro ’ S< ‘n’*,1™" by“ ndmiraUe provision of ritZ’is i ° V l^ n‘ tlK SUrfaCe’ 80 l0,1S as tbe te“l«- a^nds to lour degrees twenty-five minutes, water is light, and ascends to the surface, while colder water sinks to the bottom Below four degrees twenty-five minutes the process is reversed the I V°rCe Equator, the L’c near the Poles. The evaporation, which is in continual operation in warn, seas, forming vast rain-clouds at the expense of the sea is pensated by unceasing currents of colder wate - flowing from the PoT" Phis evaporation has a direct influence, moreover on Z f 1- « water, and is pointed out by Dr. Maury as a toniarkable instoje THE OCEAN WORLD. of the compensations by which the oceanic waters are governed : “ According to Rodgers’ observations,” he says, “ the average specific gravity of sea water on the parallels of thirty-four degrees north and south, at a mean temperature of sixty-four degrees, is just what it ought to be, according to saline and thermal laws ; but its specific gravity, when taken from the Equator at a mean temperature ol eighty- one degrees, is much greater than, according to the same laws, it ought : to be — the observed difference being ‘0015, whereas it ought to be •0025. Let us inquire,” he adds, “ what makes the equatorial waters so much heavier than they ought to be. “ The anomaly occurs in the trade-wind region, and is best de- veloped between the parallel of forty degrees in the North Atlantic and the Equator, where the water grows warmer, but not proportionally lighter. The water sucked up by the trade-winds is fresh water, and the salt it contained, being left behind, is just sufficient to counteract by its weight the effect of thermal dilatation upon the specific gravity of water between the parallels of thirty-four degrees north and south. The thirsting of the trade-winds for vapour is so balanced as to pro- duce perfect compensation, and a more beautiful instance than we have here stumbled upon is not, it appears to me, to be found in the mecha- nism of the universe.” The oceanic currents are due to a great number of causes: the*, duration and force of the winds, for instance; the rise and fall of: tides all over the globe; the variations in the density of the waters;; according to its temperature, and the evaporating powers of the atmo- sphere ; the depth and degree of saltness to which we have already alluded; finally, to the variations of barometric pressure. The currents which furrow the ocean present a striking contrast withi the immobility of the neighbouring waters; they form rivers of a» determinate breadth, whose banks are formed by the water in repose,, and whose course is often made quite perceptible by the vrachs and! other aquatic plants which follow in their tram. _ . In order to comprehend the origin of these pelagic rivers, it is- necessary to consider the laws which govern the atmospheric currents, in particular the trade-winds. “ Hence,” says Maury, “ m studying, the system of oceanic circulation, we set out with the very simple, assumption, that from whatever part of the ocean a current is ioundi to run, to that same part a current of equal volume is bound to. CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN. 33 return ; for on this principle is based the whole system of currents and counter currents.” The differences of temperature between equinoctial and polar countries generate two opposing currents, the upper one proceeding from the Equator to the Poles, the lower one directed from the Poles towards the Equator. On reaching the Equator, the cold current of air from the Poles is warmed and rarified, and ascends to the upper beds of the atmosphere, wThence it is again led to its point of departure ; there it is again cooled, and returns with the lower current towards the tropical regions. But the rotatory movement of the earth modifies the direction of these atmo- spheric currents. The movement by which it is carried from west to east being almost nothing at the Poles, hut inconceivably rapid under the Equator, it follows that the cold air, in proportion as it advances towards the Tropics, ought to incline a little towards the west. This is just what takes place with these counter currents. The nortli-east trade-winds, which prevail in the northern hemisphere, move in a sort of spiral curve, turning to the west as they rush from the Poles to the Equator, and in the opposite direction as they move from the Equator towards the Poles ; the immediate cause of this motion being the rotation of the earth on its axis. “ The earth,” says Dr. Maury, moves from west to east. Now, if we imagine a particle of atmo- sphere at the North Pole, where it is at rest, to be put in motion in a straight line towards the Equator, we can easily see how this particle of air, coming from the very axis of diurnal rotation, where it did not par- take of the diurnal motion, would, in consequence of its own vis inertise, find as it travelled south that the earth was slipping from under it, as it were, and it would appear to be coming from the north-east and going towards the south-west ; in other words, it would be a north-east wind.” In the same manner, the upper currents of air, which proceed towards the Poles with equatorial rapidity, ought to outstrip the atmo- spheric beds, which are gifted with much smaller rapidity of motion towards the Poles, and turn them towards the east in consequence. hese are the south-west and north-west counter trade-winds which passing above the north and south-east trades, often sweep the’ surface o the ;n thf latltudes of the Temperate zone. The two trades are separated by a belt more or less broad, where the friction experienced at the surface of the sea neutralizes their impulse towards the west • in general, the current of air there is an ascending current. This belt i) 34 THE OCEAN WORLD. which does not exactly correspond with the Equator, is called the Zone, i of Calms, where atmospheric tempests frequently occur, and the winds make the entire tour of the compass, which has acquired for them the name of tornadoes. The trade-winds, whose movement towards the west is retarded hy the friction which the waves of the ocean oppose to them, communi- • cate to these waves, by a sort of reaction, a tendency towards the west, , or, to speak more exactly, towards the south-west in the northern hemi- • sphere, and towards the north-west in the opposite hemisphere. The currents on the surface of the water which result from this reaction, . reunite under the Equator, and form the grand equinoctial current which impels the waters of the east towards the west. This movement is stronger at the edges than in the middle of the current, because the force which produces it acts there with more energy : it results from i this, that the currents bifurcate more readily when any obstacle pre- • sents itself to its movement. In the Atlantic Ocean, bifurcation takes ■ place a little to the south of the Equator ; the southern branch descends s along the coast of Brazil, and probably returns by reascending along the west coast of Africa. The northern branch follows the coast of Brazil 1 and Guiana, enters the Sea of the Antilles, and directs its course, rein- forced by the current which reaches it from the north-east, into the Bay of Honduras, traverses the Yucatan Channel, and enters the Gulf! of Mexico, whence it debouches by the Florida Channel, under the name of the Gulf Stream. Of this oceanic marvel Dr. Maury observes - that “there is a river in the bosom of the ocean; in the several 1 droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows;, its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm ; . it takes its rise in the Gulf of Mexico, and empties itself into the Arctic. Seas. This mighty river is the Gulf Stream. In no other part of the world is there such a majestic flow of water ; its current is more rapid 1 than the Amazon, more impetuous than the Mississippi, and its volume- is more than a thousand times greater. - Its waters, as far as thee Carolina coast, are of indigo blue ; they are so distinctly indicated1 that their line of junction can be marked by the eye.” Such is Dr. Maury’s description of this powerful current of warm water, which: traverses the Atlantic Ocean, and influences in no slight manner the. climate of Northern Europe, and especially our own shores. The Gulf Stream thus described by the American savant issues from CUBRENTS OF THE OCEAN. 35 the Florida Channel, with a breadth of thirty-four miles, and a depth of two thousand two hundred feet, moving at the rate of four and a half miles per hour. The temperature of the water in the vicinity is about thirty degrees Cent. From the American coast the current takes a north-east direction towards Spitzbergen, its velocity and volume diminishing as it expands in breadth. Towards the forty-third degree of latitude it forms two branches, one of which strikes the coast of Ireland and of Norway, whither it frequently transports seeds of tropical origin : it also warms the frozen waters of the glacial sea. The other branch, inclining towards the south, not far from the Azores, visits the coast of Africa, whence it returns to the Antilles. Throughout this vast circuit may be seen all sorts of plants and driftwood, with waifs and strays of every description borne on the bosom of the ocean. “ Mid- way the Atlantic, in the triangular space between the Azores, Cana- ries, and Cape de A erd Islands, is the great Sargasso Sea, covering in area equal in extent to the Mississippi Valley : it is so thickly slatted over with the Gulf Weed ( Fucus Natans), that the speed of vessels passing through it is actually retarded, and to the companions >f Columbus it seemed to mark the limits of navigation ; they be- taine alarmed. To the eye at a little distance it seemed sufficiently ubstantial to walk upon.” These moving vegetable masses, always ;reen, which tail off to a steady breeze, serving as an anemometer to the uarmer, afford an asylum to multitudes of mollusks and crustaceans. The Gulf Stream plays a grand part in the Atlantic system. It arries the tepid water of the equinoctial regions into the high latitudes ; ’eyond the fortieth parallel the temperature is sixteen degrees Cent, rged by the south-west winds which predominate in that zone its epic! waters mix with those of the Northern Sea, softening the rigour f the climate in these regions. To the south of the great bank of !lornUS T ’ VT CUirent} in vast volum6 rasllillg from the °nda Straff s, meets the cold currents descending from the Arctic Circle hrough Baffin s Bay and the Sea of Greenland, running with equal elocity towards the south. A portion of these waters reascend towards 16 P° 0 al0D? the Western coast of Greenland. It is to this conflict of ie polar and equatorial waters, that the formation of the banks of ewfound land is ascribed. Each of these great currents having un singly deposited the debris carried in its bosom, the bank has beeii tus loinied bit by bit m the concourse of ages. t> 2 36 THE OCEAN WORLD. The difference of temperature between tbe Gulf Stream and the waters it traverses gives birtb inevitably to tempests and cyclones. In 1780 a terrible storm ravaged tbe Antilles, in which twenty thousand 1 persons perished. The ocean quitted its bed and inundated whole cities; the trunks of trees, mingled with other debris, were tossed 1 into the air ; numerous catastrophes ol this kind have earned for the Gulf Stream the title of the King of the Tempests. In consequent of the numerous nautical documents which have been placed at the a| command of the National Observatory of Washington, and the admir- - able use made of them by the late Naval Secretary and his assistants,., the directions and range of these cyclones engendered by the Gulfi Stream may be foreseen, and their most dangerous lavages turned! aside. As an example of the utility of Dr. Maury’s labours in settlings the direction of storms in the traject of the Gulf Stream, we quote a.i well-known instance : In the month of December, 18o9, the Ameiicana packet San Francisco was employed as a transport to convey a iegi-v ment to California. It was overtaken by one of these sudden storms, - which placed the ship and its freight in a most dangerous position.! A single wave, which swept the deck, tore out the masts, stopped the* engines, and washed overboard a hundred and twenty-nine persons,- officers ’and soldiers. From that moment the unfortunate steamer floated upon the waters, a waif abandoned to the fury of the wind.. The day after the disaster the Seen Francisco was seen in this desperate- situation by a ship which reached New York, although unable to assist- her Another ship met her some days after, but, like the other, could) render no assistance. When the report reached New York, two. steamers were despatched to her assistance ; hut in what direction were they to go ? what part of the ocean were they to explore ? The luminaries of Washington Observatory were appealed to ! Having consulted his charts as to the direction and limits of the Gulf Stream at that period of the year, Dr. Maury traced on a chart the spot to which the disabled steamer was likely to be driven by the current, and the course to be taken by the vessels sent to her assistance. The crew and passengers of the San Francisco were saved before their arnvaU Three ships, which had seen their distressing situation, had been a W to reach them, and the steamers sent to their assistance only arrived to witness the safety of the passengers and crew. But the pomt whH the steamer foundered shortly after they were transferred to <*• CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN. 37 rescuing ships was precisely that indicated by Dr. Maury. If the ships sent to their assistance had reached in time, the triumph of Science would have been complete. \ The equinoctial currents of the Pacific are very imperfectly known. It is believed, however, that they traverse the Great Ocean in its whole length, and bifurcate opposite the Asiatic coast, where the weakest branch bends northward until it encounters the polar current from Behring’s Straits, when it returns along the Mexican coast. The larger branch inclines towards the south, passing round Australia, where it is met by one or many counter currents coming from the Indian Ocean— of the complicated and dangerous nature of which both Cook ind La Peyrouse speak. The cold waters from the Antarctic Pole are carried towards the Equator by three great oceanic rivers. The first bifurcates in forty-five legrees ; one portion goes round Cape Horn ; the other— Humboldt’s jurrent— ascends the Chilian and Peruvian coasts up to the Equator, meliorating the rainless climate as it goes, and making it delightful! V second great current takes the direction of the African coast, and s divided at the Cape, ascending both the east and west coasts of Africa. On either side of the warm current which escapes from the ntertropical parts of the Indian Ocean, but especially along the Austra- tan coast, a polar current wends its way from the Antarctic regions arrying supplies of cold water to modify the climate and restore the qmhbnum in that part of the world. This cold current turns at first awards the west, then towards the south in the direction of Madagascar • jore to the south still it is driven back by the polar current from Cape om. it is thus that the warm waters from the Bay of Bengal, ressed by the Indian polar current, circulate between Africa and °“ J >raiCh 0f the eurrent 8weeP“g «>« south oast of this vast continent. ™ur ?T“ Wblch reign ia the Indian 0cean tend sti11 more to 7 i nlT T^’ 8'll1iCiently intl'ic°te “d X! ^thtb i PrfeDt l° °CCUpy the readCT’s attention irther with these questions of intricate currents. We We already spoken of a submarine current which anuears t„ >rry the waters of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic OcZ T ° ustenee ia in some respects established by calculations, which prove 38 THE OCEAN WORLD. that the quantity of salt water supplied by the upper current through the Straits of Gibraltar is equal to seventy-two cubic miles per annum, . while the quantity of fresh water brought clown by the rivers is equal lj to six, and the quantity lost by evaporation to twelve cubic miles per t) annum. This would leave an annual excess of sixty-six cubic miles, i, if the equilibrium was not re-established by an under current flowing ; into the Atlantic. This hypothesis would appear to have beeni confirmed by a very curious fact. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, a Dutch brig, pursued i by the French corsair Plicenix, was overhauled between Tangier and i Tarifa, and seemed to be sunk by a single broadside ; but, in place of f foundering and going down, the brig, being freighted with a cargo If if oil and alcohol, floated between the two currents, and, drifting towards** the west, finally ran aground, after two or three days, in the neighbour- •- hood of Tangier, more than twelve miles from the spot where she hadd disappeared under the waves. She had therefore traversed that distanced drawn by the action of the under current in a direction opposite to thajl of the surface current. This ascertained fact, added to some recenttl experiments, lend their support to the opinion which admits of the \ existence of an outward current through the Straits of Gibraltar. Dr. .* Maury quotes an extract from the “ log ” of Lieutenant Temple, ol the United States Navy, bearing the same inference. At noon on the. 8th of March, 1855, the ship Levant stood into Almeria Bay, wheal many ships were waiting for a chance to get westwards. Here he wjjiS told that at least a thousand sail were waiting between the bay and * Gibraltar, “ some of them having got as far as Malaga only to « swept back again ; indeed,” he adds, “ no vessel had been able to get out into the Atlantic for three months past.” Supposing this currents to run no faster than two knots an hour, and assuming its depth to btt four hundred feet only, and its width seven miles, and that it contained’ the average proportion of solid matter, estimated at one-thirtieth, If appears that salt enough to make eighty-eight cubic miles of soB# matter were carried into the Mediterranean in those ninety days* “ Now,” continues Dr. Maury, “ unless there were some escape for » this solid matter which has been running into the sea, not for ninety days, but for ages, it is very clear that the Mediterranean would long, ere this have been a vat of strong brine, or a bed of cubic crystals.” J For the same reason, Dr. Maury considers it certain that there is *• TIDES. 39 under current to the south of Cape Horn, which carries into the Pacific Ocean the overflowings of the Atlantic. In fact, the Atlantic is fed unceasingly by the great American rivers, while the Pacific receives no important affluent, but ought to be, and is, subjected to enormous losses, in consequence of the evaporation continually taking place at the surface. Tides. Tides are periodical movements produced by the attraction of the sun and moon. This action, which influences the whole mass of the earth, is made manifest by the swelling movement of the waters. The attractive force exercised by the moon is three times that of the 3un, in consequence of its approximation to the earth, as compared to the greater luminary. In order to comprehend the theory of tides, we shall first consider die lunar influences, putting aside for a moment the solar action. The attraction which the moon exercises upon any point on the arth’s surface is in the inverse ratio of the square of its distance. we draw a straight line from the moon passing through the centre f the earth, this line will meet the surface of the waters at two points, 40 THE OCEAN WORLD. diametrically opposite to each other — namely, z and n (Fig. 5) ; one of these points would he' to the moon its zenith, the other its nadir. \ The point of the sea which has the moon in the zenith — namely, that above which the moon is perfectly perpendicular — will be nearest ! to the planet, and will consequently he more strongly attractive to the centre of the earth, while the points diametrically opposite to which the moon is the nadir will he more distant, and consequently less strongly attracted by that luminary. It follows that the waters situated directly under the moon will he attracted towards it, and form an accumulation or swelling at that point ; the waters at the | antipodes being less strongly attracted to the moon than to the centre ■ of the earth, will form also a secondary swelling on the surface of the sea, thus forming a double tide, accumulating at the point nearest the moon and at its antipodes. At the intermediate points of the cir- cumference of the globe, where the waters are not subjected to the t direct attraction of the moon, the sea is at low water, as represented in Fig. 5. The earth, in its movement of rotation, presents, in the course of twenty-four hours, every meridian on its surface to the lunar attrac- • tion ; consequently, each point in its turn, and at intervals of six hours, is either under the moon, or ninety degrees removed from it : it follows, that in the space of a lunar day — that is to say, in the ' time which passes between two successive passages of the moon on the same meridian — the oceanic waters will be at high and low tide twice • in the month on every point of the surface of the globe. But this » result of attraction is not exercised instantaneously. The moon has ; passed from the meridian of the spot before the waters have attained t their greatest height ; the flux reaches its maximum about three hours • after the moon has culminated ; and the watery mountain follows the moon all round the globe, from east to west, about three hours in its • rear. It is obvious, however, that the great inequalities of the bottom of : the sea ; the existence of continents ; the slopes of the coast, more or less steep ; the different breadths of channels and straits ; finally, the winds, the pelagic currents, and a crowd of local circumstances, — must . materially modify the course of the tides. Nor is the moon the only celestial body which influences the rise and fall of the waters of the sea. We have already said that the sun asserts an influence on the waves. TIDES. 41 It is true that, in consequence of its great distance, this only amounts to a thirty-eight-hundredth part of that of the earth’s satellite. The inequality which exists between the solar and lunar days — the latter exceeding the first by fifty-four minutes — has also the effect of adding to or subtracting from this force alternately. When the sun and moon are in conjunction (Fig. 6), or in opposition, that is to say, placed upon the same right line, their attraction on the sea is com- bined, and a spring tide is produced. This happens at the period of the syzygies — the period of new and full moon. At the period of the quadrature, or the first and last quarters, the solar action, being The Sun. qrposed to that of lunar attraction, tends to produce a sensibly weaker These effects are never produced instantaneously - but, the impulse rnMgmsi, ]t WlH continue to influence the tides for two or three days he highest and lowest tides being nearly in the proportion of 138 to 63’ ir° ! to The highest tides occur at the equinoxes, when the noon is m perigee; the lowest at the solstices, when it is in apogee n our ports, and along the coast, the water rises twice in twentv-fimr lours, when it is said to be high water; when it retires, it is low ™er : they are respectively the flux and reflux of the waves The tide is retarded every day about fifty minutes, the lunar day 42 THE OCEAN WOULD. being twenty-four hours fifty minutes of mean time. If, for instance, it is high water to-day at two o’clock in the morning, that of the next t day will take place at fifty minutes past two. Low water does not : occur, however, at the half of the intermediate time ; the flux is more ■ rapid than the reflux : thus at Havre, Boulogne, and at corresponding ’ places on this side of the Channel, it takes two hours and eight' minutes more in retiring ; at Brest, the difference is only sixteen minutes $ more than the flux. The daily retardation of high water by the passage e of the moon in the meridian, at the equinoxes, is a constant quantity1, for the same locality, which can be determined by direct observation. The height of the tide varies in the different regions of the globe, •, according to local circumstances. The eastern coast of Asia and the* western coast of Europe are exposed to extremely high tides ; while in the South Sea Islands, where they are very regular, they scarcely reach 1! the height of twenty inches. On the western coast of South America, . the tides rarely reach three yards ; on the western coast ' of India a they reach the height of six or seven ; and in the Gulf of Cambay it t ranges from five to six fathoms. This great difference makes itself f felt in our own and adjoining countries : thus, the tide, which at * Cherbourg is seven and eight yards high, attains the height of fourteen a: yards at Saint Malo, while it reaches the height of ten yards at i Swansea, at the mouth of the Bristol Channel, increasing to double that height at Chepstow, higher up the river. In general, the tide . is higher at the bottom of a gulf than at its mouth. The highest tide which is known occurs in the Bay of Fundy, which opens up to the south of the isthmus uniting Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. There the tide reaches forty, fifty, and even sixty feet, while it only attains the height of seven or eight in the bay to the north of the same isthmus. It is related that a ship was cast ashore upon a rock during the night, so high that at daybreak the crew found '■ themselves and their ship suspended in mid-air far above the water ! In the Mediterranean, which only communicates with the ocean by a narrow channel, the phenomena of tides is scarcely felt, and from this - cause — that the moon acts at the same time upon its whole surface, ■■ which are not sufficiently abundant to increase the swelling mass of waters formed by the moon’s attraction ; consequently, the swelling - remains scarcely perceptible. This is the reason why neither the* TIDES. 43 Black Sea or White Sea present a tide, and the Mediterranean a very- inconsiderable one. Nevertheless, at Alexandria the tide rises twenty inches, and at Venice this height is increased to about six feet and a half. Lake Michigan is slightly affected by the lunar attraction. Professor Whewell has prepared maps, in which the course of the tidal wave is traced in every country of the globe. We see here that it traverses the Atlantic, from the fiftieth degree of south latitude up to the fiftieth parallel north, at the rate of five hundred and sixty miles an hour. But the rapidity with which it proceeds is least in shallow water. In the North Sea it travels at the rate of a hundred and eighty miles. The tidal wave which proceeds round the coast of Scotland tra- verses the German Ocean and meets in St. George’s Channel, between England and Ireland, where the conflict between the two opposing waves presents some very complicated phenomena. The winds, again, exercise a great influence on the height of the tides. When the impulse of the wind is added to that of the attracting planet, the normal height of the wave is considerably increased. If the wind is contrary, the flux of the tide is almost annihilated. This happens in the Gulf of Vera Cruz, where the tide is only perceptible once in three days, when the wind blows with violence. An analo- gous phenomenon is observable on the coast of Tasmania. The rising tide sometimes strikes the shore with a continuous and incredible force. This violent shock is called the surf. The swell then forms a billow, which expands to half a mile. The surf increases as it approaches the coast, when it sometimes attains the height of six or seven yards, forming an overhanging mountain of water, which gradually sinks as it rolls over itself. Bat this motion is not in reality progressive— it transports no floating body. The surf is very strong at the Isle of Fogo, one of the Cape de Verd Islands in the Indian Ocean, and at Sumatra, where the surf renders it angerous and sometimes impossible to land on the coast. Fio- 7 represents the effects of the surf at Point du Raz, on the coast’ of But any, near Cape Finisterre. The winds adding their influence to these causes, give birth on the surface of the sea to waves or billows, which increase rapidly, rising in foaming mountains, rolling bounding, and breaking one against the other. “In one mom,,/” aays Malte Brun, “the waves seem to carry sea-goddesses on ifa u THE OCEAN WORLD, breast, which seem to revel amici plays and dances; in the next instant, a tempest rising out of them, seems to be animated by its fury. They seem to swell with passion, and we think we see in them marine monsters which are prepared for war. A strong, con- stant, and equal wind produces long swelling billows, which, rising on the same line, advance with a uniform movement, one after the other, precipitating themselves upon the coast. Sometimes these billows are Fig. 1. Effects of Hurricane at Point du Raz, Cape Finisterre. suspended by the wind or arrested by some current, thus forming, as it were, a liquid wall. In this position, unhappy is the daring navigator who is subjected to its fury.” The highest waves are those which prevail in the offing off the Cape of Good Hope at the period of high tide, under the influence of a strong north-west wind, which has traversed the South Atlantic, pressing its waters towards the Cape. “ The billows there lift themselves up in long ridges,” says Dr. Maury, “ with deep hollows between them. They run high and fast, tossiDg WHIRLPOOLS AND EDDIES. 45 their white caps aloft in the air, looking like the green hills of a rolling prairie capped with snow, and chasing each other in sport. Still, their march is stately, and then- roll majestic. The scenery among them is grand. Many an Australian-bound trader, after doubling the Cape, finds herself followed for weeks at a time by these magnificent rolling swells, furiously driven and lashed by the “ brave west winds.” These billows are said to attain the height of thirty, and even forty feet ; but no very exact measurement of the height of waves is recorded. One of these mountain waves placed between two ships conceals each Fig. 8. Height of \\ aves olT the Cape of Good Hope. o'. th™ 17rolu other-an effect which is partially represented in . 't, , 1’0l"“ mR CaPe Horn, waves are encountered from twenty to thirty feet high, but in the Channel they rarely exceed the height of nine or ten feet except when they come in contact with some powerful eS,st,„g obstac e. Thus, when billows are dashed violently againrt he Eddystone Lighthouse, the spray goes right over the budding which stands a hundred and thirty feet above the sea, and falls in orrents on the roof. After the storm of Barbadoes in 1780 some „ d pins were found on the shore, which had been thrown un'fr tl »ttom of the sea by the force of the tempests. 1 46 THE OCEAN WORLD. If the waves, in their reflux, meet with obstacles, whirlpools and whirlwinds are the result — the former the terror of navigators. Such are the whirlpools known in the Straits of Messina, between the rocks of Charybdis and Scylla, celebrated as the terror of ancient mariners, and which were sung by Homer, Ovid, and Virgil : “ Scylla latus dextrum, lscvum irrequieta Charybdis, Infestat ; vorat lisec raptis revomitque Carinas. . . . Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Cbarybdim.” These rocks are better understood, and less redoubted in our days. At Charybdis, there is a foaming whirlpool ; at Scylla, the waves dash against the low wall of rock which forms the promontory, scarcely noticed by the navigator of our days. Another celebrated whirlpool is that of Euripus, near the Island of Euboea ; another is known in the Gulf of Bothnia. But perhaps the best known rocky danger is the Maelstrom, whose waters have a gyratory movement, producing a whirlpool at certain states ot the tide, the result of opposing currents, which change every six hours, and which, from its power and magnitude, is capable of attracting and engulfing ships to their destruction, although chiefly dangerous to smaller craft. To the combined effects of tides and whirlpools may also be attri- buted the hurricanes, so dreaded by navigators, which so frequently visit the Mauritius and other parts of the Indian Ocean. In periods of the utmost calms, when there is scarcely a breath to ruffle the air, these shores are sometimes visited by immense waves, accompanied by whirlwinds, which seem capable of blowing the ships out of the water, seizing them by the keel, whirling them round on an axis, and finally capsizing them. “ At the period of the changing monsoon, the winds, breaking loose from their controlling forces, seem to rage with a fury capable of breaking up the very fountains of the deep.” The hurricanes of the Atlantic occur in the months of August and September, while the south-west monsoon of Africa and the south- east monsoon of the West Indies are at their height ; the agents of the one drawing the north-east trade-winds into the interior of Mexico and Texas, the other drawing them into the interior of Africa, greatly dis- turbing the equilibrium of the atmosphere. THE FIRST NAVIGATOR. 47 The Polar Seas. The extreme columns of the known world are Mount Parry, situated at eight degrees from the North Pole, and Mount Eoss, twelve degrees from the South Pole. Beyond these limits our maps are mute ; a blank space marks each extremity of the terrestrial axis. Will man ever succeed in passing these icy harriers ? Will he ever justify the prediction of the poet Seneca, wrho tells us that “ the time will come in the distant future when Ocean will relax her hold on the world, when the immense earth will be open, when Tethys will appear amid new orbs, and where Thule (Iceland) shall no longer be the extreme limit of the earth ?” “ Venient annis Saecula seris quibus oceanus Vincula rerum laxet et ingens Patent tellus, Tetiiysque novos Detcgat orbes, nec sit terris Ultime Thule.” Medea. No one can say; every step we have taken in order to approach the Pole has been dearly purchased; and it is not without reason that navigators have named the south point of Greenland, Cape Farewell. Of the number of expeditions, for the most part English, which have been fitted out, at the cost of nearly a million sterling, to explore the Frozen Ocean, one-twentieth have had for their mission to ascertain the fate of the lamented Sir John Franklin. The fiisfc navigator who penetrated to Arctic polar regions was Sebastian Cabot, who in 1498 sought a north-west passage from Europe to China and the Indies. Considering the date, and the state ot navigation at that period, this was perhaps the boldest attempt on record. Scandinavian traditions attribute similar undertakings to ie son of the King Eodian, who lived in the seventh century; to sier, tie Norwegian, in 873; and to the Princes Harold and Magnus, m 1150. Sebastian Cabot reached as high as Hudson's Bay, but a mutiny of his sailors forced him to retrace his steps. In 1500, Gaspard de Cortereal discovered Labrador ; in 1553, Sir Hugh Willoughby Nova &mb a; and Chancellor the White Sea, about the same time Dai* visited in Into the west coast of Greenland, and two yeais later he hseovered the strait which bears his name. In 1500 Barents die 48 THE OCEAN WORLD. covered Spitzbergen, which was again seen by Hendrich Hudson, who sailed up to and beyond the eighty-second parallel. Three years later Hudson gave his name to the great Labrador Bay, but he could get no farther. His crew also revolted, and he was left in the ship s launch with his son, seven sailors, and the carpenter, who remained faith lid. Thus perished one of our greatest navigators. The Island of Jan Mayen was discovered in 1611; the channel j which Baffin took for a bay, and which bears bis name, was discovered j in 1616. Behring discovered, in his first voyage in 1727, the strait which separates Siberia from America; he sailed through it in 1711, but his ship was stranded, and he himself died of scorbutic disease. In the year 1771 the Polar Sea was discovered by Hearne, a fur ‘I merchant ; it was explored long after by Mackenzie. From the year 1810, when Sir John Boss, Franklin, and Pairy turned their attention to the Arctic regions, these expeditions to the Polar Seas rapidly succeeded each other. In 1827 Parry reached the eighty-second degree of north latitude; and in 1845 Sir John Franklin, , wfth the ships Erebus and Terror, and their crews, departed on their r last voyage, from which neither he nor his companions ever returned. . There is now no doubt that they perished miserably, after having dis- covered the north-west passage, which Captain M'Clure also discovered, . coming from the opposite direction, in 1850. In 1855 the expedition of Dr.°Elisha Kane found the sea open from the Pole. The Antarctic Pole had in the meantime attracted the attention oft navigators. In 1772 the Dutch captain, Kerguelen, discovered anu island which he took for a continent. In 1774 Captain Cook explored these regions up to the seventy-first degree of latitude. James W eddell,! in a small whaler, sailed past this parallel in 1823. Biscoe discovered' Enderby’s Land in 1831. The Zelee and Astrolabe, under the. command of Captain Dumont D’Urville, of the French Marine, and. the American expedition, under Captain Wilkes, reached the same, region in 1838. The former discovered Adelia’s Land, finally, in 1841 Sir James Clarke Boss, nephew of Sir John Boss, with the. Erebus and Terror, penetrated up to the seventy-eighth degree soutU latitude. Here he discovered the volcanic islands which he name* after his ships, and, farther to the south, a new continent or land, i\ln he called Victoria’s Land. THE POLAR SEAS. 49 While these efforts were being made to penetrate the ice which surrounds the Antarctic Pole, a region having little which could attract human enterprise, the interests of commerce seemed to call for obstinate and persevering attempts to penetrate to the Arctic Pole. In spite of these numerous expeditions, however, which extend over two centuries, the regions round the North Pole are far from being known to geographers. The fogs and snows which almost always cover them were the source of many errors made by the earlier navi- gators. In his first voyage, made in 1818, Sir John Boss was led to think that Lancaster Sound was closed by a chain of mountains, which he called the Croker Mountains ; but in the following year Captain Parry, in command of two ships, the Hecla and Griper, discovered that this was an error. This celebrated navigator discovered Barrow’s Straits, Wellington Channel, and Prince Eegent inlet; Cornwallis, Sir Byam Martin, and Melville Islands, to which the name of Parry’s Archipelago has been given. In this short voyage he gathered more new results than were obtained by his successors during the next forty- years. He was the first to traverse these seas. Upon Sir Byam Martin Island he has described the ruins of some ancient habitations of the Esquimaux. He passed the winter on Melville Island. In order to attain his chosen anchorage in Winter’s Bay, he was compelled to saw a passage in the ice of a league in length, which involved the labour of three days ; but scarcely were they moored in their chosen harbour than the thermometer fell to eighteen degrees below zero. They carried ashore the ship’s boats, the cables, the sails, and log-books. The masts were struck to the maintop ; the rest of the rigging served to form a roof, sloping to the gunwale, with a thick covering of sail-cloth, which formed an admirable shelter from the wind and snow. Number- less precautions were taken against cold and wet under the decks. 8toves and other contrivances maintained a supportable degree of temperature. In each dormitory a false ceiling of impermeable cloth interposed to prevent the collection of moisture on the wooden wa Is of the slap. The crew were divided into companies, each com- pany being under the charge of an officer, charged with the daily inspection of their clothes and cleanliness— an essential protection igainst scurvy. As a measure of precaution, Captain Parry reduced >y one-third the ordinary ration of bread ; beer and wine were substi uited for spirits ; and citron and lemon drinks were served out daily E 50 THU OCEAN WOULD. to the sailors. Game was sometimes substituted to vary a repast worthy of Spartans. As a remedy against ennui, a theatre was fitted up and comedies acted, for which occasions Parry himself composed a vaudeville, entitled “The North-west Passage; or, the End of the Voyage.” During this long night of eighty-four days, the thermo- meter in the saloons marked 28°, and outside 85° below zero, and for a few minutes actually reached 47 J. Some of the sailors had their j members frozen, from which they never quite recovered. One day the hut which served as an observatory was discovered to be on fire. A sailor who saved one of the precious instruments lost his hands in the i effort ; they were completely frost-bitten in the attempt. Nevertheless, the month of June arrived, and with it the opportu- ; nity of making excursions in the neighbourhood : it was found that, 2 in Melville Island, the earth was carpeted with moss and herbage, with saxifrages and poppies. Hares, reindeer, the musk-ox, northern j geese, plovers, white wolves and foxes, roamed around their haunts, disputing their booty with the crew. Captain Parry could not risk a second winter in this terrible region. He returned home as soon as the thaw left the passage open. In 1821, Captain Parry undertook a second voyage with the Fury r and Hecla. He visited Hudson’s Bay and Fox’s Channel. In Ins; third voyage, undertaken in 1824, he was surprised by the frost mi Prince Regent’s Channel, and was constrained to pass the winter there.. The Fury was dismantled, and, being found unfit for service, Captain i Parry was obliged to abandon her and return to England. Accompanied by Sir James Ross, Parry again put to sea in the Hecla, hi April, 1826. On his third voyage, on leaving Table Islandlj on the north of Spitzbergen, Parry placed his crew in the two trammd ships Enterprise and Endeavour; the first under his own command,.. the second under orders of Sir James Ross. Sometimes they sailed,. sometimes hauled through the crust of the ice; sometimes the ice which pierced their shoes, showed itself bristling with points, intersected* into valleys and little hills, which it was difficult to scale. In spite of* the courage and energy of their crews, the two ships scarcely advanced four miles a day, while the drifting of the ice towards the south ledj them imperceptibly towards their point of departure. They reach# latitude eighty-two degrees forty five minutes fifteen seconds, howe\cr,r and this was the extreme point which they attained. THE POLAR SEAS. 51 Iu the month of May, 1829, Sir John Ross, accompanied by his nephew, James Clark Ross, again turned towards the Polar Seas. He entered Prince Regent’s Channel, and there he found the Fury, which had been dismantled and abandoned by Parry, in these regions, eight years before. The provisions, which the old ship still contained, were quite a providential resource to Ross’s crews. The distinguished navigator explored the Boothian .Peninsula, and passed lour years con- secutively in Port Felix, without being able to disengage his vessel, the Victory. This gave him ample leisure to . become familiar with the Esquimaux. Sir John Ross, in his account of this long sojourn in polar countries, has recorded many conversations with the natives, which our space does not permit us to quote. From this terrible position he was extricated, and emerged with his crew from this icy prison, when all hope of his return had been abandoned. After being exposed to a thousand dangers, Ross and his crew were at last observed by a whaling ship, which received them on board, aftei many efforts to attract attention. On learning that the ship) which had saved them was the Isabella, formerly commanded by Captain Ross, he made himself known. “ But Captain Ross has been dead two years,” was the reply. We need not repeat here the enthusiastic reception Captain Ross and his companions met with on their arrival in London. During an excursion made by the nephew of the Commander (after- wards Sir James Clark Ross), he very closely approached the North agnehc Pole This was at eight o’clock, on the morning of the st of June, 1831, on the west coast of Boothia. The dip of the magnetic needle was nearly vertical, being eighty-nine degrees fifty- ^secmMs-oneminute short of ninety degrees. The site was a !lut a mt0 * ** ** Hgh, and <',)'‘lrar"V lll3 The expedition of Dr. Kane entered Smith’s Strait in 1853, and advanced towards the north upon sledges drawn by dogs ; the mean temperature, which ranged between thirty degrees and forty degrees below zero, fell at last to fifty degrees. At eleven degrees from the Pole they found two Esquimaux villages, called Etah and Peterovik, then an immense glacier. A detachment, conducted by Lieutenant Morton, discovered, beyond the eightieth degree of latitude, an open channel inhabited by innumerable swarms of birds, consisting of swallows, ducks, and gulls, which delighted them by their shrill, piercing cries. Seals (plioca) enjoyed themselves on the floating ice. In ascending the banks, they met with flowering plants, such as Lychnis, Hesperia, &c. On the 24th of June, Morton hoisted the flag of the Ant- arctic, which had before this seen the ice of the South Pole on Cape Independence, situated beyond eighty-one degrees. To the north stretched the open sea. On the left was the western bank of the Kennedy Channel, which seemed to terminate in a chain of mountains, the principal peak rising from nine thousand to ten thousand feet, which was named Mount Parry. The expedition returned towards the south, and reached the port of Uppernavick exhausted with hunger, where it was received on board an American ship. Dr. Kane, weakened by his sufferings, from which he never quite recovered, died in 1857. We cannot conclude this rapid sketch of events connected with the expeditions to the Arctic Pole without noting a geological fact of great and smgular interest. When opportunities have presented themselves of examining the rocks in the regions adjoining the North I ole, it has been found that great numbers belong to the coal measures, buch is the case in Melville Island and Prince Patrick’s Island. Lnder the ice which covers the soil in these islands coal exists, with all the fossil vegetable dibris which invariably accompany it. This shows that m the coal period of geology, the North Pole was covered ™ ‘ „ Uf ancl abundant vegetation, whose remains constitute the co e s o e present day ; and proves to demonstration that the temperature of these regions was, at one period of the earth’s istory, equal to that of equatorial countries of the present day What a wonderful change m the temperature of these regions is thus indicated. It is, indeed, a strange contrast to find coal formations under the soil covered by the polar ice. Let us sunnoso tw i industry should dream of establishing itself in th« countries™*! 54 THE OCEAN WORLD. drawing from the earth the combustible so needed to make it habit- able, thus furnishing the means of overcoming the rigorous climatic conditions of these inhospitable regions. The Antarctic Pole is probably surrounded by an icy canopy, not less than two thousand five hundred miles in diameter, and numerous ■ circumstances lead to the conclusion that the vast mass has diminished since 1774, when the region was visited by Captain Cook. The Antarctic region can only he approached during the summer, namely, | in December, January, and February. The first navigator who penetrated the Antarctic Circle was the Dutch captain, Theodoric de Gheritk, whose vessel formed part of the squadron commanded by Simon de Cordes, destined for the East r Indies. In January, 1600, a tempest having dispersed the squadron, Captain Gheritk was driven as far south as the sixty-fourth parallel, where he observed a coast which reminded him of Norway. It was mountainous, covered with snow, stretching from the coast to the Isles of Solomon. The report of Simon de Cordes was received with great incredulity, and the doubts raised were only dissipated when the New South Shetland Islands were definitively recognised. The idea of an Antarctic continent is, however, one of the oldest conceptions of : speculative geography, and one wJiich mariners and philosophers alike have found it most difficult to relinquish. The existence of a southern continent seemed to them to be the necessary counterpoise to the Arctic land. The Terra Australis incognita is marked on all the maps j of Mercator, round the South Pole, and when the Dutch officer,! Kerguelen, discovered, in 1772, the island which bears his name, kefj quoted this idea of Mercator as the motive which suggested the voyage. In 1774, Captain Cook ventured up to and beyond the seventy-first j degree of latitude under the one hundred and ninth degree west j longitude. He traversed a hundred and eighty leagues, between the | j fiftieth degree and sixtieth degree of south latitude, without finding the J land of which mariners had spoken : this led him to conclude that | mountains of ice, or the great fog-hanks of the region, had been® mistaken for a continent. Nevertheless, Cook clung to the idea of j the existence of a southern continent. “ I firmly believe,” lie says,.! that near the Pole there is land where most part of the ice is formed^ which is spread over the vast Southern Ocean. I cannot believe that j THE POLAR SEAS. the ice could extend itself so far if it had not land — and I venture to say land of considerable extent— to the south. I believe, nevertheless, that the greater part of this southern continent ought to lie within the Polar Circle, where the sea is so encumbered with ice as to be unapproachable. The danger run in surveying a coast in these unknown seas is so great, that I dare to say no one will venture to go farther than I have, and that the land that lies to the south will always remain imknown. The fogs are there too dense; the snow- storms and tempests too frequent; the cold too severe; all the dangers of navigation too numerous. The appearance of the coast is the most horrible that can be imagined. The country is condemned by nature to remain unvisited by the sun, and buried under eternal hoar frost. After this report, I believe that we shall hear no more of a southern continent.” This description of these desolate regions, to which the great navigator might have applied the words of Pliny, “ Pars mundi a ncUura damnata et densa mersa caligine only excited the courage of his successors. In our days, several expeditions have been fitted out for the express survey of regions which may be characterised as the abode of cold, silence, and death. In 1833, a free passage opened itself into the Antarctic Sea. The Scottish whaling diip, commanded by James Weddell, entered the pack ice, and penetrated it in pursuit of seals ; but having, by chance, found the iea open on his course, he forced his way up to seventy-four degrees •outh latitude, and under the thirty-fourth degree of longitude, but .he season was too advanced, and he and his crew retraced their steps. Ihe voyage of Captain Weddell caused a great sensation, and suggested 'he possibility of more serious expeditions. Twelve years later three *reat expeditions were fitted out : one, under Dumont D’Urville, of he French Marine ; an American expedition, under Captain Wilkes, >f the United States Navy; and an English expedition, under Sir lames Clark Boss. Dumont D Urville, who perished so miserably in the railway cata- itrophe at Versailles in 1842, passed the Straits of Magellan on the Hh of January, 1838, having under his command the two corvettes 1 strolabs and Zelee. He expected to find it as Weddell had described •nd that, after passing the first icy barrier, he should find an open sea >efore him. But he was soon compelled to renounce this hope. The bating icebergs became more and more closely packed and dangerous. 5G THE OCEAN WORLD. The southern icebergs do not circulate in straits and channels already formed, like those of the North Pole, but in enormous detached blocks which hug the land. Sometimes in shallow water they form belts parallel to the base of the cliffs, intersected by a small number of sinuous narrow channels. These icy cliffs present a face more or less j disintegrated as they approximate to the rocky shore. The blocks of ice . form at first huge prisms, or tabular, regular masses of a whitish paste; hut they get used up by degrees, and rounded oft’ and separated under ; the action of the waves, which chafe them, and their colour becomes : more and more limpid and bluish. They ascend freely towards the north, in spite of the winds and currents which carry them towards . I the Equator. One year with another these floating icebergs accurnu- i late with very striking differences, and it is only by a rare chance that they open up a free passage such as Captain Weddell had discovered, i These floating islands of ice have been met with in thirty-five degrees t south latitude, and even as high as Cape Horn. The two French ships frequently found themselves shut up in the icebergs, which continued to press upon them, and driven before the north winds, until the south wind again dispersed their vast masses, , j enabling them to issue from their prison in health and safety. Jn some cases D’Urville found it necessary to force his ship through fields of ice by which he was surrounded and imprisoned, and to cut his way by force through the accumulating blocks, using the corvette as a sort of battering-ram. In 1838 he recognised, about fifty leagues from the South Orkney Isles, a coast, to which he gave the name of Louis Philippes and Joinville's Land. This coast is covered with enormous masses of ice, which seemed to rise to the height of two ■ thousand six hundred feet. Boss discovered still more lofty peaks, , such as Mount Penny and Mount Haddington, rising about seven thousand feet. The English navigator states that this land is only a great island. The crew of D’Urville’s ship being sicldy and over- • worked, he returned to the port of Chili, whence he again issued for the South Pole in the following January. _ i On this occasion his approach was made from a point diametrically opposite to the former. He very soon found himself in the middle of the ice He discovered within the Antarctic Circle land, to which li® p gave the name of Adelias Land. The long and lofty cliffs of this • island or continent he describes as being surrounded by a belt of: THE POLAR SEAS. 57 islands of ice at once numerous and threatening. D’Urville did not hesitate to navigate his corvettes through the middle of the hand of enormous icebergs which seemed to guard the Pole and forbid his approach to it. For some moments his vessels were so surrounded that they had reason to fear, from moment to moment, some terrible shock, some irreparable disaster. In addition to this, the sea produces around these floating icebergs, eddies, which were not unlikely to draw on the ship to the destruction with which it was threatened at every instant. It was in passing at their base that D’Urville was able to judge of the height of these icy cliffs. “ The walls of these blocks of ice,” he says, “ far exceed our masts and riggings in height ; they over- hang our ships, whose dimensions seem ridiculously curtailed. We seem to be traversing the narrow streets of some city of giants. At the foot of these gigantic monuments we perceive vast caverns hollowed by the waves, which are engulfed there with a crashing tumult. The sun darts his oblique rays upon the immense walls of ice as if it were crystal, presenting effects of light and shade truly magical and startling. From the summit of these mountains, numerous brooks, fed by the melting ice produced by the summer heat of a January sun in these regions, throw themselves in cascades into the icy sea. “ Occasionally these icebergs approach each other so as to conceal the .and entirely, and we only perceive two walls of threatening ice, whose sonorous echoes send back the word of command of the officers. The jorvette which followed the Astrolabe appeared so small, and its masts K) slender, that the ship’s crew were seized with terror. For nearly an aour we only saw vertical walls of ice.” Ultimately they reached a vast oasin, formed on one side by the chain of floating islands which they aad traversed, and on the other by high land rising three and four thousand feet, rugged and undulating on the surface, but clothed over ill with an icy mantle, which was rendered dazzlingly imposing in its whiteness by the rays of the sun. The officers could only advance by the ships boats through a labyrinth of icebergs up to a little islet lying opposite to the coast. They touched the land at this islet* }he French flag was planted, possession was taken of the new con- tinent, and, in proof of possession, some portions of rock were torn from the scarped and denuded cliffs. These rocks are composed of quartzite md gneiss. The southern continent, therefore, belongs to the nri mtive formation, while the northern region belongs in great part to 58 THE OCEAN WORLD. the transition, or coal formation. According to the map of Adelia’s < Land, traced by D’Urville over an extent of thirty leagues of country, , the region is one of death and desolation, without any trace of vegetation. A little more to the north, the French navigator had a vague1:, vision on the white lines of the horizon of another land, which he named Coast Clear (Cote Clarie), the existence of which was soon con- - firmed by the American expedition under Commodore Wilkes. This a officer has explored the southern land on a larger scale than any other t navigator, but he suffered himself to he led into error by the dense fogs of the region, and has laid down coast lines on his map where ■ Sir James Boss subsequently found only open sea — an error which has very unjustly thrown discredit on the whole expedition. The English expedition entered this region on Christmas Day, 1840, . which was passed by Boss in a strong gale, with constant snow on rain. Soon after, the first icebergs were seen, having flat tabular rj summits, in some instances two miles in circumference, hounded on all ! sides by perpendicular cliffs. On New Year’s Day, 1841, the ships ^ crossed the Antarctic Circle, and reached the edge of the pack ice,', which they entered, after skirting it for several days. On the 5th, the- pack was passed through, amid blinding snow and thick fog, whichol on clearing away revealed an open sea, and on the 11th of January landlj was seen directly ahead of the ships. A coast line rose in lofty snow- - covered peaks at a great distance. On a nearer view, this coast is> thus described : “ It was a beautifully clear evening, and two magnifi-H cent ranges of mountains rose to elevations varying from seven thou- sand to ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. The glacieres which filled their intervening valleys, and which descended from nearr the mountain summits, projected hi many places several miles into the. sea, and terminated in lofty perpendicular cliffs. In a few places the. rocks broke through their icy covering, by which alone we could he- assured that lava formed the nucleus of this, to all appearance, enormous iceberg. This antarctic land was named Victoria Land, m honour of the Queen. It was coasted up to latitude seventy- eight! degrees south, and near to this a magnificent volcanic mountain pre- sented itself, rising twelve thousand feet above the lovely of the sea., which emitted flame and smoke in splendid profusion. The flanks of this gigantic mountain were clothed with snow almost to the mouth oh the crater from which the flaming smoke issued. At a short distance/* THE POLAlt SEAS. 59 -oss discovered the cone of an extinct or, at least, inactive volcano ,arly as lofty. He gave to these two volcanoes the names of his essels, Erebus and Terror (Fig. 9)— names perfectly in harmony ith the surrounding desolation. The ice-covered cliffs rose about hundred and ninety feet high, and appear to he about three hundred et deep, soundings being found at about four hundred fathoms. In ie distance, towards the south, a range of lofty mountains were served, which Eoss named Mount Tarry, in honour of his old l4 ig. 9. Mounts Erebus and Terror. ommander. When Eoss retraced his steps, the expedition had advanced s far as the seventy-ninth degree of south latitude. It may be said of polar countries, that they form a transition state etween land and sea, for water is always present, although in a solid -ate ; the surface is always at a very low temperature, snow does not lelt as it falls, and the sea is thus sometimes covered with a continu us sheet of frozen snow; sometimes with enormous floating blocks of !6 Wbch are dnven by the C11rrents- Meeting with these floating masses no THE OCEAN WORLD. of ice is one of the dangers of polar navigation. Captain Scoresby has-.;' given a very detailed description of the different kinds of ice met with i1 in the Arctic Seas. The ice-fields of this writer form extensive massed of solid water, of which the eye cannot trace the limits, some ot them ■ being thirty-five leagues in length and ten broad, with a thickness of ; seven to eight fathoms ; but generally these ice-fields rise only lorn’ to six feet above the water, and reach from three to four fathoms beneathlj the surface. Scoresby has seen these ice-fields forming in the opemi sea. When the first crystals appear, the surface of the ocean is cold enough to prevent snow from melting as it falls. On the approach on congelation the surface solidifies, and seems as if covered with oil ; small circles are formed, which press against each other, and are finally.j soldered together until they form a vast field of ice, the thickness of which increases from the lower surface. The water produced from melted ice is perfectly fresh — the result of a well-known physical cause. When a saline solution like sea water in congealed by cold, pure water alone passes into the solid state, the saline solution becomes more concentrated, increases in density, and^j sinking to the bottom, remains liquid. Blocks of ice, therefore, in then Polar Seas, are always available for domestic use. There are, however,: salt blocks of ice which are distinguished from fresh-water ice by theini opaqueness and their dazzling white colour : this saltness is due to th®j sea water retained in its interstices. Scoresby amused himself some* times by shaping lenses of ice, with which he is said to have set fire- to gunpowder, much to the astonishment of his ciew. The ice-fields, which are formed in higher latitudes, are driven to- wards the south by winds and currents, but sooner or later the action of the waves breaks them up into fragments. The edges of tha broken icebergs are thus often rising and continually changing : thesa asperities and protuberances are called hummocks by English navi-: gators ; they give to the polar ice an odd, irregular appearance. Hummocks form themselves of the stray, broken icebergs which come in contact with each other at their edges, and thus form vast rafts, tha pieces of which may exceed a hundred yards in length. When these icebergs are separated by open spaces, through whicw vessels can he navigated, the pack ice is said to he open. But it ofteffl happens that mountains of ice occur partly submerged, where one edge is retained under the principal mass, while the other is above the THE POLAR SEAS. 61 ater. Scoresby once passed over a calf, as English mariners call rese icy mountains, but be trembled while be did so, dreading lest it lould throw bis vessel, himself, and crew into the air before be could ass it. The aspect of the ice-fields vary in a thousand ways. Here - is an incoherent chaos resembling some volcanic rocks, with crevices 1 all directions, bristling with unshapely blocks piled up at random ; here it is a strongly-marked plain, an immense mosaic formed of vast locks of ice of every age and thickness, the divisions of which are larked by long ridges of the most irregular forms ; sometimes resem- iing walls composed of great rectangular blocks, sometimes resembling aains of bills, with great rounded summits. In the spring, when a thaw sets in, and the fields begin to break up, le pieces of light ice which unite the great blocks into unique masses re the first to melt ; the several blocks then separate, and the motion f the water soon disperses them, and the imprisoned ships find a free ossage. But a day of calm is still sufficient to unite the dispersed lasses, which oscillate and grind against each other with a strange oise, which sailors compare to the yelping of young dogs. . When a ship is shut up in one of these floating ice-fields, inexpli- ible changes sometimes occur in the vast incoherent aggregations, essels, which think themselves immovable, are found in a few hours to ave completely reversed their positions. Two ships shut in at a lort distance from each other, were driven many leagues without 3mg able to perceive any change in the surrounding ice. At other mes ships are drawn with the floating ice-fields, like the white bears, ho make long voyages at sea upon these monster vehicles. In 1777 ie Dutch vessel, the Wilhelmina, was driven with some other whaling lips from eighty degrees north back to sixty-two degrees, in sight of ie Iceland coast. During this terrible journey the ships were broken p one after the other. More than two hundred persons perished ud the remamder reached land with difficulty. Lieutenant De Haven, navigating in search of Sir John Franklin, was raght in the ice in the middle of the channel in Wellington Strait, >unng the nine months which he remained in captivity, he drifted early thirteen hundred miles towards the south ; and the ship Resolute mndoned by Captain Kellet in an ice-field of immense extent wai nfted towards the south with this vast mass to a much m-pn^r istance. 02 THE OCEAN WORLD. Some curious speculations are hazarded by Dr. Maury, arising out of his investigations of winds and currents, facts being revealed which; indicate the existence of a climate, mild by comparison, within the Antarctic Circle. These indications are a low barometer, a high degree of aerial rarefaction, and strong winds from the north. “ The winds,”. he says, “ were the first to whisper of this strange state oi things, and* like. to intimate to us that the Antarctic climates are in winter very uni: the Arctic for rigour and severity.” The result of an immense mas of observation on the polar and equatorial winds reveals a marked difference in atmospherical movements north, as compared with the same movements south of the Equator ; the equatorial winds of the, northern hemisphere being only in excess between the tenth and' thirteenth parallel, while those of the southern hemisphere aid dominant over a zone of forty-five degrees, or from thirty-five degr south to ten degrees north. “ The fact that the influence of the polar indraught upon the win should extend from the Antarctic to the parallel of forty degrees sou' while that from the Arctic is so feeble as scarcely to be felt in fifty degr north, is indicative enough as to the difference in degree of aerial raj faction over the two regions. The significance of the fact is enhanced by; the consideration that the ‘ brave west winds,’ which are bound to the* place of greatest rarefaction, rush more violently and constantly along* to their destination than do the counter-trades of the northern henfflj sphere. Why should these polar-bound winds differ so much in strength and prevalence, unless there be a much more abundano supply of caloric, and, consequently, a higher degree of rarefaction, al one pole than at the other ?” That this is the case is confirmed by all known barometrical obser- vations, which are very much lower in the Antarctic than in the Arctkjl and Dr. Maury thinks is doubtless due to the excess in Antarctic regions of aqueous vapour and this latent heat. « There is rarefaction in the Arctic regions. The winds show it, thi barometer attests it, and the fact is consistent with the Russian theory of a Polynia in polar waters. Within the Antarctic Circle, on thfc contrary, the winds bring air which has come over the water for # distance of hundreds of leagues all around; consequently, a largo portion of atmospheric air is driven away from the austral regions bj the force of vapour.” CHAPTER III. LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 1 See what a lovely shell, small and pure as a pearl, Frail, but a work divine, made so fairly well. With delicate spore and whorl, a miracle of design." Tknnyson. I The appearance of the open sea,” says Fredol, from whose elegant ork this chapter is chiefly compiled, “ far from the shore — the Dundless ocean — is to the man who loves to create a world of his ivn, in which he can freely exercise his thoughts, filled with sublime leas ol the Infinite. His searching eye rests upon the far- distant orizon. He sees there the ocean and the heavens meeting in a apouiy outline, where the stars ascend and descend, appear and dis- ppear in their turn. Presently this everlasting change in nature wakens in him a vague feeling of that sadness ‘which,’ says Hum- oldt, lies at the root ol all our heartfelt joys.’ ” Emotions ol another kind and equally serious are produced by the mtemplation and study of the habits of the innumerable organised eings which inhabit the great deep. In fact, that immense expanse of 'ater, which we call the sea, is no vast liquid desert; life dwells in s osom as it does on dry land. Here this mystery reigns supreme i the midst of its expansions, luxuries, and agitations. It pleases the creator It is the most beautiful, the most brilliant, the noblest, and he most incomprehensible of His manifestations. Without life the •ork would be as nothing. The beings endowed with it transmit it ‘in n a ^ °hildren’ “d their accessors, which ill be like them, the depositaries of the same mysterious gift • the larvellous heritage thus traverses years and hundreds of years without »smg its powers ; the globe is redolent with the life which has been 64 THE OCEAN WORLD. so bounteously distributed over it. In the words ol Lamartine, We know wbat produces life, but we know not wbat it is ; and this igno- rance is perhaps the powerful attraction which provokes our curiosity and excites us to study. _ I . Every living being is animated by two principles, between which a silent but incessant combat is being carried on Zi/e, which assimilates, i, and death, which disintegrates. At first, life is all powerful it lords it t over matter; but its reign is limited. Beyond a certain point its vigour* is gradually impaired ; with old age it decays ; and is finally extinguished^ with time, when the chemical and physical law7s seize upon it, and itflp organization is destroyed. But the elements, though inert at first, are soon reanimated and occupied with a new life. Every plant, ever^j animal is bound up with the past, and is part of the future, foi every! generation which starts into life is only the corollary upon that which expires, and the prelude of another which is about to be borne. Life* is the school of death ; death is the foster-mother of life. Life, however, does not always exhibit itself at the moment of its* formation. It is visible later, and only after other phenomena. In* order to develope itself, a suitable soil or other medium must be pre- pared, and other determinate physical and chemical conditions provided! The presence and diffusion of living beings are no chance products ; they; follow rigorously an order of law. Speaking of the higher forms ofcj animal life, the Duke of Argyll says, in his able and satisfactory work,;. « The Beign of Law,”— “ In all these there is an observed order in the* most rigid scientific sense, that is, phenomena in uniform connexion and mutual relations which can be made, and are made, the basis o systematic classification. These classifications are imperfect, nob because they are founded on ideal connexions where none exist, butt only because they fail in representing adequately the subtle and pew vadin(r order which binds together all living things. The knowledge of fossils has thrown great light upon the regulan and progressive development of organization. The evolution of living! beings seems to have commenced with the more rudimentary forms; tha more ancient rocks, until very recently, had revealed no traces of life and what has been revealed tends to confirm this view. In the Cam,; brian rocks of Bray Head, county Wicklow, the Oldhanna is a zoophy^ of the simplest organization, and the Bhizapods found near the bottom of the Azoic rocks of Canada are the lowest form of living typ| LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 65 and it is only in beds of comparatively recent formation that complex organization exists. Vegetables first show themselves, and even among these the simplest forms have priority. Animals afterwards appear, which, as we have seen, belong to the least perfect classes. The com- binations of life, at first simple, have become more and more complex, until the creation of man, who may be considered the masterpiece of organization. If we expose a certain quantity of pure water to the light and air in the spring, we should soon see it producing shades of a yellowish or greenish colour. These spots, examined through the microscope, reveal jhousands of vegetable agglomerates. Presently thousands of animal- cules appear, which swim about among the floating masses, nourishing shemselves with its substance. Other animalcules then appear, which, n their turn, pursue and devour the first. In short, life transforms inanimate into organized matter. Vege- ables appear first, then come herbivorous animals, and then come the amivorous. Life maintains life. The death of one gives food and development to others, for all are bound up together— all assist at he metamorphoses continually occurring in the organic as in the aineral world, the result being general and profound harmony — har- lony always worthy of admiration. The Creator alone is unchange- ble, omnipotent, and permanent ; all else is transition. The inhabitants of the water are much more numerous than those f the solid earth. “ Upon a surface less varied than we find on con- nents, says Humboldt, “ the sea contains in its bosom an exuberance t life of which no other portion of the globe could give us any idea ” c expands m the north as in the south; in the east as in the west he seas, above all, abound with it ; in the bosom of the deep, creatures ^responding and harmonizing with each other sport and play, -mong these especially the naturalist finds instruction, and the philo- >phor subjects for meditation. The changes they undergo only apress upon our mmds more and more a sentiment of thankfulness to te Author of the universe.” Yes, the ocean in its profoundest depths-ita plains and its monn ms l(s valleys, its precipices, even in its ruins-is animated and ibellished by innumerable organized beings. These are at first plants htary or social, erect or drooping, spreading into prairies, grouped (56 THE OCEAN WORLD. patches, or forming vast forests in the oceanic valleys. These sub- marine forests protect and nourish millions of animals which creep, which run, which swim, "which sink into the sands, attach themselves j, to rocks, lodge themselves in crevices, which construct dwellings for themselves, which seek for or fly from each other, which pursue or j , fight, caress each other lovingly, or devour each other without pity. Charles Darwin truly remarks somewhere that our terrestrial forests jH do not maintain nearly so many living beings as those which swam .! in the bosom of the sea. The ocean, which for man is the region dfs asphyxia and death, is for millions of animals the region of life and . health : there is enjoyment for myriads in its waves ; there is hap- - piness on its hanks ; there is the blue above all. The sea influences its numerous inhabitants, animal or vegetable, . by its temperature, by its density, by its saltness, by its bitterness, byjrj the never-ceasing agitation of its waves, and by the rapidity of its • currents. We have seen in preceding chapters that the sea only freezes* under intense cold, and then only at the surface, and that at the depth of five hundred fathoms the same permanent temperature exists s in all latitudes. On the other hand, it is agreed that the agitations a produced by the most violent storms are never felt beyond the deptt® of twelve or thirteen fathoms. From this it follows that animals anal vegetables, by descending more or less, according to the cold or difij turbing movements, can always reach a medium which agrees with* their constitutions. The hosts of the sea are distinguished by a peculiar softne&p Certain pelagic plants present only a very weak, feeble consistence , & great number are transformed by ebullition into a sort of jelly. The* flesh of marine animals is more or less flaccid ; many seem to consist of a diaphanous mucilage. The skeleton of the more perfect species is more or less flexible and cartilaginous ; and it rarely attains, as weight and consistency, the strength of bone exhibited by terrestaflj vertebrate animals. Nevertheless, both the shells and coral prodwM in the bosom of the ocean are remarkable for their stony solidiM Among marine bodies, in short, we find at once the softest and harde^ of organized substances. , The separation of organized beings, nourished by the ocean, LIFE IN THE OCEAN. fi 7 subjected to certain fixed laws. We never find on the coast, except oy evident accident, the same species that we meet with far from the shore ; nor on the surface, creatures whose habits lead them to hide n the depths of ocean. What immense varieties of size, shape, form, ind colour, from the nearly invisible vegetation which serves to nourish ohe small zoophytes and mollusks, to the long, slender alga?, of fifty, md even five hundred, yards in length ! How vast the disparity oetween the microscopic infusoria and the gigantic whale ! “We find in the sea,” says Lacepede, “ unity and diversity, which constitute its beauty ; grandeur and simplicity, which give it sublimity ; missance and immensity, which command our wonder.” In the following pages we shall figure and describe many inhabitants f the sea ; but how many remain still to figure and describe ! During Qore than two thousand years research has been multiplied, and suc- eeded by research without interruption. “ But how vast the field,” s Lamarck observes, “ which Science has still to cultivate, in order to any the knowledge already acquired to the degree of perfection of ehich it is susceptible !” When the tide retires from the shore, the sea leaves upon the oast some few of the numberless beings which it bears in its bosom, u the first moments of its retreat, the naturalist may collect a crowd f substances, vegetable and animal, with their various characteristic hours and properties. The inhabitants of the coast find there their »od, their commerce, and their occupations. At low water the earest villages and hamlets send their contingents, old and young. ien, women, and children, to the harvest. Some apply themselves to lthermg the ribboned seaweed (Zoster a), the membranous Viva, the >m .re brown Fucus vesiculosus, formerly a source of great wealth to ie dwellers by the sea, being then much used in making kelp; others a. er the smal shells left on the sands ; boys mount upon the rocks isearch of whelks ( Buccinum ), mussels (Mytilus), detach limpets Ma), and other edible marine animals, from the rocks to which •ey have attached themselves. On some coasts, shells, as Mactra ythena, and Bucardia, are sought, for their beauty. By turning e stones or by sounding the crevices of the rocks with a hook at the ' ° a ath’ PolJPes and calmars are sometimes surprised— sometimes en sea and conger eels, which have sought refuge there; while the p 2 G8 THE OCEAN WOULD. pools, left here and there by the retiring tide, are dragged by nets of very small mesh, in which the smaller crustaceous molliisks and small fish are secured. In the Mediterranean and other inland seas, where the tide is almost inappreciable, there exist a great number of animals and I vegetables belonging to the deep sea, which the waves or currents very rarely leave upon the sea shore. There are others so fugitive^* or which attach themselves so firmly to the rocks, that we can|j watch them only in their habitats. It is necessary to study them j floating on the surface of the waves, or in their mysterious retirements. ; j Hence the necessity that naturalists should study the living produc-| tions of the salt water even in the bosom of the ocean, and not on the/ sea shore. The means generally employed for this purpose is a ch'ag-net, sounding- jW line, and other engines suitable for scraping the bottom, and breaking :| the harder rocks. In a voyage which Milne Edwards made to thdj coast of Sicily, he formed the idea of employing an apparatus invented by Colonel Paulin, which consisted of a metallic casque provided with a jj visor of glass, and consequently transparent, which fixed itself rounffl the neck by means of a copper collar made water-tight by stuffing-a . diving-bell, in short, in miniature. It communicated with an air- pump by means of a flexible tube. Four men were employed in servidB the pump, two exercising it while the other two rested themselvepjj Other men hold the extremity of a cord, which was passed over a pulle|« attached at a higher elevation, and enabled them to hoist up th| diver with the necessary rapidity in emergencies. A vigilant observe* held in his hand a small signal cord. The immersion of the diver was, facilitated by heavy leaden shoes, which assist him at the same time ■ maintain his vertical position at the bottom. M. Edwards made the. descent with this apparatus in three fathoms’ water with perfect succej He was thus enabled to study, in their most hidden and most macces* sible retreats, the radiate animals, mollusks, crustaceans, and annelKffil especially their larvae and eggs, and by his descriptions to contribute most essentially to make known the functions, manners, and mode* development of certain inhabitants of the sea, whose sojourn habits would seem to sequestrate them for ever from our obs»f vation. LIFE IN THE OCEAN. 09 Another and easier mode of studying the living creatures sheltered )y the sea was first suggested by M. Charles des Moulins of Bordeaux, n 1830. The aquarium, which is charged with fresh or salt water, -ccording to the beings it is intended to contain, serves the same rarpose for the inhabitants of the deep which the aviary does for the >irds of the air — cages of glass being used in place of iron wire or vicker-work, and water in place of atmospheric air. When a globe is filled with fresh water, and with mollusks, rustaceans, or fishes, it is observed, after a few days, that the water )ses its transparency and purity, and becomes slightly corrupt. It ecessarily follows that the water must he changed from time to time, -hanging the water, however, causes much suffering, and even death ) the animals. Besides, the new water does not always present the ime composition, the same aeratiou, or the same temperature with aat which is replaced. To obviate this defect, and taking a leaf out - Nature’s book> M- Moulins proposed to put into the vase a certain umber of aquatic plants floating or submerged — duckweed, for sample— which would act upon the water in a direction inverse to iat of the animals inhabiting it. It is known that vegetables assimi- te carbon, while decomposing the carbonic acid produced by the respi- jtion of animals, thus disengaging the oxygen indispensable to animal e. n this simple manner was the necessary change of water obviated tie same happy idea has been successfully applied to salt water, and luarmms for salt water plants and animals have been proposed on a •eat scale. That of the Zoological Gardens of Paris, in the Bois de oulogne inaugurated in 1861, is perhaps the largest in the world, is a solid stone building of fifty yards in length by about twelve oad, presenting a range of forty reservoirs of Angers slate, running >r h and south The reservoirs are nearly cubical, presenting in 6 S 101m, g aSS ,®aint Gobain> which permits of the interior g seen. They are lighted from above; but the light is weak . enish, uniform and consequently mysterious and gloomy, giving a e t y exact imitation of the submarine light some fathoms down ich reservoir contains about two hundred gallons of water It is mished with rocks disposed a little in the form of an amphitheatre d m a picturesque manner. Upon the rocks, various specif inne vegetables are planted. The bottom is of shingle ST ad, m order to give certain animals a sufficiently natural retreat 70 THE OCEAN WORLD. Ten of these reservoirs are intended tor marine animals. The water employed is never changed, but it is kept in continual agitation . by circulation, produced by a current of water led from the great pipe which feeds the Bois de Boulogne. This water, being subjected I; to a strong pressure, compresses a certain portion ot air, which, . being permitted to act on a portion of the sea water contained in a closed cylinder placed below the level of the aquarium, makes it t ascend, and enter with great force into a reservoir, into which it t is thrown from a small jet. The sea water thus pressed absorbs a portion of the air, which is drawn with it into the reservoir. A tube* placed in a corner of the reservoir receives the overflow, and conducts s it into a closed carbon filter, whence it passes into a gravelly underground i reservoir, returning again to the closed cylinder. The water is once, more subjected to the pressure of air, and again ascends to the, aquarium The cylinder being underground, a temperature equal to about sixteen degrees Cent., which is nearly the uniform temperatures of the ocean, is easily maintained. During winter, the aquarium isv heated artificially. CHAPTER IV. ZOOPHYTES. " Nature is nowhere more perfect than in her smaller works.” •• Nutura nusquam magis quam In minimis tota est” Pliny. [n these early pages it will not be out of place to offer a few considera- ions on animals in general, including the whole kingdom as well as ;he great divisions which form the subject of this particular volume. 3ut nothing is less promising as a subject of study than the whole ,nimal series, nothing more difficult than to seize upon any real iii a logy between beings of types so varied, of organization so dissimilar. :ke arrangements which naturalists have established in order to study nd desciibe animals — the divisions, classes, orders, families, genera, nd species— are admirable contrivances for facilitating the study of reatures numerous as the sands of the sea shore. Without this recious means of logical distribution, the individual mind would recoil efore the task of describing the innumerable phalanxes of contem- orary animal life. But the reader must never forget that these lethodical divisions are pure fictions, due to human invention: they nm no part of nature ; for has not Linnaeus told us that nature makes o leaps, natuva non facit saltus ?— by which he means to tell us that ature passes m a manner almost insensibly from one stage of rgamzation to another, altogether irrespective of human systems. t is, however, when we come to watch the confines of ‘the animal ad vegetable kingdom that we realise how difficult it is ta seize the recise line of demarcation which separates the great kingdoms of ature. We have seen in the “Vegetable World ” germs of the simplest ganization, as in the Cryptogamia, spores, as in the Alg®, and fruitful THE OCEAN WORLD. corpuscles, as in the Mosses, which seem to he invested with some ol the characteristics of animal life, for they appear to he gifted with organs of locomotion, namely, vihratile cilia, by means of which they execute j movements which are to all appearance quite voluntary. Alongside,-! these, vegetable germs and fecundating corpuscles, known as anthe- j rozoides among the Alga:, Mosses, and Ferns, which, when floating ; in water, go and come like the inferior animals, seeking to penetrate into cavities, withdrawing themselves, returning again, and again intro- ducing themselves, and exhibiting all the signs ot an apparent effort | Let us compare the Infusoria, or even the Polypi, Coral insects, and 1 Gorgons, with these shifting vegetable organisms, and say if it is easy | to determine, without considerable study, which is the plant and which the animal. The precise line of demarcation which it is so desirable to establish between the two kingdoms of Nature is indeed difficult to trace. The word zoophyte, to which this comparison introduces us, seems - ; very happily applied: it is derived from the Greek word &ov, animal, and c^vtov, plant ; and is, as it seems to us, quite worthy® of being retained in Science, because it consecrates and materialises, Li so to speak, a sort of fusion between the two kingdoms of Nature^: at their confines. Let us guard ourselves, however, from carrying^ this idea too far, and, upon the faith of a happy word, altering alt# .rether the true relations of created beings. In adopting the name.- Zoophyte, to indicate a great division of the animal kingdom, the readecH must not imagine that there is any ambiguity about the creatures* designated, or that they belong at once to both kingdoms, or that t they might be ranged indifferently in the one or the other. Zoophytes* are animals, and nothing but animals; the justification for using a designation which signifies animal plant is, that many of them haw* an exterior resemblance to plants; that they divide themselves by off- shoots, as some plants do, and are sometimes crowned with organs = tinted’with lively colours, like some flowers. This analogy between plants and zoophytes is nowhere more appa- rent than in the coral. Booted in the soil and upon rocks the form o« its branches many times subdivided, above all, the coloured appendages, which at certain periods so closely resemble the corolla of a lover,, have all the form and appearance of plants. Until the eighteenth cem tury most naturalists classed the coral as Linmeus did, without the least- ZOOPHYTES. •esitation, with analogous creations in the vegetable world. Reaumur mg contended for the contrary opinion ; but it is only in our day that be animal nature of the coral is satisfactorily established. The sea nemone may be cited as another striking example of the resemblance ■orne by certain inferior organisms to vegetables. We hold, then, that ?e are justified in using the word zoophyte to designate the beings yliich now occupy our attention. We shall not surprise our readers by telling them that the structure f the zoophyte, especially in its inferior orders, is excessively simple, ’hey are the first steps in the scale of animal life, and in them a purely udimentary organization was to be expected. In these beings — true ypes of animal life — the several parts of the body, in place of being dis- •osed in pairs on each side of its longitudinal plane, as occurs in animals f a higher organization, is found to radiate habitually round an axis or entral point, and this whether in its adult or juvenile state. Zoophytes lave not generally an articulate skeleton, either exterior or interior, and heir nervous system, where it exists, is very slightly developed. The ■rgans of the senses, other than those of touch, are altogether absent i the greater part of beings which belong to this, the lowest class of be last division of the animal kingdom. Several questions arise here : Has the zoophyte sentiment, feeling, erception ? Has it consciousness, sense, sensibility ? The question i insoluble; it is an abyss of obscurity. The coral, or rather the ggregation of living beings which bear the name, are attached to the ock which has seen their birth, and which will witness their death : be infusoria, of microscopic dimensions, which revolve perpetually in a iicle infinitesimally small. The Amibae, the marvellous Proteus, which a the space of a minute changes its form a hundred times under the urpnsed eyes of the observer, is, in truth, a mere atom charged with ife. Yet all these beings have an existence to appearance purely vege- ativo. In their obscure and blind impulse, have they consciousness or ostinct ? Do they know what takes place at the three thousandth •art of an inch from their microscopic bodies ? To the Creator alone oes the knowledge of this mystery belong. In consequence of the numerous differences of structure which exist rnong zoophytes, some recent authors divide them into four classes • arnely, Sponges, Infusoria, Acalephes, and Echinoderms But 74 THE OCEAN WORLD. following tlie best authorities which have recently treated ol these J animals, we shall divide them into I. Protozoa, including the Infusoria, Foraminifera, and Syon- -I giadse. II. Polypifera, including the Hydros, Sertularia, and Penna - ■' tularise. III. Echixodermata, or Sea-urchins and Star-fishes. Our space will prevent our doing more than presenting to theal reader in succession the most characteristic types of each of these ." groups. I. THE PROTOZOA. The Protozoares represent animal life reduced to its most simple e expression. They are organized atoms, mere animated and moving^ points, living sparks. As they are the simplest forms of animal lif® as regards their structure, so also they are the smallest. Iheir micro- - scopic dimensions hide them from our view. The discovery of the* microscone was a necessary step to our becoming acquainted with! these beings, whose existence was ignored by the ancient woild, and only* revealed in the seventeenth century by the discovery of the microscope.-. When armed with this marvellous instrument, applied to examine'* the various liquid mediums— as when Leuwenhoek, for example, ap- - plied the magnifying glass to the inspection of stagnant water, with, its infusions of macerated vegetable and animal substances— when heo scrutinized a drop of water borrowed from the ocean, fiom riveis, or® from lakes, he discovered there a new world— a world which will be - unveiled in these pages. j Some modern writers believe that the Protozoa is a mere ceJhdarf organism, that being the principal and end of organization, such as- we find it in the cellular vegetable. According to this hypothesis, the. Protozoares would be the cellulars of the animal kingdom, as the Algffli and Mushrooms are of the vegetable world. This idea is so lari wrong, that it has been founded upon the empire of pure theory. . “In reality,” says Paul Gervais and Van Beneden, “the animals to< which we extend it very rarely resemble elementary cellulars.” The. tissue of which the bodies of the Protozoa are composed is habitually destitute of cellular structure. They are formed of a sort of animated*) jelly, amorphous and diaphanous, and have received from Dujardiffl the name of Sarcoda, or soft-fleshcd animals. ZOOPHYTES. iO Infinitely varied in their form, the Protozoares are furnished with nbratile cilia, which are organs of locomotion belonging to the lower nimals inhabiting the liquid element. Their bodies are sometimes laked, sometimes covered with a siliceous, chalky, or membranous •uirass. They are divided into two great classes, the Rhizopoda and Infusoria. CLASS 11HIZ0P0DA. Gervais and Van Beneden include under the name of Rhizopods, or 'oot-rooted animals (so called from pi£a, root ; ttovs, 7 roSo?, footed ani- naJs), those of the simplest organization, which may he characterised >y the absence of distinct digestive cavities, and the presence of vibratile ilia, as well as by the soft parts of their tissues. This tissue emits irolongations or filaments which admit of easy extension, sometimes imple, sometimes branching. Occasionally we see these branching ilaments withdraw themselves towards the mass of the body, disappear, •nd gradually melt into its substance in such a manner that the indi- idual seems to absorb and devour itself. If, in exceptional cases, •ome of the superior animals, as the wolf, devour each other, the rhizo- )ods go much farther : they devour themselves, so to speak ! The rhizopods are found both in fresh and salt water. They live, is parasites, on the body of worms and other articulated animals. The dass is divided into many orders. We shall speak here only of three ; lamely, the Amibie, Foraminifera, and Noctiluca. THE AMIR®. In nearly all ancient animal and vegetable infusions, not quite Dutrid— upon all oozy beds covering bodies which have remained for “e time in fresh or sea water- we find the singular beings which oeloug to this order. They are the simplest organisms in creation, emg reduced to a mere drop of living matter. Their bodies are formed ot a gelatinous substance, without appreciable organization. Ihe quantity of matter which forms them is so infinitesimal, that it becomes incredibly diaphanous, and so transparent that the eye, armed rvith the microscope, traverses it in all directions, so that it is necessary 'O raodif> the nature of ^ liquid in which it is held in suspension uid introduce the phenomenon of refraction in order to observe them.’ It would be difficult to say exactly what is the form these creatures 76 THE OCEAN WORLD. assume. They frequently have the appearance of small rounded masses, like drops of water ; hut, whatever their form may he, it is always so unstable, that it changes, so to speak, every moment, so that it is found impossible to make a drawing from the model under the microscope- — the design must he finished by an appeal to memory. This instability is the characteristic manifestation of life in the Amiba, which are naked beings, without apparent organization ; in fact, it occupies the first step in the scale of creation. The transparent immovable drop under consideration emits ah ex- pansion, and a lobe of a vitreous appearance upon its circumference, which, gliding like a drop of oil upon the object-glass of the microscope, begins by fixing itself to it as a supporting point, afterwards slowly attracting to itself the whole mass, and thus gradually increasing its bulk under the observer’s eye. The Amiba , according to their dimensions and degree of develop- ment, successively emit a greater or smaller number of lobes, none of which are precisely alike, but, after having appeared for an instant, each successively re-enters into the common mass, with which it becomes completely incorporated. Variable in their respective forms, these lobes ; present appearances quite different in the several genera. They are more or less lengthy, more or less fringed, and often branching; some! times they are filiform, sprouting in all directions over the animal: mass, which rolls in the liquid like the husk of a small chestnut. If we ask how these animals are nourished, in which no digestive apparatus can be distinguished, the question is difficult to answer. It is thought that they are nourished by simple absorption, and by absorption only. In the interior of the gelatinous mass which constitute the animals, however, granules and microscopic portions of vegetables are frequently discovered. “ We can conceive,” says Dujardin, “ liow these objects have penetrated to the interior, if we remark, on the one hand, that in creeping on the surface of the glass, to which they adhere very exactly, the Amiba can be made to receive, by pressure, foreign substances into their own bodies, by means of the alternate contrac- tion and extension of the various parts natural to them, and, on the other hand, that the gelatinous mass is susceptible of spontaneous spherical cavities, which successively contract themselves and disappei in connection with the strange body which they have absoibed. depressions— here and there near to or even at the surface of the ZOOPHYTES. 77 The Amiba are often observed to be tinted red or green ; this arises om the special colouring-matter which has been absorbed into its mass. The question arises, How do these creatures, so simple in their •ganization, propagate their species ? We believe that they are chiefly multiplied by parting with a lobe, hich, in certain conditions, is enabled to live an independent exist- lce, and develope itself, thus forming a new individual. This is what ituralists term generation by division — fissijparism or fission. The iisence of a nutritive and re- •oductive apparatus in the miiba, and the want of sta- lity in their forms, explain )w nearly impossible it is to laracterise as species the nu- erous individuals daily met ith in infusions of organic atter in stagnant water. In der to distinguish some of .e groups, Dujardin bases s descriptions upon their 5e and the general form into inch they expand. We shall be able to form me idea of the appearance of ese beings, rendered mysterious by their very simplicity, by throw- g a glance upon the two accompanying figures (Figs. 10 and 11) 'rrowed from the Atlas of Dujardin’s eat work, “ Les Zoophytes Infusoires,” hich we shall have occasion to quote ore than once. We have said that the Amiba change .eir form every few moments under the Fig. 10. Amiba princeps (Ehrcnberg), magnified loo times. ■es of the observer. Fig. 11 repre- Fig. 1 1 . Various forms of Amiba diffluens (Miiller), magnified 400 times. nts the changes of form through lich they pass, according to Dujardin, len examined under the microscope. Dujardin points out very clearly the identity of structure between ,amsms like Amiba and such forms as Difflugia and ArceUa. All 78 THE OCEAN WORLD. these creatures are without trace of mouth or digestive cavity, and 1 the entire body is a single cell, or aggregation ot cells, "which leceivel their nutriment by absorption ; for, although the creatures have neither j mouth nor stomach, yet, according to Professor Kolliker, it takes m solid nutriment, and rejects what is indigestible. When in its progress I through the water one of these minute organisms approaches one of the equally minute Algae, from which it draws nourishment, it seizes the| plant with its tentacular filaments, which it gradually encloses on aU l sides ; the filaments, to all appearance, becoming more or less shortened j in the process. In this way the captive is brought close to the surface of the body ; a cavity is thus formed, in which the prey is lodged, which closes round it on all sides. In this situation it is gradually drawn towards the centre, and passes at last entirely into the mass. The engulfed morsel is gradually dissolved and digested. THE F0KAMIN1FEEA. There is nothing small in Nature. The idea of littleness or greatness is a human conception— a comparison which is suggests | by the dimensions of his own organs. Nature, on the other hand, compensates smallness by numbers. The result produced by the bones I of some large animals is also accomplished by the accumulated spoils) of millions of animalcules. The history of the Foramimfera is a striking H example of this great truth. What, then, is a Foraminifer ? It is a very small zoophyte, a shell 1 nearly invisible to the naked eye ; for, in general, its dimensions rarely d exceed the two hundredth part of an inch ; in short, it is strictly micro- - sconic. Examine under a microscope the sand of the ocean and f* will be found that one-half of it consists of the debris ot shells, ot various S but well-defined forms, each habitually pierced with a number of ho es. To this they are indebted for their name Foramimfera, from foramei^t a hole With these microscopic animalcules Nature has worked wonders* in geological times ; nor have the wonders ceased m our days. Many beds of the terrestrial crust consist entirely of the remains of Foraminifera. In the most remote ages in the history of our plane v these zoophytes must have lived in innumerable swarms m the seas of the period • ^they buried themselves in the bottoms of the seas, and i their. 4 during many ages, have finished by taunj great thickness and extent. We may say, to give an example, that ZOOPHYTES. 79 luring the Carboniferous period, a single species of these zoophytes aas formed, in Kussia alone, enormous beds of calcareous rock. Many oeds of cretaceous formation are, in great part, composed of Foraminifera, and they exist in immense numbers in the white chalk which cover and orm the vast mountains ranging from Champagne, in France, nearly :o the centre of England. But it is to the Tertiary formation that these zoophytes have contri- buted the most enormous deposits. The greater part of the Egyptian pyramids is only an aggregation of Nummulites. A prodigious lumber of Foraminifera present themselves in the tertiary deposits of the jironde, of Italy, and of Austria. The chalk so abundant in the basin >f Paris is almost entirely composed of Foraminifera. The remains of Fese creatures are so abundant in the Paris chalk, that M. d’Orbignv bund upwards of fifty-eight thousand in a small block, scarcely ex- ieeding a cubic inch of chalk, from the quarries of Chantilly. This act, according to this author, implies the existence of three thousand nilhons of these zoophytes in the cubic metre (thirty-nine inches md a small fraction) of rock ! As the chalk from these quarries las served to build Paris, as well as the towns and villages of the leighbouring departments, it may be said that Paris, and other great centres of population which surround it, are built with the shells >f these microscopic animals. The sand of the littoral of all existing seas is so full of these ninute but elegant shells, that it is often half composed of them. M. I’Orbigny found in three grammes (forty-six grains troy) of sand from ~e Antilles, four hundred and forty thousand shells of Foraminifera. Bianchi found in thirty grammes (four hundred and sixty-seven grains) from the Adriatic, six thousand of these shells, 'if we Jalculate the proportion of these beings contained in a cubic metre wu 4- ° vT " 0 reac^ a figure which passes all conception, wou i t is be if we could extend the calculation to the immen- 31 m° uvuYaCe C0Vere<^ ^ the waves which surround the globe ? l* c ^as satisfied himself, by microscopic examination of ianc s rom a parts of the globe, that it is the ddbris of Foraminifera v c orm, m all existing seas, those enormous deposits which raise >anks, obstruct the navigation in gulfs and straits, and fill Un •orts, as may be seen in the port of Alexandria. In common with e coials and madrepores, the Foraminifera are the great agents in 80 THE OCEAN WOULD. forming the isles which surge up under our eyes from the bosom of the ocean in the warmer regions of the globe. Thus shells, scarcely v appreciable to the sight, suffice by their accumulations to fill up seas, while performing a very considerable part in the great operations j of Nature, although it may not be apparent to us. Our exact knowledge of the Foraminifera is of very recent date, j Great numbers of minute particles, of regular and symmetrical form, were long distinguished on the sands of the sea shore. These corpus- cular atoms early attracted the attention of observers. But with the dis- covery of the microscope, these small elegant shells, which were amon® the curiosities revealed by the instrument, assumed immense importance. We have stated that these corpuscles are nothing but the shell or solij framework of a crowd of marine animalcule : we may then consider them': as living species analogous to the Ammonites and Nautilus of geological times. & Linnaeus has placed them in this last genus, which would include, according to that author, all the multilocular shells. In 1804, Lamarck classed them among the molluscous cephalopods. But Alcide d’Orbigny, who has devoted long years study and observa- tion, and may be considered the great historian of the Foraminifera, makes it appear that this mode of classification was inexact. Dujardin separated them altogether from the class of mollusks, and showed that they ought to be consigned to an inferior class of animals. These minute creatures, in short, are deficient in the true appendages | analogous to feet, which exist in the higher mollusks. They simply j possess filamentous expansions, very variable m then form. L . . . ,t Tii ; miArnaPf )ssess niaineiiijuuo t . • We have stated that the Foraminifera are of microscopic dimen- _ i • • 1* -i n ner\-r\ nro 11 XT fvTlQ • lyilfi thfilS nave siateu _ 1 1. i! 1 sions. With some trifling exceptions, this is generally true ; but there j exist' a number of species which are visible to the naked eye. Suclt are the Nummulites, spoken of above as entering into the composition of the stony masses of the Pyramids of Egypt. The NummuMa • „ramidas is circular in form, and about an inch m diameter. The Foraminifera found in the nummulite formation ot Tremsted, m Bavaria between Munich and Saltzberg, are still larger, being neaily doXhe size of the nummulite of the Pyramids ; in short, they are the giants of this tribe ot animals. , , After these remarks, we may venture to give some idea of J* structure and classification of these beings, whose part m of creation have, in former times, been so considerable. FORAMINIFERA. 81 The bodies of the Foraminifera are formed of a gelatinous sub- tree, sometimes entire and round, sometimes divided into segments, vhich can be placed upon a line, simple or alternate, wound up into i spiral form or rolled round its axis, like a ball. A testaceous envelope, nodelled upon the segments, follows the various modifications of form, ,nd protects the body in all its parts. From the extremity of the ast segment of one or many openings of the shell, or of the numerous >ores, issue certain long and slender filaments, more or less numerous, vhich are divided and subdivided over their whole length, like the preading branches of a tree. They can attach themselves to external odies with force enough to determine the progression of the animal. Seing formed of transparent non-colouring matter, they may be aid to be mere expansions, which vary in form and length according 3 the conditions of the ambient medium. The filaments have also ery variable positions : sometimes they form an unique and retractile and, issuing from a single opening ; sometimes they project them- elves across from numerous little pores in the shell, which covers ae last segment of the animal. These pores, or openings, give the ame to the creatures under consideration. In conclusion, the filaments, contractile and variable in their form, 'hich constitute the feet and arms of these little creatures, appear to ave something poisonous in them ; it is stated that the’ Infusoria re at once paralysed in then- motions when brought in contact with ie minute arms of the Foraminifera. “It is probably by this leans, says M. Fredol, “that these creatures succeed in catching mir prey. Is it not worthy of remark that these beings, however small leir size and slight their form, are unpitying flesh- eaters? The nallest, the weakest, and the most microscopic animal in existence ^ means of a homoeopathic dose of poison, a most irmidable destroyer.” Another singular observation on these little filaments or arms we o ujar in. This naturalist observed that, when a miliola at- impted to climb up the walls or sides of a vase, it could improvise as it eie, on e instant, and, at the expense of its own substance, a’ pro- Aional foot, which stretched itself out rapidly and performed all the notions of a permanent member. The occasion served, this tern- »rary foot seemed once more to return to the common mass, and was * orbed into the body. It would thus appear that with these minute G 82 THE OCEAN WORLD. creatures the presence of a necessity gives the power to create an organ hy the mere will of the creature, while man, with all ins genius, cannot manufacture a hair. To the present day, however, wn have not been able to discover any organ of nutrition m the T a- 1 minifera; they have no stomach, properly so called, but Nature has gifted them with a peculiar tissue, at once gelatinous and contract* and essentially simulative, which probably serves the same purpose. , We have already said that the shells of these minute zoophytes vary ■ much in form. They are generally many-ehambered, each chamlJ — ig by pies in the walls: "imlules are, in this manner, placed in continual commuj cation with each other. Alcide d'Orbigny, to vvhom we owe almoj all that is known of the class, has distributed them into six farni J making the form of the shell the basis of their arrangement These j “ ZiTes include sixty genera, and more than .xteen hundJ species, the families being as follows |jl I. Monostega. — Animals consisting of a single segment. Shell ««| a single chamber. II. Stichostega— Animal in seg Fig. 12. Orbulina unlvevsa. ■rnents, arranged in a single line. big. 13. Dentalina communis. Shell in chambers, superimposed linearly on a straight or curved axiu FORAMINIFKRA. 83 III. Helicostega.— Animal in segments, spirally arranged. Cham- oers piled or superimposed on one axis, forming a spiral erection. In Fig. 1 9 we have a horizontal section of Faujasina, in which the spiral involutions are visible on the truncated half of the shell. Fig. 14. Operculina. \ Fig. 19. Faujasina. IV. Entomostega.— Animal composed of alternating segments form- ig a spiral. Chambers superimposed on two alternating axes, also inning a spiral. Mil* Fig. 15. Nummulitis lentlcularis. tig. 16. Cassidulina. V. Enallostega.- Animal formed of alternate segments. Non-spiral lig. 17. Textilaria. ambers disposed alternately along two oi three axes, also non-spiral. g 2 84 THE OCEAN WORLD. VI. Agathistpga. — Animal formed of segments wound round an axis. Chambers formed round a common axis, each investing half the circumference. Fig. 18. Spiroloculina. The simplest form of Foraminifera is illustrated by Fig. 12 (Or 'bulinM universa) which is a small spherical shell, having a lateral aperturdl the interior of which has been occupied by the living jel y, to which the shell owes its existence. In the second order, the shell (Fie. ), Dentalina communis, advances beyond this simple type by » of linear budding, the first cell being spherical, with “ through which a second segment is formed, generally a little lai than the first. This new growth is successively followed by oth developed in the same way, until the organism attains its maturj , when it exhibits a series of cells arranged end on end, m a shghty | CU In the1 next group the gemmation takes a spiral bias, producing the. nautilus shape which misled the earlier naturalists. In some cases > ^convolutions arc visible, as in Online, (Fig. H). n ££* part of the eocene formation in the quarts and greyst » rocks of the neighbourhood of Paris; one figure rjiesentmg to shell entire, and the other a vertical section, while the small fi„ with the chamber equilatemh -de, the position being alternately rever^ r the sjments are multiplied, as in Oassiduhna (big. 16). tte tccSg group the new segments are arranged alternately « FOHAMINIFERA. 85 opposite sides of the central line, as in Textilaria (Fig. 17), thus forming two alternating non-spiral parallel segments, each connected by a single orifice. The sixth family differ entirely in appearance and structure from the other Foraminifera. They are more opaque than the other orders, having a resemblance to white porcelain, which presents a rich amber- brown hue when viewed by transmitted light. They are more or less ■ oblong, each new segment being nearly equal to the entire length of the shell, so that the terminal orifice presents itself alternately at its opposite extremities, sometimes in one uniform plane, ns in Spiroloeu- Ima (Fig. 18), and Faujasina (Fig. 19). At other times each new seg- iment, instead of being exactly opposite each other, is a little on one side. Professor W illiamson has shown that the shell enclosing each new segment is at first very thin ; but as additional calcareous chambers J.Lfyu.TW* fig. 2U. Nummulltes Rouaultl (U’AicImlc and J. Uaime). ve formed, each addition not only encases the new >ft animal, but extends over all the exterior of the gemmation of the previously formed the ocean world. 8t numerical development. In the celebrated cirmrt.es o St P t , ^ Maestrecbt, the Siderolites calcitrapoides of La”"*" J the upper halk (Fig. 21). In the calcareous formation of Chan. J, FORAMINIFEIiA. 87 Kig. 22. Fabularia discolithes (Defrar.ee). in the Seine and Oise district, and other parts of the Paris basin, the Fabularia discolithes (Fig. 22) of Defrance is found. Finally, the Dactylopora cylindracea of Lamarck (Fig. 24) is found in the eocene forma- tion of Valmondois and in the chalk of Grignon. At first, this little creature was thought to be a polype ; but d’Orbigny, in his “ Prodrome de Paleonto- Iogie,” has placed it among the Foraminifera, thinking that it i appeared to occupy a place be- ! tween the two classes. The existing Foraminifera are by no means equally distributed in every ocean. Some genera belong to warm countries, others to temperate and cold climates. They are much more numerous, how- ever, and much more varied in their forms, in warm than in cold climates, and, we may add, larger also, for Sir E. Belcher brought a recent species from Borneo which measured two inches in dia- meter. Flg' 2i- Uactylopora cylindracea (Lamarck). be^Tage0^theStad3,0f the ^ words may the class Acaleph*. 0, Z’ « f nn,mals usl,alIy referred to scribed, which occurs occasional”' onThe Msh Toast aumbers. It is a small creature, scarcely the hundredth , ‘art rf ’ n diameter, according to Mr. Huxley (Fm 25 Nor/il 1 f .^nmch [t was discovered by M. Surrimy, L^ThT Thermal gelatmous mass, scarcely bigger than a pin's head, with a Hg. 23. Alvcolina oblonga (d’Orbigny). 88 THE OCEAN WORLD. long filiform tentacular appendage, a moutli, an oesophagus, one or many stomachs, and branching ovaries thus exhibiting a ce m-S complexity of organization. De Blainville took the same view, and placed it 'among the Difliydx. Van Beneden and Doyere on the other hand, deny its relation to the Acaleplm, conceiving its organ- ization to he much more simple: they place it with the RHmpoda. Quatrefages adopts the same view, denying the existence ot a true month or intestinal canal: he considers the so-called stomachs as simple “vacuales,” similar to those observed in the Ehizopodo and Infusoria. Mr. Huxley, describing it in the “ Journal of Microscopical Science ” (vol. hi.), says it has nearly the form of a peach, a filiform tentacle, equal in length to the diameter of the body, 0C0UPJ‘“8 the place where the stalk of the peach might be, which depends Fig. 25. Noctlluca niilinris. from it and exhibits slow wavy motions when the creature is in lull activity! "I have even seen a nocfflim," he adds, “ appear to push agaiust obstacles with this tentacle. “The body” he continues, “is composed of a structureless an somewhat dense external membrane, which is continued on to the tentacle Beneath this is a layer of granules, or rather of gelatinous membrane through whose substance minute granules are scattered wittat any very definite arrangement ; from hence arises a network of very delicate fibrils, whose meshes are not more than one l« hundredth part of an inch in diameter, which gratefly i^fibj —the reticulation becoming more and more open i taking a convergent direction towards the stomach and nucleon AH these fibres and fibrils are covered with minute giann es, w le l usually larger towards the centre. . 3 fi t. fhe Mr Huxley is inclined to think, from all he has observed, that the INFUSORIA. 89 auiinal lias a definite alimentary cavity, and that this cavity has an excretory aperture distinct from the mouth. Surriray discovered the nodiluea while investigating the cause of phosphorescence of sea water at Havre, where it was abundant in the basins ; sometimes in such abundance as to form a crust on the surface of the water of considerable thickness. “ This singular little creature,’ says M. Fredol, “offers here and there in its interior certain granules, probably germs, and also luminous points, which appear and disappear with great rapidity — the least agitation determining their lustre. The nodiluea are so abundant in the Mediterranean and in some parts of the channel, that in a cubic foot of sea water, which has been rendered phosphorescent by their presence, it is calculated that there exist about twenty-five thousand. Class Infusoria. W itli the Infusoria we return to the domain of the infinitely little. The waters, both fresh and salt, are inhabited by legions of active, ever-moving beings, of dimensions so small as to be inappreciable to the naked eye ; these minute creatures are disseminated by millions and thousands of millions in the great deep, and all knowledge of them would have escaped us, as they escaped the knowledge of the ancients, but for the discovery of the microscope, the sixth sense of man, as it has been happily expressed by the historian and poet Michelet. Another writer of equally poetical mind, M. Fredol, tells us that “ the infusorial animalcules are so small that a drop of water may contain them in many millions. They exist in all waters, the fresh as well as the salt, t ie cold as well as the hot. The great rivers are continually dis- charging them in vast quantities into the sea.” The Ganges, tiansports them in the course of. one year in masses equa to six or eight times the size of the great pyramid of Egypt Among these animalcules, according to Ehrenberg, we may reckon seventy-one different species. “ The water collected in vases between the Philippine and the larianne Isles at the depth of twenty-two thousand feet (making some allowance for erroneous soundings), have yielded a hundred and sixteen species Near the Poles, where beings of higher organization conlcl not exist, the Infusoria are still met with in myriads ; those which were 90 THE OCEAN WORLD. observed in tbe Antarctic Seas, during the voyages ol Captain Sir James Eoss, offer a richness of organization, often accompanied by elegance of form, quite unknown in more northern regions. In the | residuum of tbe blocks of ice floating about in latitude seventy -eight degrees ten minutes, nearly fifty different species were found. Many of them had ovaries, according to Ekrenberg, still green, which proved that they had struggled successfully with the rigours of the climate m searching for food. At a depth in the sea which exceeds the height of the loftiest mountain, Humboldt asserts that each bed of water is animated by an innumerable phalanx of inhabitants imperceptible to the human eye. These microscopic creatures are, in short, the smallest and the most numerous creations in Nature. They constitute with human beings one of the wheels of that very complicated machine, tbe globe. They are in the rank and at the station willed for them, as deter- mined in the great First Thought. Suppress these microscopic beings, and the world would be incomplete. It was said, and wisely said, long, long ago, “ there is nothing so small to the view but that it may become great by reflection. The Infusoria, in short, abound everywhere. We find their remains on the loftiest mountain ridges, and in the profoundest depths of the sea. They increase and multiply alike under the Equator, and towards the polar regions. The seas, rivers, ponds-the flower vase which rests upon the casement— even our tissues, and the fluids of our bodies -a I contain infusorial animalcules. Whole beds of strata, often many feet thick and covering a surface of considerable extent, are almost exclu- sively formed of their accumulated debris. It is to the Infusoria that I the mud of the Nile and other fluviatile and lacustrine deposits owe its prodigious fertility. To them also is due the red or green layer of colouring matter found in ponds and tanks at certain seasons. When exposed' to great solar heat, in order to extract the salt, as it is in the vast artificial basins, hollowed out for the purpose in the salt marshes near the sea shore in the south of France, the salt water, when it reaches a certain degree of concentration acquires a fine io> colour, which is due to the presence of innumerable masses of sm U Infusoria having a reddish shell. Finally, let us add that the solrf debris of certain fossil Infusoria, of surprising minuteness, have 01 me the stone so much used by workers in metal, which is known as tnpoh. INFUSORIA. 91 The study of these creatures is intensely interesting to the naturalist, the philosopher, the physician, and the general reader. They have had a great part assigned to them in Nature, as is evident in the forma- tion ol certain beds of rock of immense extent, in which the geologist traces their action. Our earliest knowledge of the Infusoria is traceable to the seven- teenth century ; to the celebrated naturalist, Leuwenhoek, we are indebted for their discovery. On the 24th of April, 1676, this observer saw for the first time some infusorial animalcules. Fifty years later, Baker and Trembley studied them anew. In 1752, Hill essayed the first attempt at their classification. In 1764, Wiesberg gave them the name ot Infusoria, because he found them in such great abundance in animal and vegetable infusions. Muller pub- lished a special book upon them. From that time the Infusoria have been considered as forming a special group among the radiate animals ; afterwards, in the pages of Baer and ot De Blainville, we see in these creatures, so imperfect in appearance, only the indeterminate prototype of other classes. But ideas changed altogether respecting them when microscopes of great power, and armed with achromatic lens, were employed in their study. Thanks to the labours of Ehrenberg and Dujardin, we have arrived at a better comprehension of the organization of these infinitely small beings. Naturalists have established, with more exactness, the limits ot the zoological group to which they belong. Some stagnant waters are so filled with Infusoria that it is only necessary to dip at random into the liquid medium to procure them in a uncance. In other waters they form a bed, occupying the whole asm. n general, it is necessary to search for them where the water is calm, and occupied by vegetation of some kind, such as the conferva or emna , c., m the marshes, and ceramium if in the sea. Certain infusoria live not only in water, but also in places habitually moist, as mong u s o mosses ; in beds of osciUaria, on moist soil, or on air- ' !!mp Wa k °thers llve as Parasites on the exterior or in the interior o animals, such as liydra, lombrics , and naiads. Quantities of them are found m the liquid excrements and other products of certain organisms, and they have been noted even in women’s milk But, as their name indicates, it is in aqueous infusions, vegetable or 92 THE OCEAN WOULD. animal, that these animalcules abound. Armed with a microscope, the reader may, with very little trouble, afford himself the pleasure of studying these animals. It is only necessary to place some organic debris — the white of an egg, or some grass, for example— in a vase with a large mouth, tilled with water, and expose it to the light and air. Certain reagents, as phosphate of soda, the phosphates, nitrates, or oxalates of ammonia, or carbonate of soda added to these infu- sions, will singularly favour the development of Infusoria. There are also some accidental infusions which seem to lurmsh these microscopic beings in great abundance. Water which stagnates in garden soil or in vegetable mould, in the watering-cart or m flower vases, is tilled with myriads of these beings. So much for the medium in which they live, move, and have their being. Let us pass on to their organization. We have already dwelt I on their extreme minuteness ; their mean size is the mere fraction, a fifth of the twelfth part of an inch ; the largest species scarcely reveal themselves to the naked eye. They are generally colourless; some of them are, nevertheless, green, blue, red, brown, and even blackish. Seen I on the object-glass of the microscope, they appear to be gelatinous, trans- parent, and naked, or invested with an envelope more or less resistant, which we shall designate after Dujardin by the term Sareoda a su - stance which is homogeneous, diaphanous, elastic, contractile and, above I all, destitute of every kind of organization. They are usually ovoid or crlobular. Those most frequently met with, and which attiact t most attention from observers, are furnished with vibrahle cilia, which cover the whole body, acting as paddles. These organs ad evidently intended to propel the animal from one place to another At ote times they appear to be employed in conveying ioMe mouth, if we may use the expression. Some Infusoria aie w lh u these cells having only one or many very slender filaments, the undulating movement of which suffices to determine their progression through the liquid which surrounds them. Authors who have written on the Intom have —cs £ Leuwenhoek, Ehrenberg, and IWket, attainted to them a ery co, plex structure. Others, like Muller, Cuvier, and Lamarck! have cm sidered them to be gifted with an organization extienu } s 1 shall probably find that the truth lies between these two extreme! . INFUSORIA. 9.°, In the superior Infusoria, besides the granules, the interior globules, vesicles full of liquid, vibratile oils, and a tegumentary system, more or less complex, we find the substance which is called Sarcoda. The digestive apparatus of the Infusoria has been the subject of numerous observations, and has been provocative of very animated discussions. In the inferior order of the class, which comprehends the very smallest animalcules, it has not been found possible to observe the organization of the digestive apparatus in a satisfactory manner. Some writers think they have no mouth, what has been taken for that organ being only hollow dimples on the surface of the body ; others recognise the existence of a buccal orifice, sometimes furnished with a solid armature. As to the arrangements of the interior cavities in which digestion takes place, we know nothing certain. The digestive apparatus is better understood in the superior Infusoria, called eiliate, namely, those provided with vibratile dls. These cils seem to determine the currents of the liquid, leading the nutritive cor- puscles suspended in the water towards the entrance of the digestive apparatus. They form, in some sort, the prehensile organs which seize the aliment. The cils are, at the same time, the organs intended to facilitate respiration ; in short, these little whips playing upon the water unceasingly round the Infusoria, is just the action required for the absorption of the oxygen contained in the water. These cils, then, serve at once for the propulsion of the animal, for its nutrition, and for its respiration, presenting a remarkable example of cumulative functions in physiology. The corpuscles of nutritive substances directed towards the buccal orifice by the vibratile cils soon disappear in the interior of the animal. Avaihng himself of this fact and the transparency of the animal, Herr eic en, a German physiologist of the last century, conceived the PPy 1 ea of colouring the water which contained these animalcules ™ *. eJ P0W(Iered carmine; he traced the colouring matter in the bodies of some of them. But it was reserved for Ehrenberg to avail Wlf of the same artifice in order to study the internal structure and mode of absorbing nutritive matter in these minute creatures This physiologist fed many groups of Infusoria, some of them with water coloured with carmine, others with indigo and other colouring matters He saw, besides, some coloured globules, nearly uniform in „■ different indmdua.s of the sj specie. Fri ZTe ^ “ 94 TI-IE OCEAN WORLD. the conclusion that the colouring matter was deposited in many of the surrounding dimples. Ehrenberg thought that each ol these dimples was a stomach, and that the introduction of the food into the mtenor of these reservoirs, as well as the evacuations, were produced by means of an intestine around which these stomachs are arranged. In some cases he even thought he could distinguish the outlines of this intestinal canal, and its connection with numbers of ampula or bladders. Gene- ralizing the conclusions drawn from his observations, in short, we find that his class, Infusoria, embraced two very different forms of animal life, which he divided into Inf usoria, Polygastrica, and Botifera, the latter division including those known as Wheel animalcules ; the Polygastrica being so called from his idea that the typical forms | possessed a number of stomachs. In some, Ehrenberg counted four stomachs, an organization which brings these microscopic beings into a strange kind of comparison with the ox and the goat. In others he counted two stomachs. Other observers were not slow in raising objections to these views. Dujardin, especially, was much opposed to the batch of stomachs attri- buted to these creatures by the German physiologist. He attempte to establish the fact that the coloured globules which appeared in I the bodies of the Infusoria, while subjected to a regimen of carmine and indigo are not confined by a membrane ; that is to say, they are not contained in intestinal sacs. According to Milne Edwards, “ they are a species of basins, constituted,” he says, “by the alimentary matter with which each is gorged, united into a rounded pasty mass, where it could no longer be dispersed, but would continue to advance, still pie- serving its form. We have, in short, seen these spherules changing their places, and passing one another in their progress from the mouth to the intestinal canal. That they could not do this is evident, if man) stomachs were attached to the intestinal canal !” This opinion, due to the patient and precise studies of Dujnidin has been adopted by most naturalists of eminence. Besides, this lenine microscopist does not admit that there was in the sarcodic mass o Infusoria any pre-existent cavity destined to receive the o . n ■ word, he does not recognise any stomach whatever. This view of the extreme simplicity of structure in the Infusoria has, oveie , met with much opposition. To accord them neither four- nor two stomachs, it is not necessary to deprive them of the organ altogether ^ INFUSORIA. 95 Meyen represents them as having one great hollow stomach occupied by a pulpy matter, into which the alimentary masses are successively absorbed. “ All recent observations,” says Milne Edwards, “tend to establish the fact that the digestive apparatus of the ciliate Infusoria consists of — first, a mouth ; second, of a pharyngeal canal, in which the food often assumes the form of a bolus ; third, of one great stomach with distinct walls, and more or less distant from the common tegu- mentary membrane ; fourth, of an excretory orifice.” This mouth presents sensible differences both as to its position and conformation, often occupying the bottom of a hollow, the edges of which are furnished with well-developed cilia , the action of which . attracts the aliment ; in short, the mouth is a sort of decoy at the bottom of a simple pit, being at once contractile and prehensile, the interior part being sometimes capable, according to Milne Edwards, of 1 being turned inside out in the form of a trumpet, while in a great i many species it is provided with a peculiar armature, consisting of a band of ligid bristles disposed in the form of a how-net, and susceptible of dilation and contraction, according to the wants of the animal. ■ The oesophagus, which is connected by means of the canal with the 1 mou^1’ ^as generally an oblique direction backwards, often terminating in a great undivided stomach. The reproduction of the Infusoria exhibits some very surprising phenomena, while it offers another proof of the wonderful means Nature employs for perpetuating the races of animals. They can be repro- duced by three different processes : 1. By gemmae, or budding, some- wha after the manner of plants. 2. By sexual reproduction ; for m these little creatures it has recently been discovered that sexual differences exist. 3. By the spontaneous division of the animal mto two individuals— a process known to zoologists as Jissipurism or JISSIOU. is the W th™three rr»- that which aH>ears best ™ auimal or vegetable, to the action of the air and water at a suitable temperature, hr order to see ht tr i a,id form itseit int° u™g « Such is the general enumeration of the question of spontaneous or heterogeneous generation, on which so much has \ Jn ™ u fhe last ten years. The great cinders oflhelX CU . H THE OCEAN WORLD. US the two French naturalists, MM. Pouchet and Joly. Their views have, however, made little progress; they have, on the contrary met with vigorous opposition from the generality of French naturaliste, and from most of the members of the Academie des Sciences of ans, who have raised their voices against a doctrine which is contrary to the ordinary course of nature. In short, the direct observations made upon the theory of “primitive generation” are as yet wanting unnecessary “ flu. observers8 Who profess to have witnessed Ihe sudden orioio of the minutest of the infusoria from elementary substances have in all probability overlooked the organic structure of these elementary bodies. The wonderful changes of form undergone by many infusoria have their limits, and the laws governing them have still to be defined. With the poet we may say : “ Gncmumtici certant et adhuc sub judice lis est." Many of the Infusoria are subject to metamorphoses, and it has already been ascertained that certain species which liaye been eon- :!S 7, distinct are only transition forms of the same spec.es ! d6 wftaowttTit is common for insects to enctac themselves in pro- teclg envelopes, and to remain for whole months shut up in flu. them retreat to all appearance dead. Similar facts have been observed m the Infusoria. We have even seen some of these beings suiroun ing strange bodies as if in a mass of jelly, forming a sort of living envelop j ar°The average duration of life with them is only a few hours ; but j certain species present, in relation to the duration of life phenomenj which are only imperfectly known, but which never fail to excite th J ' and admiration of the naturalist. By drying certain info! surprise and admnatu) indefinitely prolong Thfr Cdried a^covered wl a powder, which shelters it from every breath of wind, it may he carried to any given fiom eye y ^definite ueriod of time— abandoned on some rr; f ’ Zt TatX^e cleft of a wall, or under the ? ib “endea possibly for years, resumes its interrupted couise . INFUSORIA. 90 , Into wliat a world of reflection does not a revelation of this myste- rious property of a living creature plunge us ! The physiologist Muller has noted another peculiarity in infusorial life. These animalcules can lose a part of their bodies without being destroyed ; the dead part disappears, and the individual, diminished by one alf, 01 reduced to a fourth of its former size, continues to live as if nothing had happened. Muller has observed a kalpode (Kolpoda meleagris ) thus melt before his eyes until scarcely a sixteenth part of its body remained. After its loss, this sixteenth part of an animal continued to swim about without troubling itself as to its diminished proportions. “ The infusoria,” says Fredol in “ La Monde de la Mer ” present yet another kind of decomposition. If we approach the drop ot water m which it swims with the barb of a feather dipped in ammonia, the animalcule is arrested in its movement, but its cils continue to move rapidly. All at once, upon some point of its circum- i. erence, a notch is formed, which increases hit by hit until the whole ' EITa 18 dlssol^ed- If a drop of pure water is added, the decom- position is suddenly stopped, and what remains of the animalcule recommences its swimming movements.” (Dujardin.) , ma{ diTldc the Inlusona into two ordere-the Ciliate Infusoria nmely, those provided with vibratile cilia, and the Flagelliferoul ipiTw ' ?rlj’ "’I011 ta'le “™3 °r branctes- The greater °ng 10 ‘he *"* comprehends many , our space limits us to the mention here of a few tvnical mtoLth^fro'Th11' Sr°UP’ 8ek0ting tt°Se aPPear g, from their size, structure, rarity, or abundance. Flagelliferous Infusoria. motion, includes ^ *?*** I in stale paste, vinegar &c w‘+l C1°SC°pl magnified vibratile cils, especially on the surface, having also a large mouth, surrounded with cilia, forming a Sort of moustache, spirally arranged. Among the species belonging to this group may be noted the Con- dylostoma patens (Fig. 37), remarkable for its size and voracity It sometimes attains the twelfth of an inch, and abounds on every shore from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. Another Bussarian, the Vla- gmloma of the Lombric, lives between the intestines and the external muscular bed of the annelid, which bears the name of Lombric T the group of Urceolarians belong the Stentors, which are in number the moat numerous of the Infuaoria; they are, for the most JT visible to the naked eye. Pai^’ 106 THE OCEAN WORLD. The Stentors are inhabitants of fresh, tranquil water, not subject to agitation, and covered with water plants. They are nearly all coloured green, blackish, or blue ; their bodies covered with cilia. They are eminently contractile, and very variable in form. They can attach themselves temporarily, by means of the cils, at their posterior extremities, when they assume a trumpet-like form, the bell of which is closed by a convex membrane, the edge being furnished with a row of very strong obliquely-placed cils, ranged in a spiral, meeting at the mouth, which is placed near this edge. When they swim freely, they alternately resemble a club, a spindle, or a sphere. The Stentor Mulleri is seen in ponds in the neighbourhood of Paris and elsewhere; it has been found even in the basins of the Jardin des Plantes (Fig. 38). The animals which constitute this genus are fixed in the first part of then- existence, but free in the second. So long as they are fixed, they resemble, in their expanding state, a bell or funnel, with the edges reversed and ciliate. When they become free, they lose their crown t of cils, take a cylindrical form, more or less s ovoid and elongated, and move themselves by means of a new organ. “ There is no animal,” says Dujardin, “ which excites our admiration in a higher degree than the Vorticellate : Infusoria, by their crown of cils, and by the: vertex which it produces ; by their ever-varying forms ; above all, by then' pedicle, susceptible of rapid spiral contractor by drawing: the body backward and again extending it. This pedicle ® a flat membranous band, thicker upon one of its edges than the other, containing on the thicker side a continuous channel, occupred, at least! “ part by a fleshy substance, analogous to that of the interior of tor lody During contraction, this thick edge is shortened more than:. the thin side, and hence results the precise form of the sp.ral of to, corkscrew. Fig. 38. Stentor Mulleri (Enr.) magnified 75 times. CHAPTER Y. POLYPIFERA. JSZ btt,nbIe fortune* lives c“* in *«» — Entering on the class Polypifera, we leave the domain of the infi- nitely small to enter the world of the visible. Beside the Infusoria, the Polypifera, which are sometimes several inches in length, are very powerful bemgs. Science has made great advances in giving us an exact knowledge of these singular bemgs. Many scientific prejudices have been dissipated, many errors have been corrected. The Polypi, as obey are defined in the actual state of Science, correspond not only |ith the Polypes, properly so called, of Cuvier and De Blainville, but akso with the acalephous zoophytes of the same authors. We now Jmow that certam Polypes engender medusa, or acalephous zoophytes, fd that there exist some medusae scarcely differing in their structure and habits of life from the ordinary Polypes. I bus regarded, the type of the Polypes comprehend a great variety of animals the bodies of which are generally soft or gelatinous sub- ,, nCeS 6 incipal and smaller divisions, to the number of more ' are arranged round an imaginary axis, represented by the central part of the body. These divisions of the body have in their i ensemble the appearance of a regular cylinder, of a truncated cone or : *a dlsk- Th0y are invested ™th a skin or envelope of calcareous or siliceous corpuscles, and even a portion of the deepest-lying tissues may be invaded by a calcareous deposit, the mass of which belongs some- times to an individual ; sometimes it is common to many constituting *at is called a Polypier; of which Professor Grant "her^ 108 THE OCEAN WOULD. tat one life and one plan of development in the whole mass, and tins depends, not on the Polypi, which are but secondary and often deciduous parts, but on the general fleshy substance of the body , “ the ramifications,” says Dr. Johnston, “ being disposed ^ a variety of elegant plant-like forms. The stem and branches are alike in texture. 1 nder horny, fistular, and almost always jointed at short and regu ar intervals the joint being a mere break in the continuity of the sheath, without ’any character of a proper hinge, and formed by regular period- interruptions in the growth of the polypidoms. Along he .,4s of these, or1 at their extremities, we find the denticles or eup-like M l of the polypes arranged in a determinate order, either sessile or ele- . vated on a stalk.” Near the base of each of these there is a part or diaphragm, on which the body of the polype rests, with a plain or tubulons perforation in the centre, through which he connect between the individual polype and the common medullary P"lp >s tained Besides the cells, there are found at certain seasons a lar <* 7t of vesicle, readily distinguished from the othem by tar and the irregularity of their distribution, which are destined contain and maturate the ovules. presents With these animals the digestive tube is very simple and pres only one distinct orifice ; the same opening serving at once for ceivino the food and the expulsion of the residuum of digestion T i s is one of Dame Nature’s economies, which it is not for us to dispute . wp must record it without further remark. t 1 HI the Polvpes the sexes are separate ; the generation is In nearly all he P mnlti J also by what the zoolo- sometimes sexual, but the* be „;th n8 of the gists call gemmrtion, ” J^ve ZlTL immense progress in organ- rr ; aTcominild wflh the animals which have hitherto engaged our ‘hi on E respiration is effected by the sk,n_another instance - 71 economy of Nature. tttated^r "e 'ceils and stinging hairs often cover the entire surface of the Polypi- insufficient to the These general remarks so ; they are, larger number of our readeis eyen to naturalists. We- generalities upon animals very 1 v ’ ^ * “ Outlines of Comparative Anatomy. RPONGIA. 109 quit this difficult ground, trusting to make the special study of the several types we shall have to describe more interesting. The group of Polypes divide themselves into many classes, namely, the Sponges, the Alcyonidas, the Zoantharia, the Discophora, and Ctenophora. It will be our task to describe in succession the habits and characters of each of these classes, dwelling on such species as appear to us to offer to the reader most real interest. Spongia. The Sponge is a natural production, which has been known from times ot the highest antiquity. Aristotle, Pliny, and all other writers who occupied themselves with natural history in ancient times, are agreed in according to it a sensitive life. They recognise the curious fact that the sponge evades the hand which tries to seize it, and clings to the rocks on which it is rooted, as if it would resist the efforts made to detach it. Pliny, Dioscorides, and their commentators, even formed the idea that sponges were capable of feeling, that they adhered to their native rock by special force, and that they shrunk from the hand which tried to seize them. They even distinguished males from females. Erasmus, however, criticising Pliny, concludes that he may pass over all he has written upon the sponge. The sponge, in short, was to the ancients something between a plant and an animal. Bondelet, the friend of the celebrated Babelais, whom the merry curate of Meudon designated under the name of RondibUis, who was , himself a physician and naturalist of Montpellier, denied at first the existence of sensibility in sponges. He originated the idea that these ; productions belonged to the vegetable world— an idea which Tournefort, I j™sPard Bauhin, Bey, and even Linnaeus, in the first editions of his Systema Naturae,” supported by the great authority of their names. ' Afterwards, influenced by the convincing labours of Trembley and ■ some other observers, Linnaeus withdrew the sponges from the vege- table world. He satisfied himself, in short, that certain polypiers much resembled sponges in the nature of their parenchyma, and that on the other hand, the assimilation of sponges with plants was not such as could be maintained. Neuremberg, Peyssonnel, and Trembley maintain the animal nature of sponges, and their views are adopted no THE OCEAN WORLD. by Linnmus, Guettard, Donati, Lamouroux, and Ehrenberg, on tbe Con- tinent, and by Ellis, Fleming, and Grant in England. They live at tbe bottom of tbe seas in five to twenty-five fathoms of water, among tbe clefts and crevices of the rocks, always adhering and attaching themselves, not only to inorganic bodies, but even growing on vege- tables and animals, spreading, erect, or pendent, according to the body which supports them and their natuial habit. The power of fixing themselves to other objects, which certain animals possess, is very singular. Nevertheless, it is certain that whole tribes exist consisting of innumerable strictly adherent species, which live and die attached to some rock or other object; and among these are all polypiers, such as the sponges and corallines. It follows that they are wholly dependent on external agencies for their ! means of existence. “ The poor little creatures,” says Alfred Eredol, “receive their nourishment from the wave which washes past them; they inhale and respire the bitter water all their lives ; they are insen- sible to that which is only the hundredth part of an inch from their mouth.” , . , In the months of April and May, these animalcules engender germs, round, yellow, or white, whence proceed certain ovoid granular embryos furnished towards their largest extremity with small vibratile cils. They are thrown off by the currents, which serve as a stomach, and form swarms of larvae round the polypier. They swim about with a sliding wavy motion, and when they have been some time in the water they usually come to the surface ; but they are also often carried off y the current. During two or three days they seem to seek a convenient place to fix themselves. Once fixed, the larvae loses the cilia, spreads itself out, and takes the form of a flattened gelatinous disk. Its interior organization consists of contractile cellules and numerous spiculae — “ a tribe,” says Gosse, “ of the most debateable forms of Me, Ion- denied a right to stand in the animal ranks at all, and even stiff admitted there doubtingly and grudgingly by some excellent natura- lists. Yet such they certainly are, established beyond reasonable controversy as true and proper examples of animal life. It may then, be safely asserted that all naturalists are now satisfied of tie animal nature of sponges, although they represent the owes and most obscure grade of animal existence, and that so close to th confines of the vegetable world, that it is difficult m some species to SPONGIA. Ill determine whether they are on the one side or the other. “ Several of them, however,” says Mr. Gosse, “if viewed with a lens under water while in a living state, display vigorous currents constantly pouring forth from certain orifices ; and we necessarily infer that the watei thus ejected must be constantly taken in through some other channel. On tearing the mass open, we see that the whole substance is perforated in all directions by irregular canals, lead- ing into each other, of which some are slender, and communicate with the surface by minute but numerous pores, and others are wide, and open by ample orifices ; through the former the water is admitted, through the latter it is ejected.” It is not to be denied, however! that these beings constitute, in spite of investigations of modern naturalists, a group still somewhat problematical, and still very imperfectly known as regards their internal organization. . SP°nges are masses of a light elastic tissue, which is, at the same time, resistant, full of air cils, and with much varied exterior arrange- ments. Nearly three hundred species are known, the different appear- ances of which have been characterised by names more or less singular, here is, for instance, the Feather Sponge, the Fan Sponge, the Bell, the yre, the Trumpet, the Distaff, the Peacock Tail, and Neptune’s Glove, ■‘■here are river sponges and sea sponges. The first are irregular and arenaceous masses, which pile themselves npon plants and solid bodies immerged in fresh water. Such are the spongilles, upon which anatomic and embryonic observations have very frequently been made in relation to the group more immediately under consideration. J ■ ^heieC?nd 18 f°Und iu almost evei7 sea i especially are they found m the Mediterranean, the Bed Sea, and the Mexican Gulf. Affectin- warm and quiet waters, they attach themselves to bold and rugged rocks at depths ranging from five to twenty-five fathoms. They are erect, ipendent, or spreading, according to their form or position. Fig 39’ drawn from Nature, represents a very remarkable form of sponge, which was fished up m sixty fathoms. The sponge is very common in the Mediterranean and ronnd the trrecian Archipelago, and is known vulgarly under the name of the Ma,me Mushroom, the Sailor's Nest, and the fine soft sponge of Syria Wis a mass more or less rounded, covered with a mucous bed, glutinous ve, formed of a light elastic but resisting tissue full of gaps, and 112 THE OCEAN WOULD riddled with air-cells. This tissue is formed of delicate flexible fibres, uniting in all directions by anastomose, but presenting numerous pores, which are formed by what is termed osculation, having irregular cowlmh Sig. XI. Spopgiu, b.U tta tattal -I*. »“l'd “ “ which connect them In this t“tryt;Cording to the species, and sometimes varyinf are in SPONGIA. 113 even in the same species. Some of these resemble needles, others are pin-like, and others again resemble very small stars. 1 he physiological function of those tubes and orifices which present themselves on all parts of the sponge, has been interpreted in various ways. Ellis, writing in 1765, supposes that they were the orifices of the cells occupied by the polypi. In 1816, Lamarck still advocated this opinion ; and even now we find the observer, whose notes M. Fredol has edited with so much judgment, asserting that “ the inhabitants of the sponge are a species of fleeting, transparent, gelatinous tube, susceptible of extension and contraction ; young polypes, as we mav call them, without consistence, without gills ; incipient polypes, in short, | of very simple but sufficient organization. The animalcule of the sponge is a stomach, without arms, very simple, very elementary— in i short, an animal all stomach !” This mode of considering the sponge is not conformable to the views of the leaders of modern science, however. Mr. Milne Edwards, for instance [ m Place of seemS m the sPonge a collection of united beings, forming ' “v -T? “ ^l0ny’ C0MiderS each t0 k ™ being, an nnique individual. The innumerable canals by which the sponge is traversed, • accoidmg to that author, are at once the digestive organs and breath- mg pores of the zoophyte. The vibratile oils are necessary to the renewed aeration of the water required as a respiratory fluid in the ‘»mt»°Vai r fteafDSe- The currents in these channels have one constant direction. The water penetrates the sponge by numerous orifices of minute dimensions and irregular disposition ; it traverses channels m the body of the zoophyte, which reunite somewhat like the root of a p ant, in order to constitute the trunk and increase its ul, ,“C6 ' D” y’ the "aler mak® ib escape by special openings. According to this view, the channels of the sponge have a kind of cumulative physiology, performing the two functions of digestion and respiration The rapid currents of aerated water which traverse them toil into them the substances necessary to the nourishment of these 3 range creatures, rejecting all excrementory matter. At the same time he walls of these canal, present a large absorbing surface which teparates the oxygen with which the water is charged, and disengages bhe carbonic acid which results from respiration. ° b Sponges contain true eggs, from which embryo animalcules are nro ■Heed ; these are non-ciliate at first. In the interior of these eggs the' 114 THE OCEAN WORLD. contractile cellules have their birth ; then the spiculae ; and when they are finally covered with the vibratile cils, aided by them these larvae ot ovoid form swim, or rather glide, through the water. The species of infusoria born of the sponge resemble the larvae of various polypes at the moment they issue from the egg. “ They soon attach themselves to some foreign body,5’ says Mr. Milne Edwards, “ and become henceloith immovable ; no longer giving signs either of sensibility or of contract- ability, while in their enlargement they are completely transformed. The gelatinous substance of their bodies is channeled and riddled with holes — the fibrous framework is completed — the sponge is formed.” : We may add, however, that other zoologists, and among them MM. Paul Gervais and Yan Beneden, take a different view of the de- velopment of the sponges, and Dr. Johnston omits them altogether from his great work on “ British Zoophytes.” “ If they are not the pro- duction of polypi,” he says, “ the zoologist who retains them in his province must contend that they are individually animals, an opinion to which I cannot assent, seeing that they have no animal structure or individual organs, and exhibit not one function usually supposed to he characteristic of the animal kingdom.” Gervais and Yan Beneden con- sider, as Milne Edwards does, that the embryos are at first movable, then* fixed, many of them uniting together, and melting, as it were, into one common colony, which become a sponge, such as we see it An isolated embryo might also, by throwing out germs, produce a similar colony, which would thus become a product of agamous generation. Thus it appears that Science is far from being settled in its views as to the organization and development of these obscure and complex formations ; nor is it more advanced in its knowledge of the duration of life and the quickness of growth in sponges. It is agreed, however, on one point-namely, that the sponge-fisher may return to the same • fishing- "round after three years from the last fishing. At the present time sponge-fishing takes place principally in the Grecian Archipelago * and the Syrian littoral. The Greeks and Syrians sell the product of their fishing to the Western nations, and the trade has been immensely f extended in recent times, when the sponge has become an almost necessary adjunct of the toilet as well as the stable, and m other clean*- - W°isUng0“™% commence, towards the beginning of June on the coast of Syria, and finishes at the end of October. But the months ■ ^=5 Plate II.— Sponge Fishing on the Coast ofSyna. SPONXxIA. 115 of J uly and August are peculiarly favourable to the sponge harvest, if we may use the term. Latakia furnishes about ten boats to the fishery, Batroun twenty, Tripoli twenty-five to thirty, KaUd fifty, Siuii about a hundred and seventy to a hundred and eighty, and Kalminos more than two hundred. The operations of one of these boats fishing for sponges on the Syrian coast is represented in Pl. I. The boat’s crew consists of four or five men, who scatter themselves along the coast for two or three miles in search of sponges under the chfis and ledges of rock. Sponges of inferior quality are gathered in shallow waters. The finer kinds are found only at a depth of from twelve to twenty fathoms. The first are fished for with three-tined toothed harpoons, by the aid of which they are torn from their native rock; but not without deteriorating them more or less. The finer kinds of sponges, on the other hand, are collected by divers aided by n kmte; they are carefully detached. Thus the price of a sponge, rought up by diving, is much more considerable than that of°a harpooned sponge. Among divers, those of Kalminos and of Psara are particularly renowned. They will descend to the depth of twenty- five fathoms, remain down a shorter time than the Syrian divers and yet bring up a more abundant harvest. The fishing of the Archi- nelami fnrnislipa foTO x , , no THE OCEAN WORLD. such destruction that their reproduction will soon cease to he equal to the demand. In order to prevent this troublesome result, it is very desirable that the several species of sponges should be naturalized on the French and Algerian coast, and the cultivation and reproduction of the zoophyte protected. For this purpose, the rocky coasts of the Mediterranean, from Cape Cruz to Nice, and round the islands of Corsica and Hyeres, in the Algerian waters, and even in some of the salt lakes of the departments near the Mediterranean, might be utilized. The whole of the Italian littoral would also be available under the new regime for this purpose. M. Lamiral considered that the composition of the water of the Mediterranean being thought the same on the coasts of France, of Algeria, and on the Syrian coast, that the difference of temperature between the two latitudes— especially at the depth where the sponges flourish most — would not interfere with the existence of these robust zoophytes, and that their acclimatization on the coasts of France and Algeria would be a certain success. He remarked, moreover, that the more the sponges advanced towards the north, the finer and compactor their tissues became ; and he argued from this fact, that a considerable improvement in the quality would result from the experiment. The only difficulty, then, would consist in the transplanting sponges from Syrian waters to the coasts of France and Algeria. A submarine boat, such as M. Lamiral makes use of for operations conducted in deep water, would, according to this naturalist, give every facility for collecting sponges for the purpose. This boat can descend to great depths, and its crew can dwell there a considerable time, for it is continually fed with fresh air from above, which is conveyed by an air-pump and tube into the interior of the boat, so that the men could readily select such individuals as were suited for acclimatizing ; re- moving the blocks of rock along with them, either by placing them in cases pierced with holes, or by towing them to their new abode. Everything seems to promise that in the following year the zoophytes would begin to multiply in their new country. The larvae might also be collected in the months of April and May, as they separate from the parent sponge, and be transplanted to favourable localities. At the end of three years, when these true sub- marine fields would be ripe for harvesting, they could be put m tram for methodical collection by means of diving boats. SPONGIA. 117 The toilet sponge is an article which produces a high price, often as much as forty shillings the pound for very choice specimens, a price which few commercial products attain, which prohibits its use, in short, to all hut the wealthy. It is, therefore, very desirable to carry out the submarine enterprise of M. Lamiral. With the assistance of the Acclimatization Society of Paris, some experiments have already been made in this direction — so far without any satisfactory results, it is true, but everything indicates that by perseverance we shall see the enterprise crowned by the success it merits. Such specimens as now reach our ports are chiefly distinguished by their appearance, quality, and origin. The fine soft Syrian sponge is distinguished by its lightness, its fine flaxen colour, its form, which is that of a cup, its surface con- vex, voluted, pierced with innumerable small orifices, the concave part of v hich presents canals ot much greater diameter, which are prolonged to the exterior surface in such a manner that the summit is nearly always pierced throughout in many places. This sponge is sometimes blanched by the aid of caustic substances, acids, or alkalies ; but this preparation shortens its duration and changes its colour-. This sponge is specially employed for the toilet, and its price is high. Those which are round-shaped, large, and soft, sometimes produce as much as five or six pounds. The Fine Sponge of the Archipelago is scarcely distinguishable from that of Syria, either before or after being cleansed ; nevertheless, it is weightier, its texture is not so fine, and the holes with which it is pierced are at once larger and less in number. It is nearly of the same country as the former, in fact, the fishing extending along the byrian coast as well as the littoral of Barbary and the Archipelago. The Fine Hard Sponge, called Greek, is less sought for than either of the preceding ; it is useful for domestic and for certain industrial purposes. Its mass is irregular, its colour fauve; it is hard and com- pact, and pierced with small holes. I lie White Sponge of Syria, called Venetian, is esteemed for its lightness, the regularity of its form, and its solidity. In its rough state it is brown in colour, of a fine texture, compact and firm •Purified, it becomes flaxen and of a looser texture. The orifice of the great channels which traverse it are edged with rough and bristlv hairs The Brown Barbary Sponge, called the Marseileise, when first taken 118 THE OCEAN WOKL1). out of the water, presents itself as an elongated flattened body, gela- tinous, round in shape, and charged with blackish mud. It is then hard, heavy, coarse, but compact, and of a reddish colour. By a simple wash- ing in water it becomes round, still remaining heavy and reddish. It presents many gaps, the intervals of which are occupied by a sinuous and tenacious net-work. It is valuable for domestic use, because of the facility with which it absorbs water, and its great strength. Other sorts of sponges are very abundant : The Blonde Sponge of (From Dr. Grunt.) •n. «. **». *>»>’» ““ 2. Anastomosing homy sub- - stance ‘of Sponyia communis. 3. Smceous epkul “canal of Mari’s. shoeing the 6. Calcareous spiculum of S. compress*. 7. franco w section ol a ca laterXy_the dll* anterior. «. Young SpongiapapillarU. the Archipelago, often confounded with the Venetian; the Hard Barbary Sponge, called Gelina, which only comee by accident into France; the Sahnica Sponge 13 of noddling qnai y, Bahama Sponge, from the Antilles, is wanting in flexibility and a li t fl hard, and is sold at a low price, having few useful properties to leco ™ Mray species of Spongia are described as inhabiting British s^t tat none of any commercial value. Regarding them as apo yplfco® zoophytes, Dr. Grant lias pointed out certam principles of analysis SPONGIA. 139 on which they may be grouped, according to the arrangement of the horny fibres, the calcareous and siliceous spiculas, and the distribution and formation of their pores and orifices. I. Groups op which the Constituent Structure is known. Spongia. — Mass soft, elastic, more or less irregular in shape, very porous, traversed by many tortuous canals, which terminate at the sui face in distinct orifices. Substance of the skeleton cartilaginous, fibres anastomosed in all directions, without any earthy spicula. Example, 8. communis (Fig. 40 [2] ). Calcispongici (Blainville). — Mass rigid or slightly elastic, of irregular form, porous, traversed by irregular canals, which terminate on the sur- face in distinct orifices ; skeleton cartilaginous, fibres strengthened by cal- caieous spicula, often tri-radiate. — Example, 8. compressa (Fig. 40 [6] ). Halispongia (Blainville).— Mass more or less rigid or friable, irre- gular, porous, traversed by tortuous irregular canals, which terminate at the surface in distinct orifices; substance cartilaginous, fibres strengthened by siliceous spicula, generally fusiform or cylindrical.— Example, 8. papillaris (Grant) (Fig. 40 [3] ). Spongilla (Lamarck).— Mass more or less rigid or friable, irregular, porous, but not furnished with regular orifices or internal canals. Example, 8. jluviatalis (Linn.). II. Groups depending on Characters of Surface or General Figure. | _ Ge°dia (Lamarck). — Fleshy mass, tuberous, irregular, hollow within, externally incrusted by a porous envelope, which bears a series of orifices in a small tubercular space.— Example, G. gibberosa (Schmeiger). Coeloptychiuvi . (Goldfussj. — Mass fixed, pedicled, the upper part expanded, agariciform, concave, and radiato-porose above, flat and radiato-sulcate below; substance fibrous. — Example, C. agarisidioi- deum (Goldfuss). Fossils from the chalk of Westphalia. I 8iph°nia (Parkinson). Mass polymorphous, free or fixed, ramose or simple, concave or fistulous above, porous at the surface, and penetrated by anastomosing canals, which terminate in sub-radiating orifices within the cup. ' m Myrmecium (Goldfuss).— Mass sub-globular, sessile, of a close fibrous 120 THE OCEAN WORLD. texture, forming ramified canals which radiate from the base to the circumference. Summit with a central pit. Scyphia (Oken).— Mass cylindrical, simple, or branched, fistulous, ending in a large rounded pit, and composed entirely ol a reticulated ^ tissue. Eudea (Lamouroux).— Mass filiform, attenuated, sub-pedicellate at one end, enlarged and rounded at the other, with a large terminal pit ; surface reticulated by irregular lacunae, minutely porous. Ealirrhoa (Lamouroux).— Mass turbinated, nearly regular, circular, or lohate ; surface porous ; a large central pit on the upper face. Eappalimus (Lamouroux).— Mass fungiform, pedicellate below, ex- panding conically, with a central pit above ; surface porous and ine- gularly excavated. Cnemidium (Goldfuss).— Mass turbinate, sessile, composed of close ] fibres and horizontal canals, diverging from the centre to the circum- ference ; a central pit on the upper surface, cariose in the exterior and radiate at the margin. Ierea (Lamouroux).— Mass ovoid, sub-pedicellate, finely porous; pierced on the upper part by many orifices, the terminations of the internal tubes. Tetliium (Lamarck).— Mass sub-globose, tuberose, composed of a cariose firm substance, strengthened by abundance of siliciary spicula, fasciculated, and diverging from the centre to the circumference. * CHAPTER VI. CORALLINES. “As for your pretty little seed-cups or vases, they are a sweet confirmation of the pleasure Nature seems to take in superadding elegance of form to most of her works. How poor and bungling are all the imitations of art! When I have the pleasure of seeing you next, we shall sit down — nay, kneel down— and admire these things.*' — Hogarth to Ellis. The Alcyonaria are so designated from their principal type, that of the Alcyons. The fresh -water species are composed of a fleshy, sponge-like mass, consisting of vertical, aggregated, membranaceous tubes, which are open on the surface. In these tubes the polypes, which are Isidians, are located. The mouth is encircled with a single series of filiform tentacula, which, like those of the whole family, are depressed or incomplete on one side. The eggs are contained in the tubes, and are coriaceous and smooth. The tentacula of these polypes are generally eight, disposed somewhat like the barbs of a feather, and toothed on their edges like a saw, which has procured them the name of Ctenoceros, from the Greek word ^Tet?, a comb. Their bodies present eight perigastric lamellae ; their polypier is often formed of spicuhe. We shall see, farther on, that among the Gorgonidae the polypier ceases to be parenchymous — that is, spongy and cellular ; that its axis assumes a horny and resistant consistence, which becomes stony in the corallines. In this last group, the external bed, which is the special lodging of the polypi, always remains soft on the surface. We shall have a general idea of the organization, manners, and mode of multi- plication among the Alcyonaria when we come to treat of corals and their strange history. The class Alcyonaria is divided into many ' orders. We shall consider— I. The Tubiporinx. II. The Oorgonidx. f HI. The Penned ulidx. IV. The Alcyonaria, properly so called. 122 THE OCEAN WORLD. I. THE TUBIPOEINH3. form a group consisting of several species, which live in the bosom of tropical seas, in which the Coral Islands form so prominent a feature. The group is exclusively formed of the curious genus Tubipora. . The Tubipora is a calcareous polypier, formed by a combination of distinct, regularly-arranged tubes, connected together at regulated dis- tances by lamellar expansion of the same material. The aggregate for- mation resulting from this combination of tubes constitutes a rounded mass which often attains a very considerable size. In Fig. 41 we have’ a representation of the zoophyte Tubipora vmsica and its product, which is sometimes designated by the vulgar name of Sea- Organ. In the engraving, 1 is the calcareous product, reduced, to half its size ; 2, is a portion in its natural size ; 3, the tubes magnified, and containing the polype which occupies the summit of the tube, the Fig. 41 . Tubipora musica (Linn.), half the natural size. whole of which constitutes this curious polypier; 4, is the polype mag- nified ; 5, the head or collection of tentacula of the individual polype. CORALLINES. 123 Zoologists of the last century confounded all the species ot this genera inhabiting the tropical seas, making only one species, to which they gave the name of Tubipora musica. But it is now known that there are many species of Tubiporse, readily distinguishable in a fresh condition by a difference in the colour of the polypes. The tissue of these singular beings is an intensely red colour. The disposition of their tubes in the style of organ pipes has always attracted the atten- tion of the curious inquirer into the secrets of Nature. II. GORGONID.E. Milne Edwards divides this order into three natural groups : — I. The Gorgonidx. II. The Isidians. III. The Corallines. The Gorgonians are composed of two substances : the one external, Fig. 42. Fan Gorgon, Gorgonia flabellum (Linn.). sometimes gelatinous and fugitive ; sometimes, on the contrary, creta- ceous, fleshy, and more or less tenacious. Animated with life, this 124 THE OCEAN WORLD. • | membrane is irritable and encloses tbe polype ; it becomes friable or arenaceous in drying. Tbe second substance, internal and central, ; sustains tbe first, and is called tbe axis. Tbis axis presents a horny appearance, and was formerly believed to possess chemical characters analogous to tbe horns and hoofs of some of tbe vertebrated animals. It has recently been asserted that tbe tissues of these polypiers consist essentially of a particular substance which resembles horn, but which is called Corneine. A little carbonate of lime is sometimes found united with this substance, but never in a sufficient quantity to give it a stony consistence. This outer covering developes itself in con- centric beds, between the portion of the axis previously formed and the internal surface of the sclerotic covering. The mode of growth in this axis presents great variations. Sometimes it remains simple and rises like a slender rod, some- times it has numerous branches. It is arbores- cent when the branches and their accompaniments take different directions! so as to constitute tufts. It is panicled when they arrange themselves on both sides of the stem or principal branches, j after the manner of the barbs of a feather. It is flabelliform when the Fig. 43. Fan Gorgon, magnified. branches rise irregularly under the same plane; reticulated when branches be attached to each other by net-work in p*e d ^marnir The Grorgonidse are found in every sea, and . > depths. They are larger and more numerous between the Tiopics CORALLINES. 125 than in cold or even temperate climates. Some of these polypiers scarcely attain the twelfth of an inch in height, while others rise to the height of several feet. Fig. 44. Gorgonia vcrticellata (Fullas). Formed in the bosom of the ocean, it is only necessary to behold these singular creations in order to admire the brilliant colours which decorate their semi-membranaceous branches. The brilliancy of their robes are singularly diminished, have almost entirely disappeared 126 THE OCEAN WORLD. indeed, when they make their appearance in the cases of our natural history collections. _ . The Fan Gorgon, from the Antilles (Fig. 42), is a species which often attains the height of eighteen or twenty _ t i 1 * ,1 tl-i Tdl© inches, and nearly as much in breadth, net-work of its interstices with its unequal and serried meshes, resembling fine lace, have p ^ — Its colour led to its designation of Sea Fan is yellow or reddish. In Fig. 43 we have the Fan Gorgon magnified to twice its natu- ral size, showing the curious details of its organization. The Whorled Gorgon {G. verticellata ), ; which is found hi the Mediterranean, is yel- lowish in colour, and also of elegant form. It is sometimes called the Sea Pen. This species is represented in Fig. 44, while Fig. 45 represents a small branch magni- fied four times, in order to give an exact idea of its form. The Gorgons are not known to he useful either in the arts or in medicine. They are ornamental in cabinets, and interesting both as objects of study and of zoological curiosity. ISIDIANS. The Isidie constitute an intermediate group between the fforprms in 7/ ' pa Their uolypier is arborescent, hut its axis is tormed I ucca ,-t them for the most opposite maladies, it may tf St “ TS " X^ious in' any mediemal point of She UscoM of Oceania has | slender branches, furnished with cytadncal ^ traded towards the middle, finely striated, and rose-colon . CORALLINES. 127 hippuris, represented in Fig. 46, has a singular resemblance to the Common Marsh Plant ( Hippuris vulgaris). I F°Ur °theTc sP®cies of Isidiaus are known. The same family includes tbe genera of Melitxa and Mopsea, which, however, our limits forbid ns to describe. Lokallinje. Ihe Oioupof Corallines consist of a single genus, Corattiwm, haying a common axis, inarticulate, solid, and calcareous, the typical species „f which furnishes matter hard, brilliant, and richly coloured and , l sought after as an object of adornment. Thi/^Z&t, Zt and its product requires to be described with some detail. J 128 THE OCEAN WORLD. From very early times, tlie coral lias been adopted as an object of finery. From the highest antiquity also, efforts were made to ascer- tain its true origin, and the place assignable to it in the works of Nature. Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny considered that the coral was a plant. Tournefort, in 1700, reproduced the same idea. Reaumur slightly modified this opinion of the ancients, and declared his opinion that the coral was the stony product of certain marine plants. Science was in this state when a naturalist, who has acquired a great name, the Count de Marsigli, made a discovery which threw quite a new light on the true origin of this natural product. He announced that he had discovered the flowers of the coral. He represented these flowers in his fine work, “ La Physique de la Mer, which includes many interesting details respecting this curious product of the ocean. How could it be longer doubted that the coral was a plant, since he had seen its expanded flowers ? No one doubted it, and Reaumur proclaimed everywhere the disco- very of the happy Academician. Unhappily, a discordant note soon mingled in this concert. It even emanated from a pupil of Marsigli ! Jean Andre de Peyssonnel was born at Marseilles in 1694. He was a student of medicine and natural history at Paris when the Academie des Sciences charged him with the task of studying the coral on the sea shore. Peyssonnel began his observations in the neighbourhood of Marseilles in 1723. He pursued it on the North African coast, where he had been sent on a mission by the Government. Aided by a long series of observations as exact as they were delicate, Peyssonne demonstrated that the pretended flowers which the Count de Marsigli thought he had discovered in the coral, were true animals, and showed that the coral was neither plant nor the product of a plant, but a being with life which he placed in the first ‘round’ of the zoological ladder. « I put the flower of the coral,” says Peyssonnel, “ m vases full of sea water, and I saw that what had been taken for a flower oi this pre- tended plant, was, in truth, only an insect, like a little sea-nettle ox polype I had the pleasure of seeing removed the claws or feet of the creature, and having put the vase full of water, which contained the coral, in a gentle heat over the fire, all the small insects seemed to expand. The polype extended his feet, and formed what . Marsigli and I had taken for the petals of a flower. The calyx o CORALLINES. 129 this pretended flower, in short, was the animal which advanced and issued out of its cell.” The observations of Peyssonnel were calculated to put aside alto- gether theories which had lately attracted universal admiration, but they were coldly received by the naturalists, his contemporaries. Reaumur distinguished himself greatly in his opposition to the young innovator. He wrote to Peyssonnel in an ironical tone: “I think (he says) as you do, that no one has hitherto been disposed to regard the coral as the work of insects. We cannot deny that this idea is both new and singular ; but the coral, as it appears to me, never could have been constructed by sea-nettles or polypes, if we may judge from the manner in which you make them labour.” What appeared impossible to Reaumur was, however, a fact which Peyssonnel had demonstrated to hundreds by his experiments at Marseilles. Nevertheless, Bernard de Jussieu did not find the reasons he urged strong enough to- induce him to abandon the opinions he bad formed as to their vegetable origin. Afflicted and disgusted at e indifferent success with which his labours were received, Peyssonnel abandoned his investigations. He even abandoned science and society and sought an obscure retirement in the Antilles as a naval surgeon’ and his manuscripts, which lie left in France, have never been printed . These manuscripts, written in 1744, were preserved in the library of the Museum of Natural History at Paris. The title is comprehensive and sufficiently descriptive. It should be added, in order to complete the recital, that Reaumur and Bernard de Jussieu finally recognised the va ue of the discoveries and the validity of the reasoning of the naturalist of Marseilles. When these illustrious savants became acquainted with the experiments of Trembley upon the fresh-water hydrae , when they had themselves repeated them ; when they had made similar observations on the sea anemone and alcyonid* ; when they finally discovered that on other so-called marine plants animal- cules were found, similar to the hydra, so admirably described by Trembley --they no longer hesitated to render full justice to the views ot tneir former adversary. While Peyssonnel atiU lived forgotten at the Antilles, his scientific abours were crowned with triumph at Paris; hut it was a sterile triumph for him. Keaumur gave to the animalcules which construct the coral the name of Polypes, and Polypier to the product itself for such Iv 130 THE OCEAN WORLD. lie considered, the architectural product of the polypes. In other words, Reaumur introduced into Science the views which he had keenly con- tested with their author. But from that time the animal nature of the coralline has never been doubted. Without pausing to note the various authors who have given their attention to this fine natural production, we shall at once direct our attention to the organization of the animalcules, and the construction of the coral. M. Lacaze-D uthiers, professor at the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, published in 1864 a remarkable monograph, entitled “L’Histoire Naturelle du Corail.” This learned naturalist was charged by the French Government, in 1860, with a mission, having for its object the study of the coral from the natural history point of view. His observa- tions upon the zoophytes are numerous and precise, and worthy of the successor of Peyssonnel ; but for close observation, practical con- clusions, and popular exposition, the world is more indebted to Charles Darwin than to any other naturalist. A branch of living coral, if we may use the term, is an aggregation of animals derived from a first being by budding. They are united j among themselves by a common tissue, each seeming to enjoy a life of its own, though participating in a common object. The branch seems j to originate in an egg, which produces a young . animal, which attaches itself soon after its biith, 1 as already described. From this is derived the new beings which, by their united labours, pro- duce the branch of coral or polypier. This branch is composed of two distinct parts : the one central, of a hard brittle and stony nature, the well-known coral of commerce ; the other altogether external, like the bark of a tree, soft and fleshy, and easily impressed with the nail. This is essentially the bed of the living colony. The first is called the polypier, the second is the colony of polypes. This bed (Fig. 4/) ill much contracted when the water is withdrawn from the colony. It is covered with salient mammals or protuberances, much wrinkled and furrowed. Each mammal encloses a polype, and presents on its summit eig Kig. 17. Living Bert of Coral after the entrance of the Polypes. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) CORALLINES. 131 folds, radiating round a central pore, which presents a star-like appearance. This pore as it opens gives to the polypes the op- portunity of coming out. Its 48. Three Polypes of the Coral. (Lscftze-Duthiers.) edge presents a reddish calyx, like the rest of the bark, the festooned throat of which pre- sents eight dentations. The polype itself (Fig. 48) is formed of a whitish membra- nous tube nearly cylindrical, having an upper disk, surrounded by its eight tentacula. bearing many delicate fibres spreading out laterally. This assemblage ot tentacula resembles the corolla of some flowers ; its form is very variable, but always truly elegant. Fig. 49 (which is borrowed from M. Lacaze-Duthiers’ great work) represents one of these forms of the polypier. The arms of the polype are at times subject to violent agitation : the tentacula become much excited. It this excitement continues, the tentacula can be seen to fold and roll themselves up as shown in Fig. 50. If we look at the ex- panded disk, we see that the eight tentacula attach themselves to the body, describing a space perfectly circular, in the middle of which rises a small mammal, the summit of which is occupied by a small slit like two rounded lips. This is the mouth of the polypes, the form being very va- riable, but well represented in Fig. 50, where the organ under consideration is displayed. Coral Poivp„ k 2 132 THE OCEAN WORLD. Fig. 60. Another form of the Coral Polype. (Lacaze-Dutliiers.) A cylindrical tube connected with tbe mouth represents the oeso- phagus or gullet ; but all other portions of the digestive tube are very rudimentary. The oesophagus connects the general cavity of the body with the exterior, and looks as if it were suspended in the middle of the body by certain folds, which issue with perfect symmetry from eight points of its circumference. The folds which thus fix the oesophagus form a series of cells, above each of which it attaches itself, and supports an arm or tentaculum. Let us pause an instant over the soft and fleshy bark in which the polypes are engaged. Let us see also what are the mutual relations which exist between the several inhabitants of one of these colonies, how they are attached to one another, and what their connection with the polypier. The thick fleshy body, soft, and easily impressed with the finger, is the living part which produces the coral ; it extends itself so as ex- actly to cover the whole polypier. If it perishes at any one point, that part of the axis which corresponds with the point no longer shows any increase. An intimate relation, therefore, exists between the bark and the polypier. If the bark is examined more closely, three principal: elements are recognised — a common general tissue, some spicula, and certain vessels. The general tissue is transparent, glossy, cellular, and contractile. The spicuhe are very small calcareous concretions, more or less elongated, covered with knotted joints bristling with spines, and of regular determinate form (Fig. 51). They refract the light very vividly, and their colour is that of the coral, but much weaker in consequence of their want of thickness. They are uniformly dis- tributed throughout the bark, and give to the coral the fine colour which generally characterises it. The vessels constitute a net-work, which ex- tends and repeats itself in the thickness oi the crust. These \essels Fig. 51. Coralline Spicula. (Lacaze-Dutliiers.) CORALLINES. 133 are of two kinds (Fig. 52) ; the one, comparatively very large, is imbedded in the axis, and disposed in parallel layers ; the others are regular and much smaller. They form a net-work of unequal meshes, which occupies the whole thickness of the external crust. . This net-work has direct and important connection -with the polypes on the one hand, and with the central substance which forms the axis on the other. It communicates directly with the general cavity l-ig- 52. Circulating Apparatus for the nutritive fluids in the Coral. (Lacazc-Duthiere.) ' °f the tocly of tlle animal by every channel which approaches it, while the two ranges of net-work approach each other by a great number of anastomosing processes. Such is the vascular arrangement of the coral The circulation of alimentary fluids in the carol is accomplished by means of vessels near to the axis, without, however, directly anasto- | mosmg with the cavities containing the animalcules which live in the polypier; they only communicate with those cavities by very delicate intermediary canals. The alimentary fluids they receive from the 134 TFIE OCEAN WOULD. secondary system of net-work, whicli brings them into direct commu- nication with the polypes. The alimentary fluids elaborated bj the polypes pass into the branches ot the secondary and ii regular net- work system, in order to reach the great parallel tubes which extend from one extremity of the organism to the other, serving the same purpose to the whole community. When the extremity of a branch of living coral is torn or broken, a white liquid immediately flows from the wound, which mingles with water, and presents all the appearance ot milk. This is the fluid aliment which has escaped from the vessel containing it, charged with the debris of the organism. What occurs when the bud produces new polypes? It is oply round well-developed animals, and particularly those with branching extremities, in which this phenomenon is produced. The new beings resemble little white points pierced with a central orifice. Aided by the microscope, we discover that this white point is starred with radia- ting white lines, the edge of the orifice bearing eight distinctly traced indentations. All these organs are enlarged step by step until the young animal has attained the shrub-hke or branched aspect which belongs to the compound polype. The tube is branching, and the orifices from which the polypes expand become dilated into cup-like cells. The coral of commerce, so beautiful and so appieciated by lovers of bijouterie, is the polypier. It is cylin drical, much channeled on the sur- face, the lines usually parallel to the : axis of the cylinder, the depressions sometimes corresponding to the body of the animal. If the transverse | section of a polypier be examined, it is found to be regularly festooned on its circumference. Towards its centre certain sinuosities appear, sometimes crossing, sometimes tri- gonal, sometimes in irregjular lines, and in the remaining mass are red- dish folds alternating with brighter spaces which radiate from the centre towards the circumference (T ig. 5-> ). In the section of a very red coral, it will be observed that the colour MJl.x Fig. 53. Section of a Branch of Coral. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) CORALLINES. 135 is not equally distributed, but separated into zones more or less deep in colour, containing very tliin preparations which crack, not irregularly, but parallel to the edge of the plate, and in such a manner as to reproduce the festoons on the circumference. From this it may be deduced that the stem increases by concentric layers being de- posited, which mould themselves one upon the other. In the mass of coral certain small corpuscles occur, charged with irregular asperities, much redder than the tissue into which they are plunged. These are Fig. 54. Birih of tlie Coralline Larva*. (Lacaze-Duthiers.) much more numerous in the red than in the light band, and they necessarily give more strength to the general tint. To the mode ot reproduction in the coral polypes, so well described by Lacaze-Duthiers, we can only devote a few lines. Sometimes, ac- cording to this able observer, the polypes of the same colony are all either male or female, and the branch is unisexual ; in others there are both male and female, when the branch is bisexual. Finally, but very rarely, polypes are found uniting both sexes. The polype is viviparous ; that is to say, its eggs become embryos inside the polypes. The larvae remain a certain time in the general THE OCEAN WOULD. 136 cavity of the polypes, where they can be seen through its transparency, as exhibited in Fig. 54. Aided by the magnifying powers oi the microscope, coral larvae may here be perceived through the transparent membranous envelope. From this position they escape from the mouth of the mother in the manner represented in the upper branch. The animal then resembles a little white grub or worm, more or less elongated. The larva is, however, still egg-shaped or ovoid , moreover, it is sunk in a hollow cavity, and covered with cilia, by the aid of which it can swim. Sometimes one ol its extremities becomes enlarged, the other remaining slender and pointed. Upon this an opening is formed communicating with the interior cavity . this is the mouth. The larvae swim backwards ; that is to say, with the mouth behind. It is only at a certain period alter birth that the coral polype fixes itself and commences its metamorphoses, which consist essentially in a change of form and proportions. The buccal extremity is diminished and tapers off, whilst the base swells, and is enlarged— it becomes discoid ; the posterior surface of this sort ol disk is a plane, the front representing the mouth, at the bottom of a depression edged with a great cushion. Eight mammals or swellings now appear, corresponding to the chambers which divide the interior ot the disk: the worm has taken its radiate form. Finally, the mammals are elongated and transformed into tentacula. In Fig. 55 a young coral polype is represented fixed upon a bryozoare, a name employed by Ehrenberg tor zoophyteshaving a mouth and anus. It forms a small disk, the fortieth part of an inch in diameter, and having its spicula already coloured red. Fig. 56 shows the successive forms of the young polypes in the progressive phases of their de- velopment-being a young coralline polype fixed upon a rock still con- tracted. Fig. 57 is a similar coral- line attached to a rock and expanding its tentacula. It also represents a small pointed rock covered with polypes and polypiers of the natural size and of different s lapes, u Fig. 55. Very young Polypes, attached to a Biyozonre. CORALLINES. 137 all young, and indicating the definite form of development which the collective beings are to assume. The simple isolated state of the animal, whose phases of de- velopment we have indicated, does not last long. It possesses the property of producing new beings, as we have already said, by budding. But how is the polypier formed ? If we take a very young branch, we find in the Centre ot the thickness ot Fig. 56. A young Coral Polype fixed upon a ... Rock. (Lacaze-Uuihicrs.) the crust a nucleus or stony substance resembling an agglomeration of spicula. When they are sufficient in number and size, these nuclei form a kind of stony plate, which is imbedded in the thickness of the tissues of the animal. These laminae, at first quite flat, assume in the course of their development a horse-shoe shape. Figs. 59 and GO will give the reader some idea of the form in which the young polypiers present themselves. Fig. 59 represents the corpuscles in 1,-ig. 57. Young Coral Polype attached to a ..... . . , . Rock and expanded. (Lacaze-I luthiers.) winch the polypiers have their origin ; Fig. 60, the rudimentary form of the coralline polypier. Our information fails to convey any precise notion of the time necessary for the coral to acquire the various proportions in which it presents itself. Darwin, who examined some of these creatures very minutely, tells us that “several genera (Flustra, Eschara, Cellaria, Cresia, and others) agree in having singular movable organs at- tached to their cells. The organs in the greater number of cases very closely resemble the head of a vulture ; but the lower mandible can be opened much wider than a Pig. 58. A Rock covered with young Coral Polypes and Polypiers. (Lacaze^Dutbiers.) 138 THE OCEAN WORLD. Fig. 59. Corpuscbs from which originate the Polypier. Fig. on. First form of the Polypier. (I.acaze-Pnthiers.) real bird’s beak. The head itself possesses considerable powers of movement, by means of a short neclc. In one zoophyte the head itself was fixed, but the lower jaw free ; in another it was replaced by a tri- angular hood, with a beautifully - fitted trap- door, which evidently answered to the lower mandible. In the greater number of species each cell was provided with one head, but in others each cell had two. “ The young cells at the end of the branches of these corallines contain quite immature polypi, yet the vulture heads attached to them, though small, are in every respect perfect. When the polypus was removed by a needle from any of the cells, these organs did not appear to be in the least affected. When one ot the vulture-like heads was cut off from a cell, the lower mandible retained its power of opening and closing. Perhaps the most singular part ot their structure is, that when there are more than two rows of cells on a branch, the central cells were furnished with these appendages of only one-fourth the size of the outside ones. Their movements varied according to the species ; but in some I never saw the least motion, while others, with the lower mandible generally wide open, oscillated backwards and forwards at the rate of about five seconds each turn ; others moved rapidly and by starts. When touched with a needle, the beak generally seized the point so firmly that the whole branch might be shaken In the Cresia, Darwin observed that each cell was furnished with a long-toothed bristle, which had the power of moving very quickly: each bristle and each vulture-like head moving quite independently o each other ; sometimes all on one side, sometimes those on one branch only moving simultaneously, sometimes one alter the other. In th actions we apparently behold as perfect a transmission of will in the zoophyte, though composed of thousands ot distinct po \pi, as m a „ CO HAL LINKS. 139 distinct animal. “ What can be more remarkable,” be adds, “ than to see a plant-like body producing an egg, capable of swimming about and choosing a proper place to adhere to, where it sprouts out into branches, each crowded with innumerable distinct animals, often of complicated organization ! — the branches, moreover, sometimes pos- sessing organs capable of movement independent of the polypi.” Passing to the coral fishing, it may be said to be quite special, presenting no analogy with any other fishing in the European seas, if we except the sponge fisheries. The fishing stations which occur are found on the Italian coast and the coast of Barbary ; in short, in most parts of the Mediterranean basin. In all these regions, on abrupt rocky beds, certain aquatic forests occur, composed entirely of the red coral, the most brilliant and the most celebrated of all the polypiers, Coralium decus tiquidi ! During many ages, as we have seen, the coral was supposed to be a plant. The ancient Greeks called it the daughter of the sea ( K opdWiov fc6pi] d\o Wl,ich inlMbits the Mediterranean, the polypes aie of a greyish colour, the tentacula streaked with black The polypier is erect and upright, sometimes cylindrical, and generally so firmly attached to the rock a, to seem a part of it. The lamella, are oi three kinds : one large and prominent, between every pair of which here are three, sometimes five, smaller ones, the centre one bein' ). ! ” tWj !,<,rtl0M form,ri" an inner series. The lamella: are arched entire and striated on the sides, whence the margin appears some! what crenelated. “ It is found,” says Mr. Couch, “ of all sizes fron a mere speck to an inch in height. In a very young state, it is’s„m“ times found parasitical on Aloyonium diyitatnm, on shells and on ll stalks of seaweeds; but as these substances are very ptishatlTand 154 THE OCEAN WOULD. offer no solid foundation, large specimens are never found on them. In its young state the animal is naked, and measures about the fifteenth of an inch in diameter, and about the thirty-second of an inch in height. In the earliest state in which I have seen the calcareous polypidom, there were four small rays, which were free or unconnected down to the base ; in others I have noticed six primary rays, hut in every case they were unconnected with each other. Other rays soon make their appearance between those first formed ; they are mere calcareous specks at first, but afterwards increase in size. The first union of rays is observed as a small calcareous rim at the base of the polype, which afterwards increases in height and diameter with the age of the animal.” The animals of this interesting polypier are vividly described by Dr. Coldstream, in a communication to Dr. Johnston, as he observed them at Torquay : — “ When the soft parts are fully expanded,” he says, “ the appear- ance of the whole animal closely resembles an actinia. When shrunk, they are almost entirely hid amongst the radiating plates. They are found pendent,” he adds, “ from large boulders of sandstone, just at low-water mark. Sometimes they are dredged from the middle of the bay. Their colour varies considerably. I have seen the soft parts white, yellowish, orange-brown, reddish, and of a fine apple-green. The tentacula are usually paler.” The Caryophyllias are sometimes dredged from great depths ; Pro- fessor Travers dredged one in eighty fathoms, and Dr. Johnston re- marks that the existence of an animal so vividly coloured at so great a depth is worthy of remark. “ When taken,” says the professor, “ the animal was scarcely visible, being contracted ; when expanded, the disk was conspicuously marked by two dentated circles ol bright apple- green, the one marginal and outside the tentacula, the other at some distance from the transverse and linear mouth. In the dark, the animal gave out a few dull flashes of phosphorescent light. In addition, we may mention the assertion of Mr. Swainson, that C. ramea, common in the Mediterranean, is occasionally found on the Cornish coast ; hut Dr. Johnston thinks it improbable that it could have escaped the attention of Mr. Couch and Mr. Peach, had it been so. As belonging to this family, we present here illustrations ot tla- bettum pavonimm, Lesson (Fig- 67). - ZOANTHAHJA. 155 Of the Occulime, the animal is unknown, but is contained in Fig. 67. Flabellum pavonlnum (Lesson). 1. Vertical position. 2. Upper edge, with its plates and median thread. 3. Form of the animal. regular round radiated cells, more or less prominent, and scattered ou il O T 1 the surface of a solid, com pact, fixed tree-like polypier. The individuals dispose them- selves in ascending spiral lines, and appear to be re- gularly dispersed on the sur- face of the several branches. The typical species, 0. vir- : ginea, iormerly known as the White Coral, although it differs widely in reality from the true Coral, both in its structure and by its star-like polypiferous cells (Fig. 68), is found in the Mediterranean and also in the equatorial seas. Over the specimen we see (2) a portion of a branch magnified, in order that the reader may appreciate ' numerically the form of polype over its cells Fig. 68. Occulina virginea (Lamarck). The species formerly named OccMmflMliformis, and which n„, 156 THE OCEAN WORLD. bears the name of Stylaster Jlabelliformis, which ls represented in Fig. 69. Stylaster flabelliformis (Lamarck,. Fig. 69, will give an excellent idea of these arborescent zoophytes. ZOANTHARIA. 157 It is a poljpier in form of a fan, with many very unequal branches ; the larger branches are smooth, the middle-sized are covered with small points. This fine zoophyte is found in the seas which surround the Isle of Bourbon and the Mauritius, a fine example of which is to be seen in the collection of the Museum of Natural Historv of Paris. AsTR/EACEA. How diversified are the forms of aquatic life! “ Nature revels in these diversities,” to paraphrase the saying of one of the ancient kings of France. Here are animals, the frame of which might have been Fig. 70. Astrea punctifera (Lamarck). Aestgnei by a geometric, an. They are called Sea-stars Ustrea) Then- resemblance to the well-known figure was to. striking to Ze the observation of naturalists; but the organisation of the,! creator!! Sea-stars are annuals without vertebrae, very frequently depressed or pentagonal, with arms nearly equal, and dispersed in rays LT „ more or less triangu ar. The animal has habitually five aims They hve a an immense depth in the ocean. In the exploring survey to th! Atlantic, preparatory to laying down the Atlantic Telenranh 1 M several star-fishes were discovered at the denth of ^ ' 1 CaWe’ >— > - «> a ££ is s Z 158 THE OCEAN WORLD. found in some of the oldest geological strata. They are essentially marine animals, there being nothing found in fresh water at all re- sembling them. The Astrea are inhabitants of the Indian Ocean, where they are found in a great variety of forms, which has led to their subdivision into many genera by Messrs. Milne Edwards and J. Haime. lhe animals are short, more or less cylindrical, with rounded mouth placed in the centre of a disk, covered with a few rather short tentacula , the cells are shallow, with radiating lamellae in Astrea punctifera (Fig. 70), forming by their union a many-formed polypier, which often encrusts other bodies. In short, this polype may be described as a parasite, for it generally attaches to some other bodies, and it is by no means unusual to meet with shells attached to shells. The Meandrina differ from the Astreas in having the suiface Fig. 71. Meandrina cerebriformis (Lamarck). hollowed out into shallow sinuous elongated cells, furnished on each side of the mesial line with hooked lamella,, ending agamst one ZOANTHARIA. 159 other of the ridges with separate valleys ; the polypier, which is cal- careous, being fixed, simple, and inversely conical when young, and globular when old. The animals have each a distinct mouth, and lateral series of short tentacula ; they are contained in shallow cells, meeting at the base, and forming by their union long and tortuous hollows. Meanclrinci cerebriformis (Fig. 71), so called from its re- semblance to the folds of the brain, is a native of the American Seas. The Fungia , so called by Lamarck from their resemblance to the Fig. 12. Fungia echinata (Milne Edwards). vegetable Fungi, are too remarkable in their appearance to be passed over in science. The major part of the species only occur in recent geological strata. Nevertheless some of the species were very nume rous m the Cretaceous period, and even find representatives in the arefZdP : 11 M thk 8r°UP “ WU0h MadreP°res «f g«at size The (amily, as we have already said, take their names from their supposed resemblance to the Mushroom. “But” scvq * 'here is <“■ a*— terrestrial and 160 THE OCEAN WORLD that the former have leaflets below, and those ol the ocean have them above (Fig. 72). These leaflets are only expansions ol the Madrepores. Now, although I have not actually examined these petri- fied Mushrooms of the sea, I have no reason to doubt but that they are true genera or species of Madrepores, containing, like others, the zoophytes which form them. In my travels in Egypt, in 1714 and 1715, I never heard it said that the Nile could produce them.” In Fig. 73. Fungia agariciformis (Lamarck). this last remark, Peyssonnel makes allusion to the opinion entertained by many ancient authors, that the Fungia were productions of the NiThe animal is gelatinous or membranous, generally simple, de- pressed, and oval, with mouth superior and transverse, m a large disk, which is covered by many thick cirrhiform tentacula; the polypier is rendered solid internally by a calcareous solid deposit ol a simple figure, having a star of radiating, acutely-pomted lamellae above, an simple rays, full of wrinkles, beneath. There are nine species, mostly ZOANTHARIA. 1G1 natives of the Indian Seas, which De Blainville arranges in three groups, according as they are simple and circular, simple and compressed, or complex and oblong. In Fungia echinata, represented in Fig. 72, we have a species which inhabits the Indian and Chinese Seas. It belongs to the last group, being oblong in form, convex above, and concave below. The hollow, from which the lamellae or chamber-walls proceed, are of considerable length ; the toothed partitions are very irregular, thin and prickly, resting upon their lower edge, in order to leave the concave portion of the field free to a host of excrescences, resembling the roof of a grotto studded with small stalactites. The conformation of the softer parts of this poly pier has been described by many travellers. The upper portion of the body of the animal, corresponding to the lamelliform part of the polypier, is fur- nished with scattered tentacula, very long in some species, and re- markably short in others. These tentacula appear to terminate in a small sucker. The animal seems to recover its position with difficulty, when overturned. In order to complete our description of these curious madrepores, we may refer to Fungia agariciformis, repre- sented in Fig. 73. This remarkable species inhabits the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and is here represented with its polypes. De Blainville gave the name of Madrepoiuea to the second group of his stony Zoantlmria, placing them after the Madrepliyllite. The pro- ducts of this section are generally arborescent, with small, partially lamel- Morm cells, which are constantly porous in the interstices of the walls of the cells, this being its most important characteristic. Thus the visceral apparatus constitutes the essential part of the polypier, presenting no side plates, the visceral chamber being open from the base to the summit, and neither filled with dissepiments, pulpy matter, nor with tabulm. Ihe history of these inhabitants of the deep is extremely obscure and will probably always remain so ; the most beautiful of their pro- ductions are mtertropical, and consequently beyond the reach of dis- criminating observers during the life of the animal. Solander proposed to divide the genus according to certain characteristics in the growth o le polypier, and De Blainville has rearranged the groups formed by Lamarck, Lamouroux, and Goldfnss, with special reference to the soft parts ol the animals figured by Lesueur, Quoy, Gaimard, and others vho have observed them m their native state M 102 THE OCEAN WOULD. The perforated Zocintharia form three very natural families : the Eupsammidas, the Madreporidss , and the Poritidse. The first have the solid parts of the polypes, simple or complex, with well-developed lamellar portions, the central column spongiose, walls granular, semi- ribbed, and perforated. The second are composite, increasing by gemmation ; walls spongy and porous ; septa lamellous, and well- Fig. 74. IJendropliyllia rameu, half natural size (He litnlnville). developed. In the third the visceral chambers are divided into two equal parts by the principal septa, which are more developed than the others, meeting by their inner edge. The Dendrophylliie (Fig. 74) are conspicuous among the Eupsammidas. We shall describe three genera, the two first of which belong to the Mabrepoiiyea, and the last to the family of the Porides. Dendrophyllia rarnea, represented in Figs. 75 and 76, is an elegant ZOANTHAIUA. 1 63 madrepore of the Mediterranean. Its polypier presents a very large trunk charged with short ascending branches; it usually attains to about a yard and a half in height. The polypes are provided with a great number of tentacula, in the centre of which the mouth is placed. They are deeply buried in the cells, which radiate from numerous unequally scdUant plates. Peyssonnel, who had seen the polype of this colony, says : “ I may observe that the extremities or summits of the branching madrepore, the species in question, which in the Pro- ve'1?^ we call Sea-fennel, is soft and tender, filled with a glutinous and transparent mucous thread, similar to that which the snail leaves on its fig. 7a. hondropliyllia rainon (Do Hlainville). Natural nizr, with polyplers. I*ig 7G. A part magnified. path. These extremities are of a fine yellow colour, five or six lines m diameter; soft, and more than a finger's breadth in length. I have seen the annual nestling in them ; it seemed to he a species of cnttle- s i oi sea-nettle. The body of this sea-nettle must have filled the centre ; the head being in the middle, surrounded by many feet or claws hke those of the cuttle-fish. The flesh of this animal is very und"ul” 7 CKl ‘° tte f0™ °f “ P“Ste’ md‘“8 The madrepores abound in all intertropical seas, taking a consider abl part m the constitution of the reefs which form the coral and madreponc islands so conspicuous in the ocean. The tree-like 1) ***»«* ( ft ranea, Figs. 75 and 76) have cells of ^demUe' M 2 104 THE OCEAN WORLD. depth, radiating into numerous lamellae, forming a widely-branching arborescent polypier, externally striated, internally furrowed, and truncate at the extremities. The animals are actiniform, furnished with numerous cleft tentacula, in the centre of which is the poly- gonal mouth. In the LobophijUia, the tenta- cula are cylindrical, the cells conical, sometimes elongated and sinuous, with a sub- circular open- ing terminating the few branches of the polypier, which is fixed, turbinate, and striated. The Plan- tain Madrepore, M.plan- taginea (Lamarck), is an interesting example ; the polypier presenting itself, as in Fig. 77, in tufts, with slender and prolific branches. In Madrepora pal- mcita, vulgarly named Fig. 77. Madrepora plantagiuea (Lamarck). Neptune’s Cal’, We have a large and beautiful species, whose expanding branches are flat, round at the base, and forming in lobes, whose length is often as much as three feet high, with a breadth of twenty inches, and a thickness of two to two and a half: this fine madrepore is found in the Caribbean Sea and among the Antilles. Pokites. The Porite3 are madrepores produced by a pitcher-shaped fleshy animal, with twelve short tentacula; the cells are unequally polygonal, imperfectly defined, slightly radiating by thread-like pointed ia\s, with prickles placed at intervals. The polypier is polymorphous or many-formed, composed of a reticulated and porous tissue, the indi- ZOANTHAlilA. 165 viduals forming it being always completely united together. Exter- nally it presents the figure of an irregular trellis-work, more or less loosely connected in its meshes. As a type of this organization, we give a figure of the Forked Porites ( P . furcata, Fig. 78), of the natural size. The branches are generally dichotomous, that is. rising in pairs obtusely lobed. In some of the species the rays are more Fig. 78. Porites furcata (Lamarck), natural size. Mly marked and ramble a bed of miniature anemones thickly uowded together, as in Omispora eolumna, in which the polypes have a central mouth, round which the twelve short tentacnla Adiate • the polyp, er ,s stony, fired, branched, or lobed, having a free surface’ covere w.th a great number of regular star*, which are WUy mXpore ’ CaIm0t COnfoUnded ^ ««*» »f an astrea or In the Tabulate Madreporides, the polypier is essentially composed THE OCEAN WOULD. 106 ot a highly- developed ruural system. The visceral chambers are divided into a series of stages or stories, by perfect diaphragms or plates placed transversely, the plates depending from the Avails and forming perfect horizontal divisions, extending from one wall of the general cavity to the other. In order that the reader may form some idea of the Tabulate Madrepores, one of the polypiers known as millepores is here represented. The millepores were first separated Fig. 79. Mlllepora alcicomis (Linn.), one-fourth natural size. from the madrepores by Linnaeus, along with a great number of species distinguished by the minuteness of their pores or polypiferous cells (Fig. 79), represented above, as nearly allied, and, perhaps, identical, with Dr. Johnston’s CeUepora cervieornis, a species found in deep water on the Devonshire and Cornwall coasts, and, indeed, all round our west coast. “ A single specimen of this millepore is about three inches in height,” says Dr. Johnston, “and somewhat more in breadth. It rises from a broad flattened base, and begins immediately to expand and divide into kneed branches or broad seg- ZOANTHAItlA. 167 ments, many of which anastomose, so as to form arches and imperfect es« d he extreme segments are dilated and variously cut, some- times truncate, both sides being perforated with numerous pores just visible to the naked eye, and arranged in rows ; the pores circular, and level with the surface on the smooth and newly-formed parts ; but in the older parts they form apertures of urceolate cells, which appear to be formed over the primary layer of cells, giving to the surface a rough ish or angular appearance. The orifice is simple, contracted, with a very small denticle on one side ; the thickness of the branches varies from one half to two lines ; the interior is cellular ; the new parts are formed of two layers of horizontal cells, but the older parts are thickened by cells superimposed on the primary layers.” Millepom moniliformis is a species which attaches itself to the branches of the gorgons, and forms there a series of little rounded or lateral lobes. The animal is unknown, the cells very small, unequal, completely immersed, obsoletely radiate and scattered ; the polypier fixed, cellular within, finely porous and reticulated externally, extending into a palmated form. Of tuberous or wrinkled madrepores, which consist almost entirely of fossil species chiefly belonging to the Silurian formation, we shall only note Cyathophyllum as one of the best known species. There is no spectacle in Nature more extraordinary, or more worthy of our admiration, than that now under consideration. These zoo- phytes, whose history we are about to investigate -these wretched jemgs g te with a half-latent life only — these animalcules so small Rn S° lil©fie labour silently and incessantly in the bosom of the ocean, and, as they exist in innumerable aggregated masses, their- cells and solid axes finish by producing in the end enormous stony masses 2“ i?? A?0SitS increase and such incalcu- , aJU t iey not only cover the submarine rocks as with a caipc ,, u ey msh by forming reefs, and even entire islands, which nse above the surface of the ocean in a manner remarkable at once for then form and the regularity with which they repeat themselves n noting the Indian and Pacific Oceans, navigators had long been struck with the appearance of certain earthy bases, which presented a conformatmn altogether singular. In 1601, Pyrard de Laval, speak- ing of the Malouine (now the Falkland) Islands, said : “ They are divided 168 THE OCEAN WORLD. into thirteen provinces, named atollons, which is so far a natural divi- sion in that place, that each atollon is separated from the other, and contains a great number of smaller islands. It is a marvel to see each of these atollons surrounded on all sides by a great bank of stone — walls such as no human hands could build on the space of earth allotted to them. These atollons are almost round, or rather oval, being each about thirty leagues in circumference, some a little less, others a little more, and all ranging from north to south, without any one touching the other. There is between them sea channels, one broad, the other narrow. Being in the middle of an atollon, you see all around you this great stone bank, which surrounds and protects the island from the waves ; but it is a formidable attempt, even for the boldest, to approach the bank and watch the waves as they roll in and break with fury upon the shore.” Since the publication of Laval’s description, many circular isles, or groups of islands, analogous to these atollons, since called atolls, have been discovered in the Pacific Ocean and other seas. The naturalist Forster, who accompanied Cook in his voyage round the world, first made known the more remarkable characteristics of these gigantic for- mations. He perfectly comprehended their origin, which he was the first to attribute to the development of the calcareous zoophytic polypier. After Forster, many other naturalists— Lamouroux, Chamisso, Quoy, Gaimard, Ehrenberg, Ellis, Darwin, Couthony, and Dana— have fur- nished Science with many precious lessons on the natural history of coral islands and madreporic reefs. We can only glance at a few of the more remarkable genera of these interesting creatures. “ Those occupying the same polypier,” says Fredol, “ live in perfect harmony ; they constitute a family of brothers, physically united in the closest bonds of union. They occupy the same dwelling, each having its separate chamber; but the power of abandoning it is denied them. Attached each to its cell, they are driven to trust in Providence for the food which never fails them ; moreover, what is eaten by each mouth profits the whole community. Urged on by a wonderful instinct, the polypes labour together at the same work; isolated, they would be weak and helpless ; in combination, they are strong.” M. Lacaze-Duthiers has even demonstrated that Antipathes glaberrima, Gorgonia tubercvlata (Lamarck), Leiopatlies glaberrima I’l. te IV. — C uni Is and of Clermont-Ti.nnerre, in the I’omutouan Archipelago. COKALLIiN'ES. Ki9 (Gray), and Leiopathes Lamarckii (Haime), were present on the same polypier, the Gerardia of Lamarck. It is thus recognised that, under the general denomination of polypiers, very distinct species are found, some being of the Hydra type, others belonging to the Plumularia. The first are very common on our coast : they include the Tubularia, the Campanularia, and the Sertularia. The Keed Tubularia (T. indivisa) produces a remarkably curious polypier: its numerous stems are horny, yellow, and marked at intervals with irregular knots, resembling the joints of a straw. Their lower ex- tremity is tortuous, and apt to adhere to foreign bodies ; the upper part is nearly upright, and slightly flexuous, the whole resembling some flowering plant, without leaves or lateral branches. The Gampanularias are altogether different ; the end of the branches whence the polypes issue are broad and bell- shaped, C. dichotoma presenting a stem of brownish colour, thin as a silken thread, but strong and elastic. The polypes are numerous, a branch eight inches in height being inhabited by as many as twelve hundred individuals. The Sertularias have a horny stem, sometimes simple, sometimes branching, and may easily be mistaken for small plants. Their name is derived from the Latin sertum, a bouquet ; and, indeed, they can only be described as trees in miniature, with branches yellow and semi-transparent, each tree having seven, eight, twelve, or twenty small panicles, each of which will contain about five hundred animalcules, the tree itself containing probably ten thousand associated polypes. Occa- sionally Serhdaria argentea is said to afford shelter and employment for a hundred thousand of these creatures. S. falcata, having all the grace and elegance of the delicate and slender Mimosa, is now placed among the Bryozoares. The minute cells m which the polypes are lodged are not always arranged m the same manner. Sometimes the cells occupy one side only ; m other instances they occupy both ; sometimes they are grouped i e the pipes of an organ, at others they are ranged spirally round the stem or arranged at intervals, forming horizontal rings round it I he Alcyonana are very common on some parts of our coast where scarcely a stone or shell is dredged up that does not support one or more specimens known to the fishermen as “ cow’s paps,” “dead men’s fingers, and other popular names. This round and lobed fleshy mass is quite a colony in itself; placed in pure sea water, it yery soon pre- 170 THE OCEAN WORLD. sents certain yellow or grass-like points, which gradually expand and display themselves in their native transparent and animated coralline. Each of these polypes have eight dentate petals, in the centre of which is the mouth ; the body of the polype is tubular, varying externally in length, traversed internally throughout its entire mass by a tissue studded with reddish spiculae, and furrowed with small reed -like ribbons, common to all the individuals of the association. Among the Tnhiporidse may be noted Tubipora musica (Linnaeus), from the Indian Ocean, characterised by its stony tubes, simple, nume- rous, straight or flexible, parallel, and slightly radiating, of a fine purple, and united together at intervals by transverse bands, so as to resemble the pipes of an organ. The polype is a brilliant grass green, according to Peron ; the tentacula furnished on each side with two or three rows of granulous fleshy papillae, to the number of sixty to eighty (Lesson). The Gorgonia is studded with calcareous or siliceous spiculae which form a crust in drying. This crust is friable, and frequently preserves the colours more or less brilliant which characterise it. Their cells are sometimes hollowed out of the plain surface ; sometimes they occur in the projecting mammals ; these are smooth, rough, or scaly — some- times pendent the one from the other. The polypiers attach themselves to solid bodies, sometimes even to each other, grafting themselves or interlacing each other in all directions. In colour they are whitish, pure white, yellow, and apple-green ; their shades, passing from olive-brown to deep blue, from vermilion to violet, and from pale yellow to pearly-grey. Each tube or cell contains an indi- vidual. The cells are more or less deep, according to the species. The polypes are composed generally of a hidden portion more or less tubular, and of a star-like portion more or less displayed. This latter portion presents from eight to twelve soft and granulous wattles, susceptible of expansion, like the petals of a flower. When these appendages are displayed, they often attain twice the height of the body ; in this state they are nearly transparent, except towards the extremity. They extend or compress these wattles, dilate or contract the mouth ac- cording to their wants ; hut their digestive tube is firmly soldered to the cell, while the axis which supports the cells is motionless. What a singular combination is here presented ! Trees, one-half of which are animated, growing at the bottom of the sea ; animalcules, one-half of CORALLINES. 171 which is imprisoned, and riveted to their person ; their stomachs in the hark, their arms on a branch, their movements perfect repose ! These minute silent workers are active and indefatigable ; their task is to separate the salt and other chemical particles from the waters of the ocean, and, while feeding themselves, secrete and organise the axis which bears their lodging. They love the warmer regions of the ocean ; in colder regions, the results of their labours are extremely limited : the one forms a sward of submarine life, which carpets the rocks ; the other produces animated stalactites, great shrubs, whole forests of small trees. The electric cable, which unites Sardinia to the Genoese fort, was so encrusted with polypiers and bryozoares, that certain portions taken from the water for repairs had attained the size of a small barrel. The atolls present three unfailing and constant peculiarities. Sometimes they constitute a great circular chain, the centre of which is occupied by a deep basin, in direct communication with the exterior sea, through one or many breaches of great depth. These are the atolls, described more than two centuries ago by Pyrard de Laval; sometimes they surround, but at some distance, a small island, in such a manner as to constitute a sort of skeleton or girdle of reefs ; finally, they may form the immediate edging or border of an island or continent. In this last case, they are called fringing littorals, or edging reefs. At the distance of a few hundred yards only from the edge of some of these reefs, the sea is of such a depth that the sounding-lead has failed to reach the bottom. In order to give an idea of the general form of these atolls, although they are rarely so regular, the reader is referred to Pl. III., which represents one of these islands of the Pomotouan Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean. It represents the island of Clermont-Tonnerre, figured by Captain Wilkes in tbe American Exploring Expedition, ihe exterior girdle of rocks here surrounds a basin nearly circular. Such is the general form— the typical form, so to speak— of the coral isles, of which this is a fair representation. The zoophytes which torrn these mineral accumulations belong to diverse groups, and nowhere have the results of observations made upon these atolls been more minutely described than in Mr. Darwin’s remarks on the grand Cocos Island situated to the south of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. 172 THE OCEAN WOULD. No writer, it seems to us, lias reasoned on these atolls more compre- hensively than the author of the “ Origin of Species.” “ The earlier voyagers,” he says, “fancied that the coral-building animals instinctively built up their great corals to afford themselves protection in the inner parts ; hut so far is this from the truth, that those massive kinds, to whose growth on the exposed outer shores the very existence of the reef depends, cannot live within the lagoon, where other delicately - branching kinds flourish. Moreover, in this view, many species of distinct genera and families are supposed to combine for one end ; and of such a combination not a single instance can he found in the whole of Nature. The theory that has been most generally received is. that atolls are based on submarine craters, hut when the form and size of some of them are considered, this idea loses its plausible character. Thus, the Suadiva atoll is forty-four geographical mile3 iu diameter in one line by thirty-four in another; Rimsky is fifty-four by twenty miles across ; Bow atoll is thirty mile3 long, and, on an average, six miles broad. This theory, moreover, is totally inapplicable to the Northern Maldivian atolls in the Indian Ocean, one of which is eighty- eight miles in length, and between ten and twenty in breadth.” The various theories which had been propounded failing to explain the existence ot the coral islands, Mr. Darwin was led to reconsider the whole subject. Numerous soundings taken all round the Cocos atoll showed that at ten fathoms the prepared tallow in the hollow of the sounding-rod came up perfectly clean, and marked with the impression ot living polypes. As the depth increased, these impressions became less numerous, but adhering particles of sand succeed, until it was evident that the bottom consisted of smooth sand. From these obser- vations, it was obvious to him that the utmost depth at which the coral polypes can construct reefs is between twenty and thirty fathoms Now, there are enormous areas in the Indian Ocean in which every island is a coral formation raised to the height to which the waves can throw up fragments and the winds pile up sand ; and the only theory which seems to account for all the circumstances embraced, is that of the subsidence of vast regions in this ocean. “ As mountain after mountain and island after island slowly sunk beneath the water,” he says, “ fresh bases would be successively afforded for the growth of the corals. I venture to defy anyone to explain in any other manner how it is possible that numerous islands should be distributed throughout CORALLINES. 173 vast areas, all the islands being low, all built of coral absolutely re- quiring a foundation within a limited depth below the surface.” The Porites, according to Mr. Darwin, form the most elevated deposits of those which are situated nearer the level of the water : Millepora comjplanata also enters into the formation of the upper banks. Various other branched polypiers present themselves in great numbers in the cavities left hy the Porites and MiUepora crossing each other. It is difficult to identify species occupying themselves in the deeper parts, but, according to Darwin, the lower parts of the reefs are occupied by polypes of the same species as in the upper parts ; at the depth of eighteen fathoms and upwards, the bottom consists alter- nately of sand and polypiers. The total breadth of the circular reef or ling which constitute the atoll of the Keeling’s or Cocos Island varies from two hundred to five hundred yards in breadth. Some little para- sitic isles form themselves upon the reefs, at two or three hundred yards from their exterior edge, by the accumulation of the fragments thrown up here during great storms. They rise from two to three yards above the sea level, and consist of shells, polypiers, and sea urchins, the whole consolidated into hard and solid rock. Mi. Darwin s description of a kind of Sea-pen, Virgularia Patagonia, throws some curious light on the habits of these creatures. “ This zoo- phyte consists of a thin, straight, fleshy stem, with alternate rows of polypi on each side, and surrounding an elastic stony axis, varying in length from eight inches to two feet. The stem at one extremity is truncate, but at the other is terminated by a vermiform fleshy append- age. The stony axis, which gives strength to the stem, may be traced at the extremity into a mere vessel filled with granular matter. At ow water, hundreds of these zoophytes might be seen projecting like stubble, with the truncate end upwards, a few inches above the sur ace of the muddy sand. When touched or pulled, they suddenly crew- themselves in with force, so as nearly, or quite, to disappeal. By this action, the highly elastic axis must be bent at the lower extremity where it is naturally slightly curved ; and I imagine it is by this elasticity alone that the zoophyte is enabled to rise again through the mud. Each polypus, though closely united to its brethren has a distinct mouth, body, and tentacula. Of these polypi, in a L specimen there must be many thousands, yet we see that they act bv one moyement. They have also one central axis connected with a 174 THE OCEAN WORLD. system of obscure circulation, and the ova arc produced in an organ distinct from the separate individuals. For,” adds Mr. Darwin, in a note, “the cavities leading from the fleshy compartments of the extremity were filled with a yellow pulpy matter which, under a microscope, consisted of rounded semi-transparent grains aggregated together into particles of various sizes. All such particles, as well as separate grains, possessed the power of rapid motion, generally revolving round different axes, hut sometimes progressive.” The description of the Island of Cocos or Keeling is as follows : — “ The ring-formed reef of the lagoon island is surmounted, in the greater part of its length, hy linear islets. On the northern, or leeward side, there is an opening through which vessels can pass to the anchorage within. On entering, the scene was very curious, and rather pretty ; its beauty, however, entirely depended on the brilliancy of the surrounding colours. The shallow, clear, and still water of the lagoon, resting in its greater part on white sand, is, when illu- mined by a vertical sun, of the most vivid green. This brilliant expanse, several miles in width, is on all sides divided, either by a line of snow-white breakers from the dark heaving waters of the ocean, or from the blue vault of heaven by the strips of land crowned by the level tops of the cocoa-nut tree. As a white cloud here and there affords a pleasing contrast to the azure sky, so in the lagoon bands of living coral darken the emerald-green water. “ The next morning I went ashore on Direction Island. The strip of dry land is only a few hundred yards in width ; on the lagoon side there was a white calcareous beach, the radiation from which, under this sultry climate, was very oppressive. On the outer coast, a solid broad flat of coral rock served to break the violence of the open sea. Excepting near the lagoon, where there is some sand, the land is entirely composed of rounded fragments of coral. In such a loose, dry, stony soil, the climate of the intertropical regions alone could produce so vigorous a vegetation. On some of the smaller islets, nothing could be more elegant than the manner in which the young and full- grown cocoa-nut trees, without destroying each other’s symmetry, were mingled into one wood. A beach of glittering white sand formed a border to those fairy spots. “ The natural history of these islands, from its very paucity, possesses peculiar interest. The cocoa-nut tree, at the first glance, seems to CORALLINES. 175 compose the whole wood ; there are, however, five or six other trees. One of these grows to a very large size, but, from the extreme softness of its wood, it is useless ; another sort affords excellent timber for shipbuilding. Besides the trees, the number of plants is exceedingly limited, and consist of insignificant weeds. In my collection, which includes, I believe, nearly the perfect Flora, there are twenty species, without reckoning a moss, lichen, and fungus. To this number two trees must be added, one of which was not in flower, and the other I only heard of. The latter is a solitary tree of its kind, and grows near the beach, where, without doubt, the one seed was thrown up bv the waves. 1 J The next day I employed myself in examining the very interest- ing yet simple structure and origin of these islands. The water being unusually smooth, I waded over the flat of dead rock as far as the living mounds of coral, on which the swell of the open sea breaks, n some of the gulleys and hollows there were beautiful green and other coloured fishes, and the forms and tints of many of the zoophvtes were admirable. It is excusable to grow enthusiastic over the infinite number of organic beings with which the sea of the Tropics, so prodigal of life teems ; yet I must confess, I think those naturalists who have escribed m well-known words the submarine grottoes, decked with a thousand beauties, have indulged in rather exuberant lan-ua-e I accompanied Captain Fitzroy to an island at the head of the lagoon ; the channel was exceedingly intricate, winding through fields of delicately-branched corals. At the head of the lagoon we crossed a narrow islet and found a great surf breaking on the windward coast I can hardly explain the reason, but there is, to my minT Zl grandeur in the view ot the outer shores of these lagoon islands h a simphctyin the barrier-like beach, the margin o Teen bushes and tall cocoa-nuts, the solid flat of dead coral- rock, strewed first seem most weak and inefficient. It is ’not t Lube U the rock of coral; the great fragments Xd heaped on the beach whence the tall cocoa-nut springs, plainly? speak the unrelent, ng power of the waves. Nor are any pel* 176 THE OCEAN WORLD. repose granted ; the long swell caused by the gentle but steady action of the trade-winds, always blowing in one direction over a wide area, causes breakers almost equalling in force those during a gale of wind in the temperate regions, and which never cease to rage. It is impos- sible to behold these waves without feeling a conviction that an island, though built of the hardest rocks — let it be porphyry, granite, or quartz — would ultimately yield and be demolished by such an irre- sistible power. Yet these low, insignificant coral islets stand, and are victorious ; for here another power, as an antagonist, takes part in the contest. The organic forces separate the atoms of carbonate of lime, one by one, from the foaming breakers, and unite them into a symme- trical structure. Let the hurricane tear up its thousand huge frag- ments, yet what will that tell against the accumulated labour of myriads of architects at work night and day, month alter month ? Thus do we see the soft and gelatinous body of a polypus, through the agency of the vital laws, conquering the great mechanical power of the waves of an ocean which neither the art of man nor the inanimate works of Nature could successfully resist.” We have said that madreporic or coralline formations affect three forms, to which the names of atolls, harrier reefs, and fringing reefs have been applied. We have spoken of atolls ; we shall now say a few words on barrier and fringing reefs. Barrier reefs are formations which surround the ordinary islands, or stretch along their hanks. They have the form and general structure of atolls. Like atolls, the barrier reefs appear placed on the edge of a marine precipice. They rise on the edge of a plateau which looks down on a bottomless sea. On the coast of New Caledonia, only two lengths of his ship from the reef, Captain Kent found * no bottom in a hundred and fifty fathoms. This was verified at Gambier Island in the Pacific Ocean, in Qualem Island, and at many others. According to Mr. Darwin, the barrier reef situated on the western coast of New Caledonia is four hundred miles long ; that along the eastern coast of Australia extends almost without interruption for a thousand miles, ranging from twenty or thirty to fifty or sixty miles from the coast. As to the elevation of the islands thus surrounded with reefs, it varies considerably. The Isle of Tahiti rises six thousand eight hundred feet above the level of the sea ; the Isle ol Maui ua to CORALLINES. 177 six hundred; Aituaki to three hundred; and Manonai to about fifty feet only. Around the Isle of Gambier the reef has a thickness of a thousand and sixty feet, at Tahiti of two hundred and thirty. Round the Fiji Islands it is from two to three thousand. Th q. fringing reefs immediately surrounding the island, or a portion of it, might be confounded with the barrier reefs we have been de- scribing, if they only differed in their smaller breadth; but the circumstance that they abut immediately on the coast in place of being separated by a channel or lagoon more or less deep and continuous, proves that they are in direct communication with the slope of the submarine soil, and permits of their being distinguished from the barrier reefs. The dangerous breakers which surround the Mauritius are a striking example of the fringing reef. This island is almost entirely surrounded by a barrier of these rocks, the breadth of which varies from a hundred and fifty to three hundred and thirty feet • their rugged and abrupt surface is worn almost smooth, and is rarely uncovered at low water. Analogous reefs surround the Isle of our on ; all round this island the polypiers construct on the volcanic bottom of the sea detached mammalons, which rise from a fathom to a iathom and a half above the water. Madreponc coasting reefs present themselves also on the eastern coast of Africa anti of Brasil. In the Red Sea. reefs of polypiers exist which may be ranked among the madreporic coasting reefs in consequence of the hmited breadth of the gulf. Ehrenberg and Hempnch examined a hundred and fifty stations in the Red SeaXl of which had outlying fringing reefs of this description. It may be asked, With what rapidity are these coral and madrenoric banks formed, so as to become atolls and fringina reef To Z" this question even approximately is To answer the Mauritius, according to M d’Areh X * tl i ^ 16 coaa^ 0 the Jnrdin des Plantes, the edge of the reef'is preducedty jfc* ” °‘ corymlosa, ill. to dUi/era, and two species of AstZ if? then- operations at the depth of from eight to til? 7 « * P™U<3 a. w . . U.I., Gouts de Pnleontologic Stratigraphique.” 178 THE OCEAN WORLD. height. At the bottom, the sand is covered with Seriaiopora. At twenty fathoms we also meet with fragments of Madrepora. Between twenty and forty fathoms the bottom is sandy, and the sounding-iod brings up great fragments of Caryophylla. According to MM. Quoy and Gaimard, the Astreas, which, as these naturalists consider, constitute the greater part of the reefs, cannot live beyond four or five fathoms deep. Millepora alcicornis extends from the surface to the depth of twelve fathoms ; the Madrepores and Seriatopores down to twenty fathoms. Considerable masses of Meandrina have been ob- served at sixteen fathoms ; and a Caryophylla has been brought up from eighty fathoms in thirty-three degrees south latitude. Among the polypiers which do not form solid reefs, Mr. Darwin mentions Cellaria , found at a hundred and ninety fathoms deep, Gorgonta at a hundred and sixty, Corallines at a hundred, Millepora at from thirty to forty-five, Sertularias at forty, and Tubulipora at ninety-five fathoms. According to Dana, none of the species which form reefs— namely, Madrepora, Millepora , Porites, Astreas, and Meandrineas— can live at a greater depth than eighteen fathoms. It is only near the surface of the water that the zoophytes which produce minerals and form madrc- poric banks put forth their powers ; the points most exposed to the beating of the waves is that which is most favourable to then growth ; it is there that the Astreas, Porites, and Millepores most abound. The proportionate increase of the structures, according to Mr. Darwin, depends at once upon the species which construct the reefs and upon various accessary circumstances. The ordinary rate of increase of the madrepores, according to Dana, is about an mch and a liai annually ; and, as their branches are much scattered, this will not exceed half an inch in thickness of the whole surface covered by the madrepore^ Again, in consequence of their porosity, this quantity will be reduced to three-eighths of an inch of compact matter. It is, besides, to be noted that great spaces are wanting; the sands filling up the destroyed part of the polypier are washed out by the currents in t e great depths where there are no living polypiers, and the surface occupied by them is reduced to a sixth of the whole coralline legion which reduces the preceding three-eighths to one-sixth, and other organic debris will probably represent a fourth the produce in relation to polypiers. In this manner, into account, the mean increase of a reef cannot exceed the b CORALLINES. 179 an inch annually. According to this calculation, some reefs which are not less than two thousand feet thick would require for their formation a hundred and ninety-two thousand years. It is necessary to add, however, that in favourable circumstances the increase of the masses of polypier may he much more rapid. Mr. Darwin speaks of a ship which, having been wrecked in the Persian Gulf, was found, after being submerged only twenty months, to be covered with a bed of polypiers two feet in thickness; he also mentions experiments made by Mr. Allen on the coast of Madagascar, which tend to prove that in the space of six months certain polypiers increased nearly three feet. M e proceed to the theoretic explanation of these curious mineral formations. Naturalists and navigators have been much divided in opinion as to the true origin of these madreporic islands. Most of them have admitted that these enormous banks are composed of the mineral spoils and earthy detritus of the madrepores and corals, which, de- veloping themselves in their midst, or upon the bed of the ocean, multiplying and superposing themselves, age after age, and genera- tion after generation, have finally concluded by forming deposits of this immense extent. The growth of the vast madreporic column would be finally arrested by the want of water when its summit approached the level of the sea. It is thus that Forster, Peron, ' 1'K crs’ ancl Chamisso have explained the formation of the atolls and madreporic reefs. This opinion has also found a supporter in our times, m the French admiral, Du Petit Thouars. But he objects with reason, that the polypiers cannot live at the prodigious depth of sea at which the base of these islets lie. It has therefore been found necessary to seek for another cause to satisfy the diverse conditions of the phenomena and explain, at the same time, the strange circular arrangement of these islands, which is almost constant, and which it is essential to keep in view. .Sir Charles Lyell was of opinion that the base of an atoll was always the crater of an ancient submarine volcano, which, when ciowned with corals and madrepores, would naturally reproduce this circular wall formed of heaped-up polypiers. This theory supposes the existence of volcanic craters in the n 2 180 THE OCEAN WOULD. neighbourhood of all the coral islands. It is quite certain that these islands are often found not far from extinct volcanoes, and Sir Charles Lyell has published a very curious map in connection with the sub- ject ; nevertheless, the coincidence does not always exist. We have already remarked on the theory by which Mr. Darwin seeks to explain the complicated conditions of the phenomena. The expla- nation proposed accounts for the known facts, as well as the present appearance of the madreporic islands. The circular atolls and rnadre- poric banks which are disposed as a sort of girdle, are principally formed of porites, millepora, and astrea, zoophytes which cannot exist at any great depth in the ocean, but which swarm on the rocks at some few fathoms only below the limits of the tide. These animals, by means of their accumulated debris, soon form a sort of coating round the island, which constitutes the littoral reefs : this rnargma tongue or shoulder, according to Mr. Darwin, is the first stage in t e existence of a madreporic island. At this point the author intro- duces a geological cause, namely, a great subsiding movement oi the soil in which the madreporic colony is sunk under the water. It is evident that after submersion the zoophyte will only continue to develope itself on the upper surface, and within the limits which is nature prescribes. The madrepores exhibiting tlieir greatest vitality at the points most exposed to the fury of the waves it will he near the outer edge of the reef that the development will be most rapid. If the subsidence of the island thus surrounded should still continue, as mountain after mountain and island after island slowly sink beneath the water, fresh bases would be successively afforded for the growth oi the corals, and the outer edge elevated by their continual labour, thus transforming the space into a sort of circular lagune. The max le- poric deposits would thus form an isolated girdle, and the lagune, which occupies the centre, would become deeper and deeper in P portion to the lowering of the soil. This is the second stage of the “^Tedstente of the atolls are thus subordinated to two principal eon^ons: the progressive subsidence of the sea, and the existence of coral formed ot stony polders, * and multiplication of which are extremely rapid. . It follows from this that madreporic isles cannot exist n all , it loiiows iiurn imo i or at least near that they only have their birth m the lomd zone, CORALLINES. 181 the Tropics, for it is only in these regions where the warmth exists, so necessary to their development, that the madrepores show them- selves in greatest abundance. The great field of madreporic formations, in short, are found in the warm parts of the Pacific Ocean. It is from this point, as from a common centre, round which are ranged the series of madreporic isles and islets, that it will be useful, in concluding this chapter, to trace their geographical distribution. We borrow the materials for this from Milne Edwards’s tableaux of their distribution in the principal seas of the world. It is, as we have said, only in the warm parts of the Pacific Ocean that the great mass of these islands are found. They give birth towards the south to the group of atolls known as the archipelago ol the Bashee Islands, the extreme limit of the region being the Isle of Ducie. A multitude of other islands of the same nature are sparsely scattered over the sea, up to the east coast of Australia. There are enormous areas here, in which every single island is of coral for- mation, and is raised to the height at which the waves can throw up frag- ments. The Eadack group is an angular square, four hundred miles long by two hundred and forty broad. Between this group and the Low Archipelago itself, eight hundred and forty miles by four hundred and twenty, there are groups and single islands covering a linear space of more than four thousand miles. To the north of the Equator the archipelago of the Caroline Islands constitute a very considerable gioup of madreporic formation, comprehending upwards of a thousand ex ending in a broad belt over nearly forty degrees of longitude.’ On the other hand, all along the coast of the American continent, onnd the Galapagos and the Isle of Paques, we find no trace of turn The reason assigned is, that in these regions a great current of cold water, Sowing lrom the Antarctic Pole, so much lowers the quTIte lig™° “ ae 200I>hyteS E0 '“S'* 1« the re- We still meet with atolls in the Chinese Seas, and inadrenorio bainer leefs are abundant round the Marianne and Philippine Iskuds These marginal reefs form also an immense tract, fromTe We 0f in I W^f °0aSt °f to * ** - Nicobar^ To the west of the Indian Peninsula, the Maidive and Laccadive 182 THE OCEAN WOULD. Islands form the extremity of another group of atolls, and important madreporic reefs, which extend towards the south, by the Maldives and the Chagos Islands ; they consist of low coral formations, densely clothed with cocoa-nut trees. The Maldives, the most southerly cluster, include upwards of a thousand islands and reefs ; the Lacca- dives, seventeen in number, are of similar origin. The Saya de Malha bank, towards the south-east, constitutes a further group of madre- poric islets. Finally, the coast of the Mauritius, of Madagascar, of the Seychelles, and even the African continent, from the northern extremity of the Mozambique Channel to the bottom of the Red Sea, are studded with numerous reefs of the same nature. They fail, however, almost completely, along the coast of the Asiatic continent, where, among others, the waters of the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Granges, enter the sea, and diversify its inhabitants. The western coast of Africa, and the east coast of the American continent, are almost entirely destitute of great madreporic reefs, but they abound in the Caribbean Seas. In the Gulf of Mexico, where the vast fresh-water current of the Mississippi debouches into the sea, they are unknown. It is principally on the north coast and upon the eastern flanks of the chain of West Indian Islands that the madreporic reefs show themselves in these regions. The polypes which have produced these vast ranges of islands would be set down, at first sight, as the most incapable objects in creation for accomplishing it. In the case of the Pennatulidas, the skin is coriaceous, strengthened with calcareous particles ; the interior is a fibrous net-work containing a transparent jelly in the squares, and permeated by a certain number of longitudinal cartilaginous tubes ; the soft part is uniformly gelatinous, but the skin is also coriaceous, with a great number of calcareous spicula placed parallel to one another, adding greatly to its strength and consistency. The polypes are placed in this external fleshy crust; their position bein- marked by an orifice on the surface, distinguished by eight star-like rays, which open when the upper portion of the body is forced outwards, in which state it resembles a cylindrical bladder or nipple crowned with a fringe of tentacula, which surround the mouth. Under this orifice is the stomach, occupying the centre of the cylinder. The space between this stomach and the outer envelope is m e ACTINIARIA. 183 into eight equal compartments or cells by as many thin septa, ori- ginating in a labial rim or lip between the bases of the tentacula, which descend through the cylinder attached on the one side to the inner tunic of the body, and on the other to the stomach, which is thus retained in its position. The protruding portion of the polype is very delicate, the internal viscera being, as it were, enclosed in a bladder formed of two very thin membranes in intimate union, so transparent as to permit a view of their arrangement. At the base of the body, where thickest, it coalesces with the base of the adjacent polype ; thus constituting the common cortical portion into which each animalcule retreats at will, by a process in many respects resembling that by which a snail draws in its horns. In the greater number of Asteroiclte this common portion secretes carbonate of lime, which is deposited in the meshes of its tissues either in granules or in crystalline spiculse, which imparts a solid consistency to the whole. The inner tissue meanwhile continues unaltered, being prolonged throughout the polypiferous mass, lining the cell, the abdominal cavity, and the longitudinal canals which permeate the whole polypier, as well as the tubular net-work with which the sjjaces between the canals is occupied. It is among these inner tissues that the buds or gemmae are generated, by whose increase and evolution the polype mass is enlarged, the shape and size depending on the manner in which the buds are evolved ; for in some, as in Pennatu- hdie, determinate spots only have the appropriated organization, while in others, as in Alcyonium, the generative faculty appears to be’ unde- fined and more diffused. The Actiniakia. Here we leave the group of polypes which form united families lhe Sea Anemones, of which the Actinia are the type, consist of oanthaires, which produce no polypiers, that is to say, of polypes whose covering remains always soft, and in whose interior nothing solid is produced, dins order is usually divided into two families— the Actiniadse, having the tentacles in uninterrupted circles, with no corallum, and the Minyadmse, having globose bodies, and very short tentacula. J The modern aquarium exposes the spectator to many wonderful 184 THE OCEAN WORLD. surprises. Coiled up against the transparent crystal walls of the basin, he observes living creatures of the most brilliant shades of colour, and more resembling flowers than animals. Supported by a solid base and cylindrical stem, he sees them terminate like the corolla of a flower, as in the petals of the anemone : these are the animals we call Sea Anemones — curious zoophytes, which, as all persons familiar with the sea shore may have observed, are now seen suspended from the rocks, and presently buried at the bottom of the sea, or floating on its surface. These charming and timid creatures are also called Actinia, as indicating their disposition to form rays or stars, from the Greek uk.t\v, a ray. The body of these animals is cylindrical in form, terminating be- neath in a muscular disk, which is generally large and distinct, en- abling them to cling vigorously to foreign bodies. It terminates above in an upper disk, bearing many rows of tentacles, which differ from each other only in their size. These tentacles- are sometimes deco- rated with brilliant colours, forming a species of collarette, consisting of contractile and often retractile tubes, pierced at their points with an orifice, whence issue jets of water, which is ejected at the will of the animal. Arranged in multiples of circles, they distribute themselves with perfect regularity round the mouth. These are the arms of this species of zoophyte. The mouth of the Actinia opens among the tentacles. Oval in form, it communicates by means of a tube with a stomach, broad and short, which descends vertically, and abuts by a large opening on the visceral cavity, the interior of which is divided into little cells or chambers. These cells and chambers are not all of the same dimen- sions ; in parting from the cylindrical walls of the body, they advance, the one increasing, the others getting smaller, in the direction of the centre. Moreover, they have many kinds of cells, which dispose them- selves in their different relations with great regularity — their tenta- cula, which correspond with them, being arranged in circles radiating more or less from the centre. The stomach of the sea anemones fulfills a multitude of functions. At first, it is the digestive organ ; it is also the seat of respiration ; and is unceasingly moistened by the water, which it passes through, imbibes, and ejects. The visceral cavity absorbs the atmospheric air contained in the water ; for the stomach is also a lung, and through the same organ ACTINIARIA. 185 it ejects its young ! In short, the reproductive organs, the eggs, and the larvae, are all connected with the tentacles or arms. In the month of September the eggs are fecundated, and fJlie larvae or embryos de- veloped. As Fredol says in “ La Monde de la Mer,” “ these animals bear their young, not upon their arms, but in their arms. The larvae generally pass from the tentacula into the stomach, and are afterwards ejected from the mouth along with the rejecta of their food — a most singular formation, in which the stomach breathes, and the mouth serves the purposes of accouchement — facts which it would be difficult to believe on other than the most positive evidence.” “ The Daisy-like Anemones ( Sagartia bellis — Gosse), in the Zoo- logical Gardens of Paris,” says Fredol, “ frequently throw up little embryos, which are dispersed, and attach themselves to various parts of the aquarium, and finally become miniature anemones exactly like the parent. An actinia which had taken a very copious repast ejected a portion of it about twenty-four houi-s later, and in the middle of the ejected food were found thirty-eight young individuals.” According to Dalyell, an accouchement is here a fit of indigestion. The lower class of animals have, in fact, as the general basis of theii organization, a sac with a single opening, which is applied, as we have seen, to a great variety of uses. It receives and rejects; it swallows and it vomits. The vomiting becomes necessary and habi- tual-the normal condition, in short, of the animal— and is perhaps a source of pleasure to it, for it is not a malady, but a function, and even a function multiplied. In the sea anemone it expels the excre- ment, and lays its eggs ; in others, as we have seen, it even serves the purposes of respiration ; so that the animal flowers may probablv be said to enjoy their regular and periodical vomit. The sea anemones multiply their- species in another manner. On the edge of their base certain bud-like excrescences may often be ob- served. These buds are by and by transformed into embryos, which detach themselves rom the mother, and soon become individuals in all respects resembling her. This mode of reproduction greatly re- sembles some of the vegetative processes. Another and very singular mode of reproduction has been noted by Mr I W in ti ° , Actinia «** Wishing to detach this this gentleman used every effort to effect his purpose • but IT succeeded, after violent exertions, in tearing the lower part of the 186 THE OCEAN WORLD. animal. Six portions remained attached to the glass walls of the aqnai’ium. At the end of eight days, attempts were again made to detach these fragments ; hut it was observed, with much surprise, that they shrank from the touch and contracted themselves. Each of them soon became crowned with a little row of tentacula, and finally each fragment became a new anemone. Every part of these strange crea- tures thus becomes a separate being when detached, while the mutilated mother continues to live as if nothing had happened. In short, it has long been known that the sea anemones may he cut limb from limb, mutilated, divided, and subdivided. One part of the body cut off is quickly replaced. Cut otf the tentacles of an actinia, and they are replaced in a short time, and the experiment may he repeated in- definitely. The experiments made by M. Trembley of Geneva upon the fresh-water polypi were repeated by the Abbe Dicquemare in the sea anemones. He mutilated and tormented them in a hundred ways. The parts cut off* continued to live, and the mutilated creature had the power of reproducing the parts of which it had been deprived. To those who accused the Abbe of cruelty in thus torturing the poor creatures, he replied that, so far from being a cause of suffering to them, “ he had increased their term of life, and renewed their youth.” The Actiniaclce vary in their habitat from pools near low-water mark to eighteen or twenty fathoms water, whence they have been dredged up. “ They adhere,” says Dr. Johnston, “ to rocks, shells, and other ex- traneous bodies by means of a glutinous secretion from their enlarged base, hut they can leave their hold and remove to another station whensoever it pleases them, either by gliding along with a slow and almost imperceptible movement (half an inch ni five minutes), as is their usual method, or by reversing the body and using the tentacula for the purpose of feet, as Reaumur asserts, and as I have once witnessed ; or, lastly, inflating the body with water, so as to render it more buoyant, they detach themselves, and are driven to a distance by the random motion of the waves. They feed on shrimps, small crabs, whelks, and similar shelled mollusca, and probably on all animals brought within their reach whose strength or agility is insufficient to extricate them from the grasp of their numerous tentacula ; for as these organs can he inflected in any direction, and greatly lengthened, they are capable of being applied to every point, and adhere by suction with consider- ACTINIARIA. 187 able tenacity, throwing ont, according to Gaertner, of their whole surface a number of extremely minute suckers, which, sticking fast to the small protuberances of the skin, produce the sensation of roughness, which is so far from being painful that it even cannot be called dis- agreeable. “ The size of the prey is frequently in unseemly disproportion to the preyer, being often equal in bulk to itself. I had once brought me a specimen of A. crassicornis, that might have been originally two inches in diameter, which had somehow contrived to swallow a valve of Pectin maximus of the size of an ordinary saucer. The shell, fixed within the stomach, was so placed as to divide it completely into two halves, so that the body, stretched tensely over, had become thin and flattened like a pancake. All communication between the inf ex 101 portion of the stomach and the mouth was of course prevented ; yet, instead of emaciating and dying of atrophy, the animal had availed itself of what undoubtedly had been a very untoward accident to in- crease its enjoyment and its chance of double fare. A new mouth, furnished with two rows of numerous tentacula, was opened up on what had been the base, and led to the under stomach ; the individual had indeed become a sort of Siamese twin, but with greater intimacy and extent in its unions !” The sea anemones pass nearly all their life fixed to some rock to which they seem to have taken root. 'There they live a sort of ’un- conscious and obtuse existence, gifted with an instinct so obscure that they are not even conscious of the prey in their vicinity until it is actually in contact, when it seizes it in its mouth and swallows it. Nevertheless, though habitually adherent, they can move, gliding and creeping slowly by successive contractile and relaxing movements of the body, extending one edge of their base and relaxing the opposite one At the approach of cold weather the Actiniadse descend into the deepest water, where they find a more agreeable temperature. We have said that the sea anemones are scarcely possessed of vital instinct; but they are capable of certain voluntary movements Under the influence of light, they expand their tentacles a, the daisy displays its florets. If the animal is touched, or the water is agitated m its neighbourhood, the tentacles close immediately. These tente cles appear occasionally to serve the purpose of offensive arms The hand of the man who has touched them becomes red and inflamed 188 THE OCEAN WORLD. M. Hollard lias seen small mackerel, two to three inches long, perish when touched by the tentacles of the Green Actinia ( Contact is viridis — Allman). This is a charming little animal; “the brilliancy of its colours and the great elegance of its tentacular crown when fully expanded,” says Professor Allman, “ render it eminently attractive ; hundreds may often be seen in a single pool, and few sights will be retained with greater pleasure by the naturalist than that presented by these little zoophytes, as they expand their green and rosy crowns amid the algae, millepores, and plumy corals, co-tenants of their rock- covered vase.” The toxological properties of the Actinia have been attributed to certain special cells full of liquid; but M. Hollard believes that these effects are neither constant enough nor sufficiently general to con- stitute the chief function of these organs, which are found in all the species and over their whole surface, external and internal. Though quite incapable of discerning their prey at a distance, the sea ane- mone seizes it with avidity when it comes to offer itself up a victim. If some adventurous little worm, or some young and sluggish crustacean, happens to ruffle the expanded involucrum of an actinia in its lazy progress through the water, the animal strikes it at once with its ten- tacles, and instinctively sweeps it into its open mouth. This habit may be observed in any aquarium, and is a favourite spectacle at the “ Jardin d’Acclimitation ” of Paris at noon on Sunday and Wednesday, when the aquatic animals are fed. Small morsels of food are thrown into the water. Prawns, shrimps, and other crustaceans and zoophytes inhabiting this medium, chase the morsels as they sink to the bottom of the basin ; but it is otherwise with the Actinia ; the morsels glide downwards within the twentieth part of an inch of their crown without its presence being suspected. It requires the aid of a pro- pitious wand, directed by the hand of the keeper, to guide the food right down on the animal. Then its arms or tentacles seize upon the prey, and its repast commences forthwith. The Actinia are at once gluttonous and voracious. They seize their food with the help of the tentacula, and engulf in then- stomach, as we have seen, substances of a volume and consistence which contrast strangely with their dimensions and softness. In less than an hour, M. Hollard observed that one of these creatures voided the shell of a mussel, and disposed of a crab all to its hardest parte ; nor ACTINIA RIA. 189 was it slow to reject these hard parts, by turning its stomach inside out, as one might turn out one’s pocket, in order to empty it of its contents. We have seen in Dr. Johnston’s account of A. crassicornis that when threatened with death by hunger, from having swallowed a shell which separated it into two halves, at the end of eleven days it had opened a new mouth, provided with separate rows of tentacula. The accident which, in ordinary animals, would have left it to perish of hunger, became, in the sea anemone, the source of redoubled gas- tronomical enjoyment. “ The anemones,” Fredol tells us, “ are voracious, and full of energy ; nothing escapes their gluttony; every creature which approaches them is seized, engulfed, and devoured. Nevertheless, with all the power ot their mouth, their insatiable stomachs cannot retain the prey they have swallowed. In certain circumstances it contrives to escape, in otheis it is adroitly snatched away by some neighbouring marauder more cunning and more active than the anemone. In I l. IV . are represented the principal species of Anemone usually observed in the aquarium. Figs. 1, 2, and 3, A. sulcata, is surmised by Johnston to be the young of A. effccia (Linn.) It is also quoted as a synonyme of Anthea cereus, from Drayton’s stanza : “ Anthea of the flowers, that hath a general charge, And Syrinx of the weeds, that grow upon the marge.” Fig. 4 Phijmactis Sandte Helen a (Edw.) ; Fig. 5, A. capensis (Lesson) ; Fig. 6, A. Peruviana (Lesson); Fig. 7, A. Sandie Cathe- r™V 8’ A- amethJstina (Quoy) ; Fig. 9, Comactis viridis (Milne Edwards). “ It is sometimes observed in aquariums that a shrimp, which has seen the prey devoured from a distance, will throw itself upon the ravisher, and audaciously wrest the prey from him and devour it before his eyes, to his great disappointment. Even when the savoury morsel has been swallowed, the shrimp, by great exertions, succeeds in ex- tracting rt Irom the stomach. Seating itself upon the extended chsk of he anemone, with its small feet it prevents the approach of the tentacles, at the same time that it inserts its claws into the digest™ cavity and seises the food. In vain the anemone tries to contract its gills and close its mouth. Sometimes the conflict between the sedentary zoophyte and the vagrant crustacean becomes serious 190 THE OCEAN WORLD. When the former is strong and robust, the aggression is repelled, and the shrimp runs the risk of supplementing the repast of the anemone.'’ If the actinias are voracious, they can also support a prolonged period of fasting. They have been known to live two and even three years without having received any nourishment.* Although the sea anemone is said to be delicate eating, man derives very little benefit from them in that respect. In Provence, Italy, and Greece, the Green Actinia is in great repute, and Dicquemare speaks of A. crassicornis as delicate food. “Of all the kinds of sea anemones, I would prefer this for the table ; being boiled some time in sea water, they acquire a firm and palatable consistence, and may then be eaten with any kind of sauce. They are of an inviting appearance, of a light shivering texture, and of a soft white and reddish hue. Their smell is not unlike that of a warm crab or lobster.” Dr. Johnston admits the tempting description, and does not doubt their being not less a luxury than the sea urchins of the Greeks, or the snails of the Roman epicures, but he was not induced to test its truth. Rondeletius tells us, having, as Dr. Johnston thinks, A. crassicornis in view, that it brings a good price at Bordeaux. Actinia dianthus also is good to eat, quoth Dicquemare, and Plaucus directs the cook to dress it after the manner of dressing oysters, with which it is frequently eaten. Actinia coriacea is found in the market at Rochefort during the months of January, February, and March. Its flesh is said to be both delicate and savoury. With these general considerations, we proceed to note some of the more remarkable genera and species of these interesting creatures. Among these, the species represented in Pl. IV. are those usually seen collected in such aquariums as those of the Zoological Gardens of London and the Gardens of Acclimatization of Paris. The first section of the Actiniadie, according to Milne Edwards, in- cludes the Common Actinia, the feet of which are broad and adherent, the lateral walls soft and imperforate. To this section belongs, among others, the genera Anemonia, Actinia, and Metridium. The Green Actinia (A. viridis) has very numerous tentacula, some- times as many as two hundred, exceeding in length the breadth of the body, of a fine brownish or olive green, and rose-coloured at the extremity. * “On en a vu vivre deux et meme trois ans, sans recevoir de nourriture. Vie dee Animaux, p. 117. Actinia djknthus. 2. Ccrotu gemmace ACTINIAE I A. 191 The trunk is of a greyish green or brown ; the disk is brown with greenish rays. This species is plentiful in the Mediterranean and in the Channel. When attached to the vertical sides of a rock, a little below the surface of the water, in which position it is often seen on the shores of the Mediterranean, the tentacles hang suspended as if the animal had no power to display them in their radiate form ; but when fixed horizontally in a calm sea, they are spread out in all direc- tions, and are kept in a state of continual agitation ; its long mane- like tentacula, fully expanded, float and balance themselves in the water in spite of the action of the waves, presenting a most interesting spec- tacle as it displays its beauties a few feet below the passing boat. A. dianthus (Ellis), having a number of synonymes, is represented m Pl. Y. Fig. 1 ; its body is smooth and cylindrical ; the disk marked m the centre with clavate radiating bands; tentacula numerous, irregular, the outer small, and forming round the margin a thick filamentous fringe. This species attaches itself to rocks and shells m deep water, or within low-water mark, to which it permanently attaches itself, and cannot be removed without organic injury to the base. When contracted, the body presents a thick, short, sub-cylin- c rical form, about three inches long, and one and a half in diameter and about five inches when fully expanded; the skin is smooth, of an uniform olive, whitish, cream, or flesh colour. The centre of the disk is ornamented with a circle of white bands, radiating from the mouth he lamellae running across, the circumference being perceptible lough the transparent skin. From the narrow, colourless inter- spaces between- the lamellae the tentacula originate. “ They are paced, -says Dr. Johnston, “between the mouth and the margin which is encircled by a dense fringe of incontestable beauty, composed of innumerable short tentacula or filaments, forming a thick, furry the bod f11 1 L’i •' 1 V i haYe Proba% Gkertner’s Anthea cereus, y o w nch is a light chestnut colour, smooth, sulcated length- wise, with tentacula rising from the disk to the number, in aged animals of two hundred. Sagartm viduata- Gosse (Fig. 4) has the body adherent cylindrical, without a skin, destitute of warts emitting capsuhferous filaments from pores; nettling- threads short, densely aimed with a brush of hairs ; tentacles conical. A. picta (Vi TV Rg 6). whch Professor Edward Forbes changes to AdLia " i«*ves Another group that of the Thalassianthidm, is distinguished from y n™8 “U ^ tentacula short, pinnate, and branching, 01 papillderous. One species only is known, T. aster, of a slate colour which inhabits the Fed Sea. ’ In the last group of Actiniad®, as arranged by Milne Edwards the polypes occur in clusters, and are multiplied by buds, rising from a mmon creeping, root like, fleshy base; they thus present a sort of conaoeous polypier, as m Zoantlius socialis (Fin- 82) In tlm P,.,V l Channel this specif, which Dr. Johnston iL X r. ouch, jun., is found along the Cornish coast, on flat slates and rocks, o 194 THE OCEAN WORLD in deep water, and from one to ten leagues from the shore. It is very small, resembling both in shape and size a split pea. When living, its surface is plain hut glandular, becoming corrugated when preserved. When semi -expanded, which is its favourite state, it elevates itself to twice its ordinary height, becoming contracted about the middle, like an hour-glass. When the creature is fully expanded, the tentacula become distended and elongated to about the length of the transverse Fig. 81 . Phyllactis pnetexta (Dana), natural size. diameter of the body; and they are generally darker at their ex- tremities than towards the base. Like all the Actiniadse, the present species possess a power of considerably altering its shape ; sometimes the mouth is depressed, and at others it is elevated into an obtuse cone. “ This is one of the most inactive of its order,” says Mr. A. Couch ; “for, whether in a state of contraction or expansion, it will lemain so for many days without apparent change. In its expanded shite a touch will make it contract, and it will commonly remain so foi many ACTINIARIA. 195 days." The trailing connecting-band is flat, thin, narrow, glandular, and of the same texture as the polype, sometimes enlarging into small papillary eminences, which, as they become enlarged, become developed into polypes. Fig. 82. Zoanthus socialis (Cuvier), natural size. Minyadinians. The Minjsdinians seem to represent among the Zoanthairia tire form p cul.ar to the Pennatnla among the Alcyonians. In the case of Fig. 83. Blue Minyade. Mlnyas c^rulea (Cuvier), natural size. these animais, the base of the body, in place of extending itself in , disk-like form, in order to grapple with the rock and other projections o 2 106 THE OCEAN WOULD. at the bottom of the sea, turns itself inwards, forming a sort of purse, which seems to imprison the air. From this results a sort of hydro- static apparatus, aided by which the animals can float in the water and transport themselves from one place to another. The Blue Minyade (Minyas cyanea — Fig. 83) will serve as a type of this family; its globose, melon-like form is of azure blue, studded with white wart-like excrescences ; it is flattened at its two extremities in its state of con- traction, and it has three rows of tentacula, which are short, cylindrical, and white. The internal organs are of a delicate rose colour. Cuvier places this species among the Echinodermata, but the observations of Lesueur and Quoy, who were acquainted with the living animal, place it among the Actiniae! fe. Many of the species, which are usually fixed, are still capable of swimming and of inflating their suctorial disks ; therefore it is by no means certain that the free habit of Minyas cyanea is constant. CHAPTER VI II. ACALEPHsE, OH SEA NETTLES. " Hi nova fert animus mutatls dicere formas corpora.” — Ovin, Mict. The class Acalephm, from a/caXr/fa, a nettle, so called from the stinging properties which many of them possess, include a great number of radiate animals of which the Medusm are the type. Thev form the third class of Cuvier’s zoophytes. The Acalephm, forming the fiisfc older, are characterised as floating and swimming in the sea by means of the contraction and dilation of their bodies, their substance bemg gelatinous, without apparent fibres. The great genus Medusae is characterised by having a disk, more or less convex above, resembling a mushroom or expanded umbrella— the edges of the umbrella, as well as the mouth and suckers, bein- more or less prolonged into pedicles, which take their place in the middle of the lower surface ; they are furnished with tentacula, varying m form and size, which have given rise to many subdivisions, with which we need not concern ourselves. The substance of the disk presents an uniform cellular appearance internally, but, the cellular substance being very soft, no trace of hbre „ observable. Taken from tbe sea and laid upon a stone a Medusa weighing fifty ounces will rapidly dimmish to five or six grams sinking into a sort of deliquescence, from which Spalanzani cone uded that the sea water penetrated the organic texture of its substance, and constituted the principal volume of the animal Those which have cilia round their margins have also cellular bands numimr along their bases, and most of the projectile and extensile tentacula and 198 THE OCEAN WORLD. filaments have sacs and canals containing fluids at their roots. Suckers are also found at the extremities, and along the sides of these tentacles in several genera are suckers, by which they are able more securely to catch their floating prey, or to anchor themselves when at rest. The indications of nerves or nervous system are too slight to be received as evidence, although Dr. Grant observed some structure which he thought could only belong to a nervous system, and Ehrenberg thought he ob- served eyes in Medusa aurita, as well as a nervous circle formed of four ganglion-like masses disposed round the mouth. But most naturalists seem to he of opinion that touch is the only sense of which any con- clusive proof can be advanced. Here we behold a class of bell-shaped semi-transparent organisms, which float gracefully in the sea— a great family of fragile, wandering animals, constituted in a most extraordinary manner. They look like floating umbrellas, breeches, or, better still, floating mushrooms, the footstalk replaced by an equally central body, but divided into diver- gent lobes at once sinuous, twisted, and fringed, so that one is at first tempted to take them for a species of root. The edges of the umbrella or mushroom are entire or dentate, sometimes elegantly figured, often ciliate, or provided with long filiform appendages which float vertically in the water. Sometimes the animal is uncoloured, and limpid as crystal ; some- times it presents a slightly opaline appearance, now of a tender blue, or of a delicate rose colour; at other times it reflects the most brilliant and vivid tints. In certain species the central parts only are coloured, showing brilliant reds and yellows, blues or violets, the rest being colourless. In others the central mass seems clothed in a thin iridescent or diaphanous veil, like the light evanescent soap-bubble, or the trans- parent glass shade which covers a group of artificial flowers. The Acalephae are animals without consistence, imbued with much water, so that we can scarcely comprehend how they resist the agita- tion of the waves and the force of the currents ; the waves, however, float without hurting them, the tempest scatters without killing them. When the sea retires, or they are withdrawn from their native waters, their substance dissolves, the animal is decomposed, they are reduced to nothing ; if the sun is ardent, this disorganisation occurs m the twinkling of an eye, so to speak. ACALEPH/E. 199 When the Medusas travel, their convex part is always kept in advance, and slightly oblique. If they are touched while swimming, even lightly, they contract their tentacula, fold up their umbrella, and sink into the sea. Like Ehrenberg, M. Kolliker thought he dis- covered visual and auditory organs in an Oceania, and Gegenbauer thought he detected them in other genera, such as Rhizostoma and Pelagia. The eyes are said to consist of certain small, hemispherical, cellulose, coloured masses, in which are sunk small crystalline globules, the free parts of which are perfectly naked. The supposed auditory apparatus is seated close to these organs ; they are small Apsides filled Avith liquid ; the eyes having neither pupil nor cornea, and the ears Avithout opening or arch. But it is in their reproduction that these evanescent beings present the most marvellous phenomena. At one period of the -year the Medusae are charged with numbers of very minute eggs, of the most lively colours, Avliich are suspended in large festoons from their floating bodies. In some cases these eggs develop themselves grafted to their bodies, and are only detached at maturity. In other cases the larva} produced bear no resemblance to the mother; they are elongated and vermiform, broad at their extremity ; we speak of the micioscopic leeches, AA’hich have vibratile cilia, scarcely perceptible, by which they execute the most lively motions. At the end of a certain tune they are transformed into polypes, and furnished with eight tentacula. Tins preparatory sort of animal seems to possess the faculty of reproduction by means of certain buds or tubercles which develop themselves on the surface of the body, and also by filaments which start up here and there, so that a single individual originates a numerous colony. This polype is subjected to a transformation still more remarkable ; its structure becomes complex, its body articulate and it seems to be composed of a dozen disks piled one upon the other, like the jars of a voltaic pile; the upper disk is convex, and is separated from the colony after a convulsive eflfort ; it becomes tree and an excessively small, star-like Medusa is the result; every disk’ that is, every individual, is isolated one after the other in the same manner. liras of the sexual zoophytes which propagate their kind according to the usual laws; hut others engender young which have no resent hlance to the parent zoophyte at all : in this respect they are neuter 200 THE OCEAN WOULD. that is, non-sexual or agamous. These are produced by budding, or fissiparity, from individuals like themselves. They can also give sexual distinctions ; but before this change takes place the creature, which was simple, is transformed into a composite animal, and it is from its disaggregation that individuals having sexual organs are produced, the process being that which has been called alternate gene- ration. It goes on in a perfectly regular manner, although it is a fact that the young never resemble then* mothers, but then grandmothers. This great family of Zoophytes Grosse divides into : Discophora, having the body in the form of a circular disk, more or less convex and umbrella-shaped, moving by alternate contractions and expansions of the disk. Gtenophora, body cylindrical, moving by means of many parallel rims of cilia set in longitudinal lines on the surface. Sophonopliora, body irregular, without central digestive cavity like the others, having sucking organs, and moving by means of a con- tractile cavity, or by air-vessels. The Discophora are again subdivided into Gymnophthahnata , having the eye-specks uncovered or wanting, a great central digestive cavity, circulating vessels proceeding to the margin quite simple or branched ; and Steganophtha hnata, having the eye specks protected by ACALEPH^}. 201 membranous hoods, or lobed coverings, circulating vessels much ramified, and united with a network. Of the Gymnophthalmata we have an example in JEquerea violacea (Fig. 84), in which the disk is slightly convex, glass-like in appearance, and furnished all round with very short, slender, thread-like, violet coloured tentacula ; with circulat- ing vessels, eight in number, quite simple, and ovaries placed on them ; peduncle wide, expanding into many broad and long fringed lobes. ^ophtWhnata include the MedusaAe proper, in which the umbel is hemispherical, with numerous marginal tentacles, eight eyes cmeied by lobes, four ovaries, four chambers, four fringed arms, with a central and four lateral openings. Aurelia aurita (Fig. 85) is here represented as a type of the group ; it is plentiful in the Baltic, and , een care*ull.y studied by the Swedish naturalists. Rosenthal has made anatomy his special study. Sam has also made73>to observations. In the same group we find the Pelagia cya^lla 202 THE OCEAN WORLD. of Peron, whose body is globose, scolloped with eight marginal ten- tacles, peduncles ending in four leaf-like, furbelowed arms, united at the base, having four ovaries, and appendages to the stomach, without orifices. The Pelagia , as the name implies, belong to the deep sea. P. noc- tiluca has a transparent, glass-like disk, of a reddish-brown colour and warty appearance. It is found in the Mediterranean, about the coast near Nice, and is still more plentiful on the coast of Sicily, and on the African coast. Another species, P. panopyra, is very common in the Atlantic and Pacific, between the Tropics. The naturalist Lesson met whole banks of them in the equatorial ocean, about the twenty- seventh degree north latitude and the twenty-second degree west lon- gitude. During the night, this species emits a brilliant phosphoric light, and living individuals, which Lesson succeeded in preserving, exhibited great luminosity in the dark. This medusa is remarkable for its semi-spherical disk, slightly depressed, umhilicate at the summit, a little compressed at the edges, and densely bristling on the surface with small elongated warts, but regularly festooned along the edges. In colour it is a delicate rose. The animals which constitute this class of Zoophytes, and, in former times, so curious and so imperfectly known, were designated Polypo- meduste, in order to remind us that at one time they were called Medusae, and at others ranged among the Polypes. It has, however, been recently discovered that, shortly after they issue from the egg, these zoophytes show themselves in the form ol polypes, and that, at a later period, they assume the animal form, to which we give the name of medusas. These animals are, then, true proteans : hence the very considerable difficulty of studying them— difficulties which have long reduced naturalists to despair. Even now their history is too obscure and too complicated to justify us in presenting it, except in its general features. We shall, therefore, content ourselves here with a descrip- tion of the best known species of the class only— those, namely, which have particularly attracted the attention of naturalists, and which aie, at the same time, of a nature to interest our readers. The class of Discophorse may he divided into four orders or families, namely : I. The HYDRAm®, having single, naked, gelatinous, sub-cylindrical, but very con- AOALEPILE. 203 tractile stems, mutable in form, mouth encirclcil with a single scries of granulous fili- form tentacula. II. Sertui.ariad.e, plant-like, horny polypiers, rooted and variously branched, filled with semi-fluid organic pulp, the polypes contained within sessile cells disposed along the sides of the main stem or branchlets, but never terminal. III. Medusaix-e. Umbel hemispherical, with marginal tentacula ; having eight eyes covered by lobes, four ovaries, four cells, four fringed arms, a central opening, and four lateral openings. rv . Siphonophora, having the animals double, and bell-shaped, one fitting into the cavity of the other; in Dyphyes the animal has a large air-vessel with numerous tentacula ; in Pliysalia, the animal stretches over a cartilaginous plane. I he true form of the Medusa does not appear in the two first orders. HYDKAIDiE. llie Hydraidae are, according to modern naturalists, Discophorte arrested in their development. They comprehend the single genus Hydra, of which many species are known, whose habits and metamor- phoses it will be our object to particularise. 11yd) a vulgaris inhabits stagnant ponds and slowly-running waters. It is of an orange-brown or red colour, the intensity of the colour de- pending on the nature of its food, becoming almost blood-red when fed on the small crimson worms and larvae to be found in such places. M. Laurent even succeeded in colouring them blue, red, and white, by means of indigo, carmine, and chalk, without any real penetration of the tissue, the buds from them acquiring the same colour as the mother, while the colour of the ova retains its natural tint, even when the ydra mother has been fed with coloured substances during the pro- gress of this mode of reproduction. The tentacula, usually seven or eight m number, never exceed the length of the body, tapering insen- sibly to a point, Hydra viridis, the fresh-water polype, being more immediately withm the sphere of our observation, naturally presents itself to our notice. It is common in ponds and still waters. It was noticed by alias who was of opinion that offspring was produced from every part 0 the lx)dy- De Blainville, on the contrary, was of opinion that offspring was always produced from the same place; namely, at the junction of that part which is hollow and that which is not. Van der Hoven the Leyden professor, agrees with Pallas, and Dr. Johnston’s opinions accord with Pallas. The green Hydra is common all over Europe, in- THE OCEAN WORLD. 201 habiting brooks filled with herbage — attaching itself particularly to the duckweed of stagnant ponds, and more especially to the under surface of the leaf. The animal is reduced to a small greenish tubular sac, closed at one of its extremities, open at the other, and hearing round this open- ing from six to ten appendages, very slender, and not exceeding a line in breadth. The tubulous sac is the body of the animal (Fig. 87). Fig. 86. Hydra vulgaris. 1 . Hydra with ova and young, unhatched. 2. Egg ready to burst its shell. 3. Hydra of natural size attached to a piece of floating wood. The opening is at once its mouth and the entrance to the digestive canal ; the appendages, the tentacula or arms. The Hydras have no lungs, no liver, no intestines, no nervous system, no heart/ They have no organ of the senses, except those which exist in the mouth and the skin. The arms or branches are hollow inter- nally, and communicate with the stomach. They are provided with vibratile cells, furnished with a great number of tuberosities disposed spirally, and containing in their interior a number of capsules provid ACALEPHiE. 205 each with a sort of fillet. These threads, which are of extreme tena- city, are thrown out when the animal is irritated by contact with any strange body. We may see these filaments wrapping themselves round their prey, sometimes even penetrating its substance, and effectually subduing the enemy. The green Hydra has thus a very simple organisation. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to say the animal itwir ''™ Antaal^atunUlie 1 nm®“ifled' bearinB nn fnibryo ready to detach Animal, natural size. 3. Bud much magnified. 4. Bud, natural size. 2 ZV+feCt’ fm possesses everything necessary for its nourishment and tor the propagation of its species. There are learned men who have composed hundreds of volumes who taye published whole libraries naturalists and physicists who have viitten more than Voltaire ever penned, but whose names are utterlv SE? °” the ** therc “ ^ w “ £ to 01 three monograms, and yet their names will lire for ever Of 17«““Mem ,A' Tllis writer Published h, a Memou- on the Fresh-water Polypes." In this little work he 200 THE OCEAN WORLD. recorded his observations on some of these animals ot smallest dimen- sions. He limited himself even to two sets of experiments : he turned the fresh-water polypes outside in, and he multiplied it by cutting it up. These experiments upon this little creature, which few persons had seen, have sufficed to secure immortality to his name. Trembley was tutor to the two sons of Count de Bentinck. He made his observa- tions at the country-house of the Dutch nobleman, and he had, as he assures us, “frequent occasion to satisfy himself, in the case of his two pupils, that we can even in infancy taste the pleasures de- rivable from the studies of Nature !” Let us hope that this thought, uttered by a celebrated naturalist, who spoke only from what he knew himself, may remain engraved on the minds of our younger readers. Trembley established by his observations, a thousand times repeated, that Hydra viridis can be turned outside in, as a glove may be, and so completely that what was the external skin of the zoophyte becomes its internal skin, and this without injury to the animal, which a day or two after this revolution resumes its ordinary functions. Such is the vitality of these little beings that the external skin soon fulfills all the functions of a stomach, digesting its food, while the intestinal tube expanding its exterior performs all the functions of an external skiu ; it absorbs and respires. But we shall leave Trembley to relate his very remarkable experiments. “ I attempted,” he says, “ lor the first time to turn these polypes inside out in the month of July, 1741, but unsuccessfully. I was more successful the following year, having found an expedient which was of easy execution. I began by giving a worm to the polype, and put it, when the stomach was well filled, into a little water which filled the hollow of my left hand. I pressed it afterwards with a gentle pinch towards the posterior extremities. In this manner I pressed the worm which was in the stomach against the mouth of the polype, forcing it to open— continuing the pmchmg- pressure until the worm was partly pressed out of the mouth. TV hen the polype was in this state I conducted it gently out ot the water, without damaging it, and placed it upon the edge of my hand, which was simply moistened, in order that the polype should not stick to it. . I forced it to contract itself more and more, and, in doing so, assisted in enlarging the mouth and stomach. I now took in my right hand a thick°and pointless boar’s bristle, which I held as a lancet is held in bleeding. I approached its thicker end to the posterior extremity of the AGALEJ’H.K 207 polype, which I pressed until it entered the stomach, which it does the more easily since it is empty at this place and much enlarged. I continued to advance the bristle, and, in proportion as it advanced, the polype became more and more inverted. When it came to the worm, by which the mouth is kept open on one side, and the posterior part of the polype is passed through the mouth, the creature is thus turned completely inside out ; the exterior superficies of the polype has become the interior.” dhe poor animal would be justified in feeling some surprise at its new situation— disagreeably surprised we may add, for it makes every imaginable effort to recover its natural position, and it always succeeds m the end. The glove is restored to its proper form. “ I have seen polypes, says Trembley, “ which have recovered their natural exterior in less than an hour.” But this would not have served the purpose of our experimenter. He wished to know if the polypes thus turned outside in could live in this state; lie had consequently to prevent i iom rectifying itself, for which purpose a needle was run through he body near the mouth— in other words, he impaled the creature *; It is nothing for a polype only to be spitted,” says Trembley fitted thf I™’7 T 1 “S TO 8ha11 3ee' for ttns toersed “id spitted they live and multiply as if nothing had happened. • , seen a polype,” says this ingenious experimenter, “turned toon 6 7 1 f , “ eaten, a smal1 worm two alto the opera- tion. I have fed one m that state for more than two years and it has multiplied in that condition. 7 ’ flJSt™8 eXp.er™ented successfully myself, I was desirous of having M il !l°T erS Tble 0f ,brming 0pini0M 0,1 subject. d d w 77 '™ P f° P"‘ W8 halld t0 the work, which he d with the same success I had met with. He lias done more anng succeeded m permanently turning specimens which had been Lt w tur”ed> “nd which continue to live in their re-inverted State ; he has seen them eat soon after both operations ; finally he has tone one for the third time, which lived some day^ hut perl hed wit rout haying eaten anything, although it did not appear that its death was the result of the operation.” 1 We have said that the Hydra viridis has neither brain nervouq sjstem. heart, muscular rings, lungs, nor liver; the organs of the 208 THE OCEAN WOULD. senses — namely, those of sight, hearing, and of smell — have also been denied them. Nevertheless, they act as if they possessed all these senses. Oh Nature ! how hidden are thy secrets, and how the pride of man is humbled by the mysteries which surround thee— by the spectacles which strike his eyes, and which he attempts in vain to explain ! Trembley states that the fresh-water polypes, having no muscular ring, can neither extend or contract themselves, nor can they walk. If touched, or if the water in which they are immersed is suddenly agitated, they are certainly observed to contract more or less forcibly, and even to inflect themselves in all directions ; and by this power of extension, of contraction and inflection, they contrive to move from place to place ; but these movements are singularly slow, the utmost space they have been observed to traverse being about eight inches in the twenty-four hours. Painfully conscious of his powers of progression, however, he has found means of remedying it, and the aquatic snail is his steed , he creeps upon the shell of this mollusc, and by means of this improvised mount he will make more way in a few minutes than he would in a day by his own unassisted efforts. The Hyclra viridis, although destitute of organs of sight, are never- theless sensible of light ; if the vase containing them is placed partly in shade and partly in the sun, they direct themselves immediately towards the light ; they appreciate sounds ; they attach themselves to aquatic plants and other floating bodies. Without eyes, without brain, and without nerves, these animals lie in wait for their prey, recognise, seize, and devour it. They make no blunder, and only attack where they are sure of success. They know how to flee from danger ; they evade obstacles, and fight with or fly before their enemies. There are, then, some powers of reflection, deliberation, and pre- meditated action in these insignificant creatures; their history, in short, is calculated to fill the mind with astonishment. Trembley insists much upon the address which the Hydra employs to secure its prey : by the aid of its long arms, small animals, w hieh serve to nourish it, are seized, for it is carnivorous, and even passably voracious. Worms, small insects, and larvae of dipterous insects are its habitual prey. When a worm or woodlouse in passing its portals happens to touch them, the polype, taking the hint, seizes upon the ACALEPH/E. 209 wanderer, twining its flexible arms round it, and, directing it rapidly towards its mouth, swallows it. Trembley amused himself by feeding the Hydra, while he observed the manner in which it devoured its prey. “ When its arms were extended, I have put into the water a wood- louse or a small worm. As soon as the woodlouse feels itself a prisoner it struggles violently, swimming about, and drawing the arm which holds it from side to side ; but, however delicate it may appear, the aim of the polype is capable of considerable resistance; it is now gradually drawn in, and other arms come to its assistance, while the polype itself approaches its prey ; presently the woodlouse finds itself engaged with all the arms, which, by curving and contracting, gradually , but inevitably approach the mouth, in which it is soon engulfed.” Fredol also notices a singular fact. “ The small worms, even when swallowed by the polype,” he says, “frequently try to escape ; but the ravisher retains them by plunging one of its aims into the digestive cavity ! What an admirable contrivance, by which the worms are digested while the arm is respected !” The iood of the fresh-water Hydra influences the colour of their bodies m consequence of the thinness and transparency of their tissues ; so that the reddish matter of the woodlouse renders them red, while other food renders them black or green, according to its prevailing colour ! & The multiplication of these creatures takes place in three different ways: 1. By eggs. 2. By buds, after the manner of vegetables 3. By separation, in which an individual maybe cut into two or many segments, each reproducing an individual. y “ a wor'8' anJ determine by their faU the death of the animal When the Hydra has laid its eggs, according to hW*dv w ’ ‘hg ° y ” mtil “ C0V6rS them with its holy, Which, spreading out and getting proportdonably thin, passes into the condition of a horny substance, that glues the eggs disposed in u.cle round the body to plants and other foreign substances. She nds hei career by dying in the midst of her ova. budZf Y “ 7“ gleat Care t,le "»de of reproduction by udding— a process which seems to prevail in the summer months P 210 THE OCEAN WOULD. The buds which are to form the young polype appear on the surface of the body as little spherical excrescences terminating in a point. A few steps further towards maturity, and it assumes a conical and finally a cylindrical form. The arms now begin to push out at the anterior extremity of the young animal ; the posterior extremity by which it is attached to the mother contracting by degrees, until it appears only to touch her at one point. Finally, the separation is effected, the mother and the young acting in concert to produce the entrance of this interesting polypulo into the world. Each of them take with their head and arms a strong point of support upon some neighbouring body ; and a small effort suffices to procure the separa- tion : sometimes the mother charges herself with the effort, sometimes the young, and often both. When the young polype is separated from the mother, it swims about, and executes all the movements peculiar to adult animals. The entrance into life and the virile age takes place with these beings at one and the same moment. Infancy and youth are suppressed in this little world. So long as the young polype remains attached to the mother, she is the rnirse ; by a touching change, the young polype nurses her in his turn. In short, the stomach of the mother and her young have communication ; so that the prey swallowed by the parent passes partially into the stomach of her progeny. On the other hand, while still attached to the mother, the little ones seize the prey, which they share in their turn with their parent by means of the communication Nature has arranged between the two organisms. In the course of his experiments Trembley states another fact still more remarkable. Upon a young polype still attached to its mother he observed a new polype or polypide, and upon this unborn creature was another individual. Thus three generations were appended to the mother, who carried at once her son, her grandson, and great-grandson. “ In observing the young polypes still attached to their mother/’ says Trembley, “ I have seen one which had itself a little one which was just issuing from its body ; that is to say, it was a mother while yet attached to its own mother. I had in a short time many young polypes attached to their mothers which had already had three or four little ones, of which some were even perfectly formed. They fished ACALEI’II.K. 211 for woodlice like others, and they ate them. Nor is this all. I have seen a mother-polype which had carried its third generation. From the little one which she had produced issued another little one, and from this a third.” • Chailes Bennet, the naturalist of Geneva, says wittilv, that a polype thus charged with all its descendants constitutes a living- genealogical tree. We have just spoken of turning polypes inside out ! If one of these creatures is thus operated upon while it bears its young on the surface of its body, such of them as are sufficiently advanced continue to increase ; although they find themselves in this sudden manner im- prisoned m an internal cavity, they re-issue subsequently by the mouth those less advanced at the moment of reversal issue by little and httle from the maternal sac, and complete their career of development on the newly-made exterior. 1 The third and most extraordinary mode of reprodnetion in the polypes has been discovered by Tremblcy in the ease of the green Hydra So surprised was this naturalist at the strange anomalies which sm-i rounded these creatures, that he began to have doubts, and gravely to ask the question, Was this polype an animal ? Is it a plant s In order to escape from this state of indecision, it occurred to him to Ut a Hydra into pieces. Concluding that plants alone could Zo- duce themselves by slips, he waited the result of the experiment for Hie conclusion he sought. On the 25th of November, 1740 he cut i polype into sections. “ I put ” lie tells us “ flu f !’ ? , glass, which contained wat'er four orte Les t den h^d ‘ * manner that each portion of the polype could be easily oteerved’through strong magnifying glass. Jt will suffice to say that I had cut the polype transversely, and a little nearer to the anterior 0 after hrmg °ut ^ ™ & *-« » r- ctria:!m r^rh impatT for t,fe — ^ !» ^ no d„X Z my mfod ™ e ollouing day two new arms made their appearance rl days after, a third appeared, and I could now trace no difference 1 etw"16 e rs and second half of tlie polype which I had cut.” "Gen p 2 212 THE OCEAN WORLD. This is assuredly one of the most startling facts belonging to natural history. Divide a fresh-water polype into five or six parts, and at the end of a few days all the separate parts will he organised, deve- loped, and form so many new beings, resembling the primitive indi- vidual. Let us add, that the polype which should thus have lost five- sixths of its body, the mutilated father of all this generation, remains complete in itself; in the interval, it has recuperated itself and re- covered all its primitive substance. ' After this, if a Hydra vulgaris wishes to procure for itself the blessings of a family, it has only one thing to do : cut ofi an arm ; if it desire two descendants, let it cut the arm in two parts ; it three, let it divide itself into three ; and so on ad infinitum. “ Divide one of the animals,” says Trembley, “ and each section will soon form a new individual in all respects like the creature divided. “ A whole host of polypes hewn into pieces,” says Fredol, “ will be far from being annihilated.” “ On the contrary,” we may say, in our turn, “ its youth will be renewed, and multiplied in proportion to the number of pieces into which it has been divided. “ The same polype, says Trembley, “ may be successively inverted, cut into sections, and turned back again, without being seriously injured.” If a green Hydra is cut into two pieces, and the stomach is cut off in the operation, the voracious creature will, nevertheless, continue to eat the prey which presents itself. It gorges itself with the food, without troubling itself with the loss which it has sustained ; but the food no longer nourishes it, for it merely enters by one opening, passes through the intestinal canal, and escapes by the other. It realises Harleville’s pleasantry of M. de Crac’s horse, in the piece of that name, which eats unceasingly, but never gets any fatter. All these instances of mutilation, resulting in an increase of life, aie very strange. The naturalists to whom they were first revealed could scarcely believe their own eyes. Keanmur, who repeated many of Trembley’s experiments, writes as follows : “ I confess that when I saw for the first time two polypes forming by little and little from that which I had cut in two, I could scarcely believe my eyes ; and it is a fact that, after hundreds of experiments, I never could quite reconcile mvself to the sight.” . . . In short, we know nothing analogous to it in the animal kingdom. About the same period Charles Bennet writes : “ We can only judge ACALEPH.E 213 of things by comparison, and have taken our ideas of animal life from the larger animals ; and an animal which we cut and turn inside out, which we cut again, and it still hears itself well, gives one a singular shock. How many facts are ignored, which will come one day to derange our ideas of subjects which we think we understand ! At present we just know enough to be aware that we 'should be surprised at nothing.” Is ot withstanding the philosophic serenity which Bennet recommends, the fact o 1 new individuals resulting from dividing these fresh-water polypes was always a subject of profound astonishment, and of never- ending meditation. Sertulaiuad.k. All Hydraidse, with the exception of the Hydra and a few other genera, are marine productions, varying from a few lines to upwards of a foot in height, attaching themselves to rocks, shells, seaweeds, and corallines, and to various species of shell-fish. Many of them attach themselves indiscriminately to the nearest object, but others show a decided preference. Thyiaria thrya attaches itself to old bi- valves; Thoa halecuia prefers the larger univalves; Antennularia antennma attaches itself to coarse sand on rocks; Laomedea qeni- culata delights in the broad frond of the tangle ; Plumnlaria catherina attaches itself m deep water to old shells, corallines, and ascidians growing m a manner calculated to puzzle the naturalist, as it did Crab be, the poet, who writes of it : “ Involved in sea-wrack, here you find a race Which science, doubting, knows not where to place • On shell or stone is dropp’d the embryo seed, And quickly vegetates a vital breed.”* wr It “ tT n 1T,d' ‘0¥eS ‘h6 «•* coaler on the,; 1, 1 ; SaJS Dl';JohMton’ part be dependent on then habits or such as ore destined to live in shallow water, or on a shore exposed by the reflux of every tide, ore, in general, vegetable parasites ; while the species which spring up in deep seas must select between rocks, corallines, or shells.” There seems to be a seWon even as to the position on the rocks. According to Lamonroux some polypiers always occupy the southern slopes, and never that towards 214 THE OC KAN WORLD. the east, west, or nortli ; others, on the contrary, grow only on these exposures, and never on the south, altering their position, however, according to the latitude, and its relation to the Equatoi. The SertulariacUe have a horny stein, sometimes simple, sometimes so branching that they might readily enough he mistaken lor small plants, their branches being flexible, semi-transparent, and yellow. Their name is derived from Sertum, a bouquet. Each Sertukna has seven, eight, twelve, or twenty small panicles, each containing as many’ as five hundred animalcules; thus forming, sometimes, an asso- ciation of ten thousand polypes. “ Each plume,” says Mr. Lister, m reference to a specimen of Plumularia cristata, “ might comprise from four to live hundred polypi;” “and a specimen of no unusual size now before me,” says Dr. Johnston, “with certainly not fewer cells on each than the larger number mentioned, thus giving six thousand as the tenantry of a single polypidom, and this on a small species n Sertularia argentea, it is asserted, polypiers are found on which theie ex:st not less than eighty to a hundred thousand. Each colony is composed of a right axis, on the whole length oi which the curved branches are implanted, these being longest m the middle Along each of these branches the cells, each containing a polype, are grouped alternately. The head of the animal is conical, the mouth being at the top surrounded by twenty to twenty-four tentacles. These curious beings have no digestive cavity belonging to themselves ; the stomach is common to the whole colony-a most singular combination, a single stomach to a whole group of anima s Never have the principles of association been pushed to this leng by the warmest advocates of communism. . , , Certain species belonging to the colony, which seem destined to perpetuate the race, have not the same regular form. D««>rte of mouth and tentacles, they occupy special cells, whmh are larger ftan the others. The entire colony is composed exclusively of indivi , male or female. “We have traced Sertularm cupremna through “ery l^ of * development," say Messrs. Paul Gervais and Van Beneden. “ At the end of several days, the embryos are covert very short vibratile cells ; their movement is excessively slow , the from the spheroid form which they take at first, they get elongated, and take a cylindrical form, all the body mclinmg hgM y some es the right, sometimes to the left. The vibratile cells fading afteiwa Is, ACALEHI/K. 215 the embryo attaches itself to some solid body, a tubercle is formed, and the base extends itself as a disk. At the same time that the first rudiments of the polype appear, the disk-like tubercle throws out on its flanks a sort of bud, and a second polype soon shows itself ; its surface is hardened ; the polypier appears in its turn, and the same process of generation is repeated ; a colony ol Sertulciviadx is thus estab- lished at the summit of a discoid projection. At the end of fifteen days the colony, which has been forming under our eyes, consists of two polypes and a bud, which already indicates a third polype. The sea- cypress, as this species is called, is robust, with longish branches de- cidedly fan-shaped, the pinnae being closer and nearly parallel to each other. The cells form two rows, nearly opposite, smooth and pellucid. The branches in some specimens are gracefully arched, bending as it were under the load of pregnant ovaries which they carry, arranged in close-set rows along the upper side of the pinnae. They are found in deep water on the coast of Scotland, and as far south as the Yorkshire coast and the north of Ireland. The cells, which are the abode of the polypes, are not always alike in their distribution. Sometimes they are ranged on two sides, sometimes on one only. Sometimes they are grouped like the small tubes of an organ, at other times they assume a spiral form round the stem, or they form here and there horizontal rings round it.” MEDUSAD2E. The Medusae comprehend, not only the animals so designated in the days of Cuvier under that name, but also the polypes known as Tubulariadte and Campamdariadic. It we walk along the sea shore, after the reflux of the tide, we may often see, lying immovable upon the sands, disk-like, gelatinous masses of a greenish colour and repulsive appearance, from which the eye and the steps instinctively turn aside. These beings, whose .blubber-like appearance inspire only feelings of disgust when seen 8reT an “ is perfectly analogous to that of the Vilella. Their locomotion on the sea is purely passive at least m appearance. Their disk laid flat on the surface unon the r leaves them to float freely and in a horizontal diredion thThrii lT’ arms hanging all round them.” ’ ' t )le 236 THE OCEAN WORLD. Physophoea. This family includes the Physophora, properly so called, the Aga- Fig. 95. Pliysopliora liydrostatica (Forskalil). Una, and the Stephanomia, for the history of which we are indebted to ACALEPH/E. 237 the curious observations of M. Vogt. Fig. 95 is a representation of Physophora liydrostatica, after M. Vogt’s memoii'. Wo see that the animal is composed of a slender vertical axis, terminating in an aerial bladder, carrying laterally certain vesicles, known as swimming- balls, which terminate in a bundle of whitish slender threads. The aerial bladder is brilliant and silvery, punctured with red spots. The swimming-bladders are encased in a transparent and somewhat cartilaginous capsule, which is continued into the common median trunk, the latter being rose-coloured, hollow, and very contractile ; in short, it presents very delicate muscular fibres, which expand them- selves on the external fan of the capsule, and is closed on all sides. The swimming-bladders are of a glass-like transparency, and of a firm, compact tissue. They are attached obliquely and alternately upon a common axis, presenting an exterior curvature, a round opening, furnished with a fine, muscular, and very contractile limb, and ar- ranged like the iris of the eye. Their power of resistance is increased by certain horny hollow threads, which are in direct communication with the cavity of the vertical trunk, and have their origin in a common circular canal. “The animal,” says Vogt, “is enabled to guide itself in any direc- tion by means of the swimming apparatus or air-bags. These on !“8; “f “ with walor' which is “gain ejected in the contractile — ; 77 movem<®ts m°y be compared to that of the nm- enables t e6 7/ " U'e ^ of Bjrii which of ™t on will tl 6 g°“% thr°"8h “>e water, a hind itself ,‘n sZLHt 71 7"k Tnd8’ *“»- »d winds of appendages ; we shaU first address ourselves to the tcnt„c7 <*7™ ^ ■notion : these are formed of a glass-like 238 THE OCEAN WOULD. they are conical tubes, closed on all parts except at the point where the tentacle is attached to the disk. Their cavity is filled with the granulous liquid already mentioned. On the under surlace ol the disk, and to the inside of these tentacles, the polypes and fishing- lines are attached. The anterior part of the polype is formed of a glass-like substance, which changes its form in the most varied and surprising manner. It hears a roundish mouth at its summit. In its posterior part the polype presents a straight hollow stem, of reddish colour ; hut near to Fig. 96. P. hydros tatlca, with a portion of the disk, three polypes, and reproductive clusters attached. this red stem we find a thick tuft of cylindrical appendages, from the middle of which springs the extensible and contractile filaments which Vogt calls the fishing-lines (fil pecheur), and of which he has given the following very strange account : 1 “ Each of these appendages consists of an assemblage of cylindrical tubes somewhat resembling and analogous to a filament of confervas. All these tubes are traversed by a continuous canal, which originates in the internal cavity of the stem of the polype. Each fragment ot the line is capable of a prodigious extent of elongation and contrac- tion, but where completely drawn back the pieces fold themselves up ACALEPHJ3. 239 somewhat in the manner of a pocket foot-rule. It is to the combined efiect of contraction and the unfolding of the pieces that these hues owe the marvellous changes of length which they present.” In Fig. 9(3 are represented the polypes and fishing-lines of 1 . hjilrostatica , with a portion of the disk and two pairs of repro- ductive clusters. In this figure it will be observed that each fragment or joint has implanted, near the articulation, a secondary line, which bears the stinging organ. Each of these filaments consists of three parts : a straight stem, muscular, contractile, and hollow, the cavity of which communicates with that of the trunk which carries it ; a middle part, a sort of tube containing, in a considerable internal cavity, a trans- parent liquid ; finally, an inflated stinging organ, which terminates the apparatus. This last is egg-shaped, and consists internally of a hyaline substance of cartilaginous consistence, in the interior of which we find a great cavity, which opens from within, near the base of the capsule; to the mside of this cavity a second muscular sac is attached r 1 round the opening of the capsule, in such a manner that the opening leads directly into the cavity of the sac. This cavity conceals in its interior a long filament usually rolled up in a spiral, as illus- trated m Fig. 97, where the two urticant capsules of the stinging ' JP.paratus of Pllysophora hydrostatica are represented, one of them -•emg a section, magnified by twelve diameters. This spirally o e -up ament consists of a large quantity of very small, hard T, ’ .COTTUlar *** one7 against the f ’ u f aUI!g t1ieir pomts turned ln wards. These objects Vo7 by Mr. Milne Edwards. They inhabit the Gulf of Naples, and other parts of the Mediterranean ; the sailors of Provence call them Sea- cucumbers. The body (Fig. 103), cylindrical in form, is of a pale rose colour, thickly studded with small reddish spots, so numerous as to appear entirely punctured with them. It presents eight blue sides, with very tine vibratile cils, which by their reflection produce all the colours of the rain- bow. The substance of the body is gelatinous, its ap- pearance glass-like ; its form varies according as the animal is in motion or repose. Sometimes it swells up like a ball ; sometimes it reverses it- self, so as to resemble a bell ; at others it is elon- gated and cylindrical; at its lower extremity it pre- sents a large mouth ; at its upper extremity is found a small nipple, having at its base a spherical point Fig. 103. Beroi Forskahli (Edwards). rest 1 18 C°1°U1’ encl°sing many crystalloid corpuscles, which , ^ a nervous ganglion, whose physiological function is occunies^ ih 6 l (leterminec^ A vast stomach, considering its size, Talso l t i i mteri0r °f the b0dy of the Ber5e: the circulation j • UC1C e^eoped in this zoophyte. The circulating apparatus globules TTT HUld Charged witl1 a multitude of circular, colourless globules, which flows from a vascular ring round the mouih towards whi rT" ° \ 1)0dy ’ IU tbe interior are eig}lt superficial canals ltd ;itu;; ert he cilifd ** and * tio ^ canals, but the Beroes have no heart. Beroe ovata » a beauttful s 256 THE OCEAN WORLD. series of facts witnessed by such excellent observers; the venomous virulence of these organs has been abundantly proved by many natu- ralists, myself among the number, and Mr. Bennett to his cost, as already narrated. We can only suppose that the injection of the poison is under the control of the Physalia’s will, and the impunity ol the bold little fishes is sufficiently accounted for.” Among the Physalia captured on our coast, one was obtained at Tenby, by Mr. Hughes, who has given a report of the capture, in which he mentions a circumstance as “ normal,” which excited Mr. Crosse s curiosity ; it was said to be accompanied by “ its attendant satellites, two Vilellse. In reply to his inquiries, Mr. Hughes says, “ My autho- rity for the association of the Vilella with Physalia is Jenkins, the collector of Tenby, who was attending me when it was found. The Physalia was taken by me first ; and, while L was admiring it, I noticed that Jenkins continued his search for something. Immediately after- wards, he came up with the Vilella in his hand, at the same time stating they were generally found with the Portuguese man-of-war. As I had found him very honest and truthful in his dealings with me, I accepted his information as correct.” Ctenophora. We have now reached the last class of polypes ; those, namely, which Cuvier designates Hydrostatic Acalepha, and which De Blainville calls the Ciliobranchid. The body of these polypes present marginal fringes furnished with vibratile cilia, which are swimming organs. Moreover, as these vibratile fringes are inserted directly over the prin- cipal canal, in which the nourishing fluid circulates, they ought neces- sarily to concur in the act of respiration, by determining the renewal of the water in contact with the corresponding portion of the tegumeu- tary membrane. The class may be divided into three orders or families, namely, Berde, Callianirea, and Cestea. The creatures belonging to these three orders swarm in the deep sea; they often appear quite suddenly, and in vast numbers, in certain i| localities. The Berdes of Forskahl have been studied with great care ACALEPIJ.JB by Mr. Milne Edwards. They inhabit tlie Gulf of Naples, and other parts of the Mediterranean ; the sailors of Provence call them Sea- cucumbers. The body (Fig. 103), cylindrical in form, is of a pale rose colour, thickly studded with small reddish spots, so numerous as to appear entirely punctured with them. It presents eight blue sides, with very tine vibratile oils, which by their reflection produce all the colours of the rain- bow. The substance of the body is gelatinous, its ap- pearance glass-like ; its form varies according as the animal is in motion or repose. Sometimes it swells up like a ball ; sometimes it reverses it- self, so as to resemble a bell ; at others it is elon- gated and cylindrical; at its lower extremity it pre- sents a large mouth ; at its upper extremity is found a small nipple, having at its base a spherical point Fig. 103. Beroi Forskalili (Edwards). ° ,a re 18 1 colour> enclosing many crystalloid corpuscles, which res upon a sort ot nervous ganglion, whose physiological function is ery we determined. A vast stomach, considering its size isTlso^min Y°1(i mterior of.the bo(Jy of the Beroe : the circulation contains a 1 ^ S m tlllS Z00Pliyte- T]de circulating apparatus globules whichnflS„wU1 ° 'ai'gKl Wi‘h “ mnItitude o( oirc”1“r> r . s flom a vascular ring round the mouth towards ° l fi lK,<',y ’ “ the interior aro «gl>t superficial canals is butTb l ^ 8idCS' 8,111 * lu’o much deeper canals, but the Beroes have no heart. Beroe ova, a i, a beautiful S 258 THE OCEAN WORLD. species, seldom exceeding three inches and a half in length, and two and a half in its larger transverse diameter ; is described by Browne, in his “ Jamaica,” as “ of an oval form, obtusely octangular, hollow, open at the larger extremity, transparent, and of a firm gelatinous consistence ; it contracts and widens with great facility, but is always open and expanded when it swims or moves. The longitudinal radii are strongest in the crown or smallest extremity where they rise from a very beautiful oblong star, and diminish gradually from thence to the margin, each being furnished with a single series of short, slender, delicate appendages, or limbs (cilia), that move with great celerity in all directions, as the creature pleases to direct its flexions, and in a regular accelerated succession from the top to the margin. It is impos- sible to express the liveliness of the motions of those delicate organs, or the beautiful variety of colour which rise from them to play to and fro in the rays of the sun ; nor is it easy to express the speed and regularity with which the motions succeed each other from one end of the rays to the other.” “ The grace and beauty which the entire appa- ratus presents in the living annual,” says Gtosse, “ or the marvellous ease and rapidity with which it can be alternately contracted, extended, and bent at an infinite variety of angles, no verbal description can sufficiently treat. Fortunately the creature is so common in summer and autumn on all our coasts, that few who use the surface can possibly miss its capture. It is worthy of a poet’s description, which it has received : ‘ When first extracted from her native brine, Behold a round, small mass of gelatine, Or frozen dewdrop, void of life and limb ; But round the crystal'goblet let her swim ’Midst her own elements ; and lo ! a sphere Banded from pole to pole ; as diamond clear, Shaped as hard’s fancy shapes the small balloon, To bear some sylph or fay beyond the moon. From all her bands see lurid fringes play, That glance and sparkle in the solar ray With iridescent hues. Now round and round She whirls and twirls; now mounts, then sinks profound.’” Drummond. Beside the Beroe, naturalists place the Cydippa, which is frequently confounded with the former. The Cydippae are globulous or egg- shaped, furnished with eight rows of cils, corresponding with as many ACALEPH/E. 2f>9 sections more or less distinct, and terminated by two long filiform tentacles issuing from the base of the zoophyte and fringed on the sides. “ It is,” says Gosse, “a globe of pure colourless jelly, about as big as a small marble, often with a wart-like swelling at one of its poles, where the mouth is placed. At the other end there are minute orifices, and between the two passes the stomach, which is flat or wider in one diameter than the other.” Cydippci pilens, found abundantly in the spring on the Belgian coast, is so transparent that it is scarcely visible in the water, where it seems to be a living, moving crystal. C. densci, which abounds in the Mediterranean, is of a crystalline white, with rows of reddish cirrhi, terminating in two tentacles, much longer and coloured red ; it is about the size of a hazel-nut, and phosphorescent. Within the clear substance of the Cydippa, on each side of the stomach, there is a capacious cavity, which communicates with the surface, and within each cavity is fixed the tentacle, of great length and very slender, which the animal can at pleasure shoot out of the orifice and suffer to trail through the water, shortening, lengthening, twisting, twining, or contracting it into a tiny ball at will, or withdrawing it into its cavity, short filaments being given off at intervals over the whole length of this attenuated white thread-like apparatus, each of which can also be lengthened or shortened, and coiled individually. These proceed only from one side of the thread-like tentacle, although, at a casual glance, they seem to proceed now from one side, now from the other. Callianira. Tl» CaUianira form a sort of connecting-link between the Berdes and tiie Cesttdie. Their bodies are smooth and regular, verticallv- elongated, compressed on one side and as if lobated on the other • in substance they are gelatinous, hyalin, and tubular, obtuse at both x remities, with buccal openings between the prolongations of the side, and two pair of conical appendages resembling wim-s camble of expansion, on the edges of which t°wo rows of vLatoiy c2 are ranged; A great transversal opening presents itself at one of the extremities, a small one at the other. The animal is furnished wbh two branching tentacles, but without cilia. ^ 260 THE OCEAN WORLD. CESTIDJ5. In Cestum, or Venus’s Giidle, as it is vulgarly called, we have a long, gelatinous, riblon-like body, tine, regular, and very short, but much extended on each side, while the edges are furnished with a double row of cilia ; the lower surface is also furnished with cils, but much smaller in size and number. On the middle of the lower edge is the mouth, opening into a large stomach. This alimentary canal runs across the middle of its length, and from it extends, as in the Medusae, a series of gastric canals, which carry the nutriment into all Fig. 104. Cestum veneris (Lesueur). parts of the body. rl here are many species of Cestum ; among them the best known is C. veneris (Fig. 104), which is found in the Medi- terranean, particularly in the sea which bathes the coasts of Naples and Nice, where the fishermen call it the sea-sabre— sabre cle mer. This curious zoophyte unwinds itself on the bosom of the waters, like a scarf of iridescent shades. It is the scarf of Venus traversing the waves, under the fiery rays of the sun, which has coloured it with a thousand reflections of silver and azure-blue. CHAPTER IX. ECHINODERMATA. “ Ultra niagis plsces et Kcliinos oequora celent." — Uor. Ep. In their “ Natural History of the Echinodermata,” Messrs. Hupe and Dujardin divide this vast natural group into five orders or families, namely : 1, Asteroklx, which includes the true star-fishes ; 2, Crinohlic, stone lilies, calcareous, stem composed of movable pieces ; 3, Ophiurte, having the disk much depressed, the rays simple, and furnished with short stems ; 4, Echinidas, comprehending the animals known as sea- eggs, or sea-urchins, distinguished hy their rounded form and absence of arms; 5, Eolothurokhe, with soft lengthened cylindrical body, covered with scattered suckers. The Echinodermata, from the Greek words e-^lvo^, rough, and hep pa, skin ; indicating an animal bristling with spines like the hedgehog’s. They are animals sometimes free, sometimes attached by a stem, flexible or otherwise, and radiating, that is, presenting an appearance more or less regular in all its parts, after the manner of a circle ox- star, its form being globular, egg-shaped, cylindrical, or like a pen- tagonal plate; or, lastly, like a star, with more or less elongated branches, which secrete either in all their tissues or only in the in- tegument very numerous symmetrical calcareous plates of solid matter, sometimes forming an internal skeleton or regular shell covered with a more or less consistent skin, often pierced with holes, from which the feet or tentacula issue ; they are frequently furnished with appen- dices of various kinds, such as prickles, scales, &c. Ihe organisation of the Echinodermata is the most perfect of all t e zoophytes, serving as a transition between them and animals of mom 2(32 THE OCEAN WORLD. complicated frame. They have a digestive and vascular system, and a muscular system is almost always present ; in short, they have internal or external respiratory organs, and a rudimentary nervous system has been detected in many of the species. The nutritive system is very simple, presenting in most of the family a single orifice in the centre of the lower surface of the body, destitute of teeth, performing the functions both of mouth and anus. De Blain- ville says that “ the liver is apparent and rather considerable in the star-fishes, forming bunches occupying the whole circumference of the stomach, and extending to the cavities of the appendages where these exist.” The mouth and gullet is admirably adapted for securing the testaceous mollusks, and other substances on which they feed. Reproduction in the Echinodermata appears to be monoecious. Ovaries are, as far as is known, the only organs of generation. They vary in number in different species. The sexes are usually separate : the young are produced by eggs, the embryo of which undergo im- portant metamorphoses. Immediately after birth, the young asterim have a depressed and rounded body, with four club-shaped appendages or arms at their anterior extremity. When they are a little more developed, papillae may be observed on the upper surface, in fine radiating rows : after twelve days the fine rays begin to increase, and after eight days more two rows of feet, or tentacula, are developed under each ray, which assist in the locomotion of the animal by alternate elongation and contraction, performing also the office of suckers. Like most other zoophytes, they have the power of repro- ducing parts of their bodies which may have been accidentally destroyed. Asterias, or Star-fishes. As to the animal which commonly and sometimes scientifically bears ■ the name of Star-fish, in walking on the sea-shore at low tide, your eyes have often seen this strange creature half buried in the sand. It is- so regular and geometrical in its form that it has more the appearance of being the production of man's hand than of a creation which breathes? and moves. The divine geometrician who created it never realised a 3 creature more regularly finished in shape, or more perfectly harmonious in symmetry. ECH1N0DERMATA. 2 63 individuals. The connection of the arms with the disk presents equally remarkable differences. In the genus Culcita, the disk is so much developed that it constitutes, so to speak, the entire animal, whilst the arms form only a slight protuberance upon its circum- ference. In the genera Luiclia, on the contrary, the disk is reduced to minimum, whilst the arms are of great length and very slender. The colours of the star-jisli vary greatly ; they vary from a yellowish- grey, a yellow-orange, a garnet-red, to a dark violet, as their name indicates. The star-fish has five perfectly equal arms. They resemble a cross of honour, which has five branches. The star of the brave, the star of honour — these somewhat trivial words recall, nevertheless, the resemblance which exists between the two objects ; doubtless, man has here taken Nature for his copy. It must, however, be remarked that, though five is the general number of lines in the star-fish, this number is not constant ; it varies with different genera, species, and even with Fig. 105. A&torias rubens (Lamarck). 2(34 THE OCEAN WORLD. Star-fislies are exclusively aucl essentially beings of the sea ; they are never seen in fresh water ; they dwell amongst the submarine herbage, seeking for sandy coasts ; they generally are found at moderate depths, but there are some species which are found at the great depth of a hundred and filty fathoms. Asterias are met with in almost every sea and under all latitudes, but they are most numerous and their forms are more richly varied in the seas of tropical regions. There are about a hundred and forty species described. The body of the Asteria is supported by a calcareous envelope com- posed of juxta-posed pieces at once various and numerous. The number of these pieces is estimated at more than eleven thousand in the Red Sea Starfish (Asterias rubens, Fig. 105), a species very Fig. 106. Asterias aurantiaca (Lamarck). common in Europe. The body of the Asterias rubens is likewise furnished with spines, granules, and tubercules, the shape, number, IvCHINODERMATA. 2(i5 and disposition of -which serve to characterise the genera and the species. Another species, Asterias aurantiaca, will give an exact idea of the general type of animals of this order. This zoophyte, which is repre- sented in Fig. 106, is common in the northern seas ; it has five rather long arms, furnished with spines which are of an orange colour — hence its name. When we see one of these animals stranded upon the shore, it appears to he entirely destitute of all power of progression. But the star-fish is not always immovable; it is provided with an apparatus for locomotion, which appears to serve at the same time the purposes of respiration ; for Nature is very economical in her gifts to the least-organised beings ; she bestows upon them feet, with respiratory organs, or lungs, which have the power of locomotion. The muscular system, as already stated, is almost always present in the Echmodermata, but the organs of locomotion are very various, the principal being the membranous tubes usually termed feet, or ambulacra, winch issue from the ambulacral apertures; but besides these, the rays themselves are movable, and in animals which are free to move from place to place these are used for the purpose. Thus in t e common star-fish the rays may be bent towards the upper or lower surface of the disk, so as to facilitate its advance either in water over small spaces or up the vertical face of rocks. These ambulacra are jVery numerous, disposed in rows along the under surface of the rays • thus m A. aurantiaca there are two simple rows of feet attached to’ each ray and the vesicular part is deeply cleft into two lobes ; while m A miens (Fig. 105) there are two double rows on each ray, and each loot has one undivided vesicle. Bicli of these ambulacra consists of two parts, an internal and generally vesicular portion placed within the body, and a tubular poitlon outside projecting from the surface through an aperture in ie skin 01 shell, the tube being closed at the extremity, and terminate Se “ TheeLraUHm Ule °f a l’iSk 8li8htly ieptemei b the «u tie. The feet are thus muscular fleshy cylinders, hollow in the centre, and very extensible ; by means of them the animal draws it- self forward The foot is extended by the contraction of its internal esic e, which forces the fluid into the hollow tube, or where the reside is wanting, by projecting the fluid into the tube by a con, nn, eating vessel. The tubular part is thus distended and elongated, 2Gi; THE OCEAN WOULD. aud again retracts itself by means of its muscular fibres, by ■which action the fluid is forced back into the interior. In progression the animal extends a few of its feet, attaches its suckers to the rocks or stones, then, by shortening its feet, it draws its body forward. The progression of the Asterias is thus very slow, and so regular that only the closest observation enables the spectator to discover the movement which produces it. Like the movements of the hands of a watch, the eye cannot quite follow it. When an obstacle presents itself — if, for example, a stone comes in its way— it raises one of the rays in order to obtain a point of support, then a second ray, and, if necessary, a third, — and thus the animal creeps over the stone with as much ease as if it walked over the smooth sands. In the same way the animal creeps up perpendicular rocks, which is accomplished by means of these ambulacra and suckers. Fridol says : “ If an Asteria is turned upon its back it will at first remain immovable, with its feet shut up. Soon, however, out come the feet, like so many little feelers ; it moves them backward and forward, as if feeling for the ground; it soon inclines them towards the bottom of the vase, and fixes them one after the other. When it has a sufficient number attached the animal turns itself round. It is not impossible, whilst walking on the sea-shore, to have the pleasure of seeing one of these star-fishes walking upon the sand. A day rarely passes without one of them being thrown upon the strand by the tide, and then abandoned by the retreating waters. Generally they are left dead, this is not always the case, however ; they are sometimes only benumbed. Place them in a vase full of sea- water, or simply in a pool on the shore, and you will sometimes see them recover from this death-like condition, and execute the curious movements of progression which we have described. The motions of an Asterias thus saved form a very curious spectacle. The mouth of this animal is situated on the lower surface of the disk. At this point the constitutive pieces of the carapace leave a circular space, covered by a fibrous resistant membrane, pieiced at the centre by a rounded opening. This opening is sometimes armed with hard papillae, which play the part of teeth. The mouth almost directly abuts on the stomach, which is merely a globular sac, filling nearly all the central portion of the visceral cavity. “Thus,” says Mr. Milne Edwards, “in Asteracanthion glacialis the stomach is globulous, but imperfectly divided into two parts by a ECHINODERMATA. 2<37 fold of its internal membrane ; the first chamber, thus limited, appears to be more especially devoted to the transformation of the elementary matter into a liquid paste, -which passes, in small portions, into the upper chamber. This is continued upwards through a small intestine, and communicates laterally with five cylindrical prolongations, which each divide themselves again into two much elongated tubes, furnished with a double series of hollow branches, each terminating in a cul- de-sac.” These organs advance into the interior of the rays or arms of the Asterias. Imagine, then, an animal bearing digestive tubes in its arms — the same organ serving for digestion and progression. What lessons in economy does not the study of Nature teach us ! The products of digestion find an absorbent surface of great extent in the rays of the Asterias. They ought necessarily to pass rapidly from it into the circumjacent nourishing fluid. '1 he star- fishes are very voracious ; they even attack mollusks which are covered with shells. M. Pouchet mentions having taken eighteen species of Venus intact, each being six lines in length, from the stomach of one large Asterias which he dissected upon the shores of the Mediterranean. It is now even said that the star-fishes eat many oysters. Ancient naturalists were not ignorant that the star-fish was capable of eating oysters ; but they believed that they waited for the moment when the bivalve would open its valves to introduce one of their rays into the opening. They imagined that having thus put one foot into the other’s domicile, they soon put four, and finished by reaching and devouring the savoury inhabitant of the shell. Modern observations have modified the ideas of former naturalists upon this point. In order to obtain possession of and swallow an oyster, it appears that the star- fish begins its approaches by bringing its mouth to the closed edges of the oyster-shell ; this done, with the assistance of a particular liquid which its mouth secretes, it injects a few drops of an acrid or venomous liquid into the interior of the oyster-shell, which forces it to open its valves. An entrance once obtained, it is not long before it is invaded and ravaged. Professor Rymer Jones gives another explanation of the transaction. According- to this naturalist the oyster is seized between the rays of his ravisher, and held under his mouth by the aid of his suckers; the Asteria then inverts its stomach, 268 THE OCEAN WOULD. according to the professor, and envelopes the entire oyster in its in- most recesses, while, doubtless, distilling a poisonous liquid. The victim is thus forced to open its shell, and becomes the prey of the enemy which envelopes it. Whatever may he the modes of procedure employed by the star- fish, it is now clearly ascertained, however incredible the fact may at first appear, that it swallows oysters in the same manner as is prac- tised at the oyster shop. This little being, formed of five arms, and without any other appa- rent member, accomplishes a work which man is quite unable to execute — it opens an oyster without an oyster-knife. If reasoning man had no other means of nourishment than oysters, and was without a knife to open them, it is very certain that with all his genius he would he puzzled how to get at the inaccessible and savoury bivalve so obstinately closed against him. The star-fish de- vours dead flesh of all kinds ; their sole occupation is to feed themselves, and they keep up an incessant and active chase after all sorts of corrupt animal matter. The Asterias thus performs in the bosom of the sea the same part that certain birds and insects play on shore ; they are its scavengers, and feed their bodies upon the carcases of animals which, if abandoned to the action of the elements, would become a cause of infection. In the same manner that certain animals render the air healthy, the Asterias help, on a considerable scale, to keep the sea which shelters them in a pure and healthy state. Zoologists are not agreed upon the manner in which respiration operates on the star-fishes. Never- theless they think that the principal part in this phenomenon devolves upon the sub-cutaneous branchiae which in each ray constitute two double series of bladders. The function of circulation is equally unknown. The vascular apparatus is sufficiently developed in this zoophyte, and appears to have for its centre an elongated canal with muscular walls, which may with justice be honoured with the name of heart. A little ring surrounding the oesophagus, and from which issue certain delicate white chords, which are prolonged into the furrows of the arms, present us with all that can be designated a nervous system in the star-fishes. Among organs of sense we may mention, as the apparatus of touch, the tentacular ambulacraira, as well as those which are disseminated upon the dorsal surface of the disk. The eyes are ECHINODICIIMATA. 200 considered to be certain bright red points which are situated at the extremity of the arms and on the under surface — a most singular position for the organs of sight. The eyes must, besides, be very imperfect, for they possess no crystalline. Ehrenberg insists upon the existence of eyes in some species, attributing the function to those red spots however ; while Eymer Jones attributes the indications in which this originates to an extremely delicate sense of touch in the star-fishes. Professor Edward Forbes, while he admits the existence of ganglions in the nervous system to be extremely doubtful, seems, by the frequent use of the terms eye and eyelids, to admit that the specks in question were visual organs ; the weight of authority inclines therefore to Ehrenberg’s view, that if not eyes in the strict sense of the term, they serve the purposes of vision, modified and adapted to the wants of the animal. The star-fishes have distinct sexes, with individual differences ; their eS8s’ which are round and reddish, undergo curious phases of develop- ment. They produce little worm-like creatures, covered with vibratile hairs, like the infusoria, which swim about with great vivacity ; these little creatures are subject to considerable changes. In the year 1835 M. Sars described, under the name of Bipinnaria asterigera, an enig- matical animal resembling a polype from the arms at one extremity of the body, while the other terminated in a tail, furnished with two fins ; but it was chiefly remarkable as having an Asterias attached to the extremity which carried the arm ; he expressed an opinion, which was soon placed beyond any doubt, that this bipinnaria was an Asterias in its course of development. The egg becomes a sort of infusoria, the infusoria becomes a bipinnaria, and this produces the Asterias. In short, the bipmnana does not become an Asterias by any metamorphoses ana ogous to that so well known amongst insects— the butterfly for example— but becomes, so to speak, the foster-mother or nurse to’ the bipinnaria. The larva is large, and it is at the cost of a very small internal rudiment of this larva that the Asterias is developed • the Asterias robs the larva of its stomach and intestines, and turns it into a visceral apparatus for its own use. But the Asterias makes itself a mouth of any of the pieces most remote from the primitive mouth of the krva. Thus the bipinnaria divides itself ; it gives its stomach and mtestmes, and keeps its oesophagus and mouth, and it can live several days after the Asterias is detached from it. 270 THE OCEAN WORLD. Can anyone imagine the existence of a being with only a mouth and oesophagus, which has neither stomach nor intestines, because' another animal has possessed itself of them for its own use ? The study of the lower animals abounds in surprises of this kind. It is a chain of unforeseen facts ; of natural impossibilities ; of realised points necessarily reversing all notions obtained in the study of beings which have a higher place in the animal scale. The history of the star-fishes would be incomplete were we to omit mentioning the most remarkable traits of their organisation with which naturalists are acquainted. The animals exhibit in the highest degree the vital phenomena of dis- memberment and restoration, that is to say, of the faculty of recon- structing organs which they have lost. These arms, the structure of which is so complicated, and which protect such important organs, may be destroyed by accident. The animal troubles itself little at this mutilation : if he lose3 an arm it disquiets him but little ; another is immediately procured. We often see in our collections of Asterias specimens wanting in symmetry because they have been taken before the new members which are in process of development have attained their definite length. Professor Rymer Jones mentions an instance of redintegration very complete and most curious. This naturalist had an isolated ray of Asterias which he had picked up ; at the end of five days he observed that four little rays and a mouth had been produced ; at the end of a month the old ray was completely destroyed, and this apparently useless fragment had been replaced by a new being, quite perfect, with four little symmetrical branches. This faculty of repro- ducing organs, which we have noted in describing the fresh water polypes, the sea anemone, &c., exists also in many other zoophytes, but in none more strikingly than in the Asterias. But a still more startling fact remains to be mentioned : one more strange and more mysterious, for it does not belong to the physical or organic order, but appears to belong to the moral world. The star-fishes commit suicide ! Certain of these animals appear to escape from dangers which menace them by self-destruction. This power of putting an end to existence we only find on the highest and lowest steps of the animal scale. Man and the star-fishes have a common moral platform, and it is that of self-destruction ! This power of dismemberment, however, seems to be confined to the Ophrocoma and Luidia at least, it is only carried out to its full extent in these genera? . EC HI NODE! (MATA. 27 1 Mysteries of Nature, who can sound your depths? Secrets of the inoial world, what being but God has the privilege of comprehending you? A large species of Star-fish (. Luidia fragillissima), which inhabits the English seas, has this instinct of suicide to a great extent. I he following account by Prolessor Edward Forbes of an attempt to capture a Luidia gives a good illustration of its powers “ The first time that I took one of these creatures,” the professor says, “ I suc- ceeded m placing it entire in my boat. Not having seen one before, and being ignorant of its suicidal powers, I spread it out on a rowing ench, the better to admire its form and colours. On attempting to remove it lor preservation, to my horror and disappointment I found on y an assemblage of detached members. My conservative endea- vours were all neutralised by its destructive exertions; and the animal is now badly represented in my cabinet by a diskless arm and an arni- ess disk. Next time I went to dredge at the same spot I determined not to be cheated out of my specimen a second time. I carried with me a bucket of fresh water, for which the star-fishes evince a great antipathy. As I hoped, a Luidia soon came up in the dredge-a most gorgeous specimen. As the animal does not generally break up until it is raised to the surface of the sea, I carefully and anxiously plunged my bucket to a level with the dredge’s mouth, and softly introduced the Luidia into the fresh water. Whether the cold was too much for t, or the sight of the bucket was too terrific, I do not know but n a moment it began to dissolve its corporation, and I saw its limbs escapmg through every mesh of the dredge. In my despair I seized fe™tTeteP1 X ^ br°nght, "P the extomity of “ a™ & aDd C'°Sed WitU £-p “ its F This1'* Tejmg:*Ch are “ly incomprehensible.” "e rl t M T s', reaS°“,tllat in “'lections of natural history moment the animal is seized by ““ “pan it breaks itself up into small fragments To nrese n °X vhole they must be killed suddenly, before th^W, P TT ^ ?*****■ r“- thia ™ th tlrie “ J m"8t be Plunge<' int0 a fresh water ; this salfes 272 THE OCEAN WOULD. liquid is instant death to these creatures, which in this condition perish suddenly before they have time to mutilate themselves. Ihe star- fish is a curious ornament in our natural history collections, hut in this state they represent very imperfectly the elegance and particular grace of this curious type. To understand the star-fishes, they must he seen in an aquarium, where we can admire the form, figure, move- ments, and manners of these marvellous beings. The Asterias is the constellation of the sea. It is said that heaven, reflected during the night on the silvery surface of the ocean, let one of the stars which decorate the resplendent vaults fall into its depths. Crinoidea. We quoted the maxim of Linnaeus in the earlier pages of this volume, that Nature makes no leaps. Nature proceeds by means of insensible transitions, rising by degrees from one organic form to another. Most of the animals hitherto described are immovably fixed to some solid object ; at least, such is their condition in the adult state. We are about to describe zoophytes, free of all fetters ; animals “ which walk in their strength and liberty.” Between zoophytes fixed to the soil, like the corals, gorgons, and aggregate zoophytes, such as sea-urchins and holothurias, Nature has placed an intermediate race, namely, the Crinoidea, a class of zoophytes which are attached to a rock by a sort of root armed with claws, having a long flexible stem, which enables them to execute movements in the circle limited only by the length of this stem, just as the ox or goat in our paddocks is confined by its tether to the space circum- scribed by the length of its rope. Let the reader picture to himself a star-fish borne upon the summit of a flexible stem firmly rooted in the soil, and he has a general idea of the zoophytes which compose the order of the Crmoidea. Naturalists of the seventeenth century bestowed the name of stone lilies on these curious products. This rather poetical image proves that the conformation of these creatures had at an early period attracted observation, presenting the naturalist with the most curious of his lessons. The encrinites raise, as from the dead, a whole world buried in the abyss of the past. At the present time only two genera ECHINODERMATA. 273 of these zoophytes exist, whilst in the early ages of the world the ocean must have swarmed with them. Encrinites abounded in the seas during the transition and secondary epoch. It was one of the most numerous of the animal tribes which inhabited the salt waters of the ancient world. In traversing some parts of France, we tread under our feet myriads of these beings, whose calcareous remains form vast beds ot rock. The encrinites gradually disappeared from the ancient seas ; their species were diminished as the globe became older or modified in its conditions, so that at the present time only a few types remain in our seas— such as the Comatula of the Mediterra- nean ; Pentacrina, the Medusa’s-head of the Antilles ; and the Eu- ropean Pentacrmus all of them very rare, and probably destined soon to disappear, carrying with them the last reminiscence of the zoological races of the ancient world : and here lies the real interest which the Cnnoidea presents to the thinking man. The encrinites most common m the fossil state are Pentacrinus fasciculosus, belonging to the has; Apiocrinns Roissyanus, which is found in the oolite or Jurassic rocks ; and Encrinus UUformis, which appertains to the assic period These three fixed zoophytes seem to have existed great numbers during the first ages of the world— namely, the du^YT 7 atlfed ** “a™“ °f wL! r w r their mmbera . Acceding to M. DOrbigny, there are thirty-nine genera fonnd in the p reozorc rocks, two in the tr, assic, seven in the jurassic, five in the or taceons, and onI one h the tertiary ^ Qf ^ ^ 6 2 the’ liamf f ^ f°Und “ the epoch to repre- of l Yl rm°Y a‘ ? tb°Se ”0t rooW fte soil by a stem, a nev aY rf**"4 the “fr »H~«d at Jhn+ ^ y are absent m the palaeozoic and triassic rocks *r Juried atte“e<1 tlleir °f ‘““I™114 “ Ljhe, nu“e<.rous fossihzed remains of these curious creations which fc^neriod Th r0Ck8’a‘‘racM ‘Le ““eoMon of learned me’n at an early period. The encrinites were among the a»-W * 1 scientific description. As early as the sixteenth centnrv t't " /Y ° ^leralogist, George Agricola, mentions them nndel’ the nYeYof ^elutes, Troches, and Astroite, At the same time! aYsYe T 274 THE OCEAN WORLD. that epoch, the Crinoid®, which we know by the name of stone-lilies, and which characterises the Muschelltalh rocks, have been known under the name of Enchrinus, from tcplvov, a lily. During the eighteenth century the works upon the Crino'idae were very numerous, though not very correct. They sometimes reported these organic remains to he vegetable ; sometimes they were beings allied to the star-fishes: at Fig. 107. Pentacrinus caput Medusa? (MUller). others they were the vertebral column of fishes. Towards the year 1761, however, Gruettard, one of the most learned natur- alists of his time, understood the real nature of these pro- ductions. He had occasion to examine a recent Enchrinus sent from Martinique under the name of Sea-Palm, which was in reality Pentacrinus caput Medusas. The com- parison of the living individual with the fossil fragment de- scribed by his predecessors, and of which he had specimens in his collections, enabled him to ascertain the real origin of the fossil Enchrinoid®. The beautiful fragment which still exists in the Museum of Natural History at Paris has long been considered unique, but it is now known that others exist in different mu- seums. Since that date the Crinoid® have been examined and described by observers such . as Miller, Forbes, D’Orbigny, . and Pictet, of whose discoveries the following is a brief resume . « The species of fixed Crinoid® actually living are Pentacrinus capiU ECH I NODE EM AT A. •JV!) Medusm (Fig. 107), and Pentacrinus Europxus (Fig. 108). These curious zoophytes resemble a flower borne upon a stem, which ter- minates in an organ called the calyx, hut which is, properly speaking, the head of the animal. Arms, more or less branching, spring from Fig. 108. Pentacrinna Europteus (Thompson). fc “1jx’ the,r ramlfications. 80 formed, consisting of many pieces ”Sff 'T V ' Tbe Cal>'X " >>>' • *m, varying Kr tissues which sn Zni ■ Tim articulations of this stem are usually very numerous, t 2 270 THE OCEAN WORLD. cylindrical, and present a series of rays striated upon their articulated faces. In Pentacrinus they are prismatic and pentagonal ; that is, they present five projecting angles, and on their articulated face a star with five branches, or, better still, a rose with five petals. At the base of the stem of this animal-plant, in many of the Crinoidse we find a sort of spreading root, which is implanted in the rocks, and is capable of growing by itself, of nourishing the stem, and of producing new ones. The root and stem of the fixed encrinites seem to indicate that the annual can only five with the head erect. Their normal condition is thus quite different from that of any other of the Echinoderms, almost all of which keep their mouths invariably directed downwards. The Medusae heads are chiefly found on rocky beds, or in the midst of hanks of corals, at great depths. There, firmly fixed by their roots, their long stems raise themselves vertically ; then, with expanded calyx and long-spreading arms, they wait for the prey which passes within their reach in order to seize it. The Pentacrinus caput Medusae have, as we have said, been fished up from great depths in the Antilles. Its very small calyx is borne upon a stem of from eighteen to twenty inches in height, termhiating in long movable arms, the internal surface of which hear its tentacles in a groove. In the middle of the arms is a mouth, and at the side the orifice for the expulsion of the digested residuum. In the Medusae head and European Pentacrine (P. Europaeus, Fig. 108), the presence of a digestive apparatus has been distinctly traced. It is a sort of irregular sac, with a central mouth on the upper surface, and another orifice situated at a little distance from the mouth, and evidently intended as an outlet for the products of diges- tion. The arms of these creatures, which are spreading or folded up according to their wrants, are provided with fleshy tentacula, which, serving at once as organs' of absorption and as vibratile cils, are at the same time organs of respiration. Such are these curious beings . they occupy a sort of middle or transition state between animals permanently fixed to some spot and those capable of motion, representing in our own times the last remains of extinct generations. Every type of the CrinoidiE furnished with arms present incontestable examples m their mode of reproduction or redintegration — that is, of the power of re- storing those parts of the body broken or destroyed by accident ; hut as we have already drawn the attention of the reader to this stiange ECHINODEHMATA. 277 faculty of renewing organs which many of the zoophytes possess, we will not here enlarge further upon the subject. The Crinoi'dae are not all like the two species which have been described. There is an entire family of animals belonging to this class ; namely, the Comatula, which are fixed in their early days, but separate themselves from the rooted stem in their adult age, and, throwing off the bonds imposed on their youth, live side by side with the asterias, with whose company they seem much pleased. The encrinites and the star-fishes thus live in company, and that at prodigious depths, and under a body of water which no light can reach. Imagine the existence of animals which pass their lives in such eternal funereal darkness. The family of Comatula are found in the seas of both hemispheres. Their bodies are flat-a large calcareous plate formed like a cuirass upon their backs— presenting, besides, cirri composed of numerous curling articulations, the last of which termi- nates m a hook. The ventral surface presents two orifices : the one in the centre corresponding to a mouth, the other evidently intended tor the discharge of the products of digestion. This animal is provided with five arms, which diverge directly from the centre plate or cuirass. The branches of these arms have ambulacral grooves com- prehending a double row of fleshy tentacles, in the centre of which is ambulacral groove, properly so called, clothed with vibratile cils over their whole surface. These cils or hairs guide the current! w ich drives the various substances on which it feeds; such as the afs“‘C to?7 ? 0f 8e“:wee‘,s'and microscopic animalcules floating in sea, towards its mouth. They are also powerful aids to respiration The movements of these curious creatures are very slow, tC‘2 object bemg to catch the bodies of animals and marie plants, or, by extending or contracting their arms, to feel their way through the feLT ° “""V",?' I“Callty- Sometimes, also, in order to change their tad Jer0lli ’ the C°matula ab:,mlon tte submarine forests, herbage and sea wracks; and float through the water, moving their irrns wiTh considerable rapidity in search of a new station. The Mediterranean Comatula (Fig. 109) is largely diffused on the opean shores of the Mediterranean. Its spreading arms extend ree or four inches; its colour purple, shaded, and spotted with *Hite upon the ventral surface. P 278 THE OCEAN WOULD. Were a traveller to tell ns that he had seen animals drop their eggs upon forests of stone; that these eggs, after executing their pro- gressive evolutions, finally become individuals in all respects like their parents, which attach themselves to the soil by a root like any flower of the fields, or to the mother-stem like the branch of a tree, until in due course they attained the adult state, when the flexible hand which holds them fixed either to the soil or parent-stem breaks, and the Fig. 109. Comatula Mediterrauea (Lamarck), natural size. animal, now free, launches itself into the liquid medium, and goes to live a proper and independent existence ; — in listening to a recital so opposed in appearance to the ordinary laws of Nature, we should be inclined to tax the narrator of such incredible facts with error or folly. Nevertheless all these facts are now perfectly established. The being which presents these marvels has nothing of the fabulous about it. It is the Comcdula Mediterranea ; it lives at the bottom ot the sea, the surface of which is incessantly tracked by our vessels. 15CHIN0DERMATA. 279 OPHIURADJE. The Ophiuras are thus named from two Greek words (or0vi«■»- only a small hole to l„wl In3" “T themselve8 entirely. leaving furnished with short thick ° ' a°U® ' ®Patan9ua, which is which spread 0,7* exSvVV^ ^ °f “8 ^ proceeds with its mining operations , fl]1' “’T"8 °f a SP°011’ Jonathan Franklin, “FiLe to ™ Mows ^-According to Mr, * * * own we,g^ril£ ^ u 2 292 THE OCEAN WOK ED. spines are brought into action, throwing up the sand with increased activity, while the sand thrown up, returning again, soon covers the body of the worker, and he has soon buried himselt beneath the surface. In this situation the long hair-like spines situated upon the back begin to play their part ; they prevent the sand from entirely covering the animal by forming a little round hole, tlnough which water is introduced to the mouth and respiratory organs.” The hiding- place of the sea-urchin is, however, easily detected in the sand by the hole thus arranged for the respiration of the animal, and the fishermen think they can predict storms according to the depth of the hole. The Echinkke are reproduced by eggs, which are red and nearly microscopic. As it issues from the egg the larvae has the appearance of a very minute fish. It is not at once converted into the perfect animal, but undergoes a certain metamorphose analogous to that of the caterpillar into the butterfly. But, as we have already stated in treating of the Asteriae, it produces, at a certain stage, by some sort of internal process of generation, a sea-urchin, which, being at first only an organ of the larvae, begins fo live an independent life when the nursing larvae has destroyed itself. The manner m which the urchin unfolds itself at the expense of the larvae is quite analogous to that which the asterias present: it is another case of alternate gene- ration, of which our space does not permit us to give even a general Sea-urchins are found in every sea : they dwell in sandy bottoms, and sometimes upon rocky ground. They are caught with wooden pincers when in shallow water ; when found at the water s edge, ey may be taken by a gloved hand. The urchin, like the crab, which it also resembles in taste, becomes red when boiled ; only certain species are comestible, however. In Corsica and Algeria the Melon-shaped Urchin (Echinus mdo) is muc esteemed. In Naples and in the French ports ol the Channel the Echinus lividus is eaten. In Provence the Common Sea-uichin Echinus esculentus and Echinus granulosus ) are the favourites. Sea-urchins are eaten raw like oysters. They are cut in four parts, and the flesh taken out with a spoon; they are sometimes, but more rarely, dressed by boiling, and eaten from the shell like an egg, using long' sippets of bread : hence the name of sea-eggs, which they bear in many countries. /#• ECHINODERMATA. 293 Sea-eggs were a choice dish upon the tables of the Greeks and Homans ; they were then served up with vinegar or hydromel, with the addition of mint or parsley. When Lentulus feasted the priest ot Mars — the Flamen Martialis — this formed the first dish at supper. Sea-eggs also appeared at the marriage feast of the goddess Hebe. Afterwards,” says the poet, “ came crabs and sea-urchins, which do not swim in the sea, hut content themselves by travelling on the sandy shore. For my own part, I have only once partaken of sea-urchin, and they appeared to me to be food fit for the gods; but perhaps the circumstances sufficiently explain this dash of culinary enthusiasm. The Reserve restaurant at Marseilles has not always been the vast stone edifice we now behold, backed majestically by the mountajp, and fronting the sea on the promenade of the Corniclie du Prado. In 1845 it rose quite at the entrance of the port, a small glass cage, suspended as it were by a magic thread between the heavens and the sea. From this aerial dwelling, overhanging with unheard-of audacity the waters which surrounded it on all sides, we gazed on the most wonderful prospect in the world, and reposed ourselves while enjoying this intoxicating scene, during which the ships were continually enter- ing the port, passing under our very feet. It was in this enchanted palace that sea-urchins were served up, supported by the traditional bouillabaise. As I have said, it appeared to me delicious. Was it the Provencal ish, the savoury bouillabaise, which contributed to my appreciation of the humble sea-urchin of the Mediterranean ? Was not the mar- vellous view which I enjoyed from the heights of my empyreum of glass the indirect cause of it ? This is a tender and charming problem which I love to leave floating in the clouds, half evanescent, of my youthful recollections. 3 JtlOLOTHURIA. The ignorant, like you and I, call the Holotkuria the Corneohou or Sea-cucumber, and perhaps, for two reasons, they are not wrong. The term sea-cucumber expresses with wonderful exactness the shape of he animal, and its habitation, the sea; and, again it would puzzle the most learned to explain tire word Bolothuria The body ot this strange creature presents the form of an elongated and 294 THE OCEAN WOULD. worm-like cylinder ; its dimensions are so variable that, while some species are only an inch or two in length, others attain thirty and even forty. In general, the skin of the Holothuria is thick and leathery ; it includes muscles, and is armed occasionally with small projecting hooks or fangs, which enable the creature to hang for a few seconds on to foreign bodies. From this coriaceous envelope issue tentacular feet analogous to those described in the sea-urchin and sea- star. When we open a- Holothuria we find nearly the whole internal cavity occupied with little white tubes. We know that the fabulous cucumber spoken of in the Arabian Nights was stuffed with pearls by the talking-bird. With our poor animal this, alas! is not so. These are no pearls, but simple prosaical tubes containing the ova. The mouth opens at the extremity of the body ; it forms a sort of funnel, and is surrounded, as by a glory, with an elegant circle of tentacula. In the living animal, when it teels itself in security, these tentacles expand themselves like the corolla of a flower. When the fisherman seizes a Holothuria in the water this crown of tentacles ceases to appear, for the animal has the power of withdrawing it quite suddenly, and now it resembles nothing so much as a common leech. If, however, it is preserved in fresh sea-water and left m peace— if we treat it, in short, with the regard due to its elegant crown of tentacula— this elegant ornament will be expanded in all its glory. . Immedia e y below the mouth is a muscular pharynx, which is contained in a long intestine, with many convolutions, which terminate in the posterior part of the body in an orifice whence is thrown from time to time a little jet of water. The terminal portion of the intestinal canal m these animals is enlarged, introducing us to a system of numerous tubes which branch off into the visceral cavity, receiving the water from without while breathing by its posterior extremity ; the amnia can afwill fill this reservoir or eject the water, and it is by these alter- nate movements of aspiration and its reverse that it renews the oxygen necessary for respiration. The circulation appears to form a complete S, there Jg no heart or central agent; but a gullet from wnich issue five principal nervous chords, which lepie %rZbtori“are of separate sexes, and they ***“»» urchins and asterias in this: that their law® are converted bodily ECHINODERMATA. 295 a young holothuria without losing their organs. The bodies of certain species are lubricated by an acrid and corrosive liquid : thus II. Oceania , described by Lesson, which is about forty inches in length, secretes at the surface of its body an irritating fluid, which produces an intolerable itching in the finger which touches it. Nor can the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands look at it without loathing. Fig. 119 represents the Fig- 119. Holothuria lutea (Quoy and Gaimard). tt^zz 1 oiht°hetenw :;Lt“e cbaracter n “? °f the stal>ge suicidal tendency of the sea-stars • -nee of its disconcerted enemy,- hut Haung some cause of grief and trouble-such, for instance aT the 290 THE OCEAN WOULD. attack ot an enemy or the pursuit of some fisherman — by a sudden and unexpected movement it ejects its teeth, its stomach, its digestive apparatus, and reduces itself to a simple empty membranous sac, with an unfurnished mouth; and, as a singular fact, this empty sac still shrinks and contracts in the hand which grasps it. It must be admitted that this is a strange mode of evading its enemies : the soldier rarely throws his arms away in the moment of danger ! But the Holothurias possess a wonderful recuperative power also ; and it is probably quite conscious, when it thus empties itself to disappoint its pursuer, that it can promptly replace the organs which it has volun- tarily parted with. Dr. Johnston relates that he had forgotten for some days to supply a Holothuria with fresh water. The creature, in consequence, ejected its tentacles, its buccal apparatus, digestive tubes, and a portion of its ovaries. Still it was not dead, but was sensible to the least move- ment, and lived to reproduce all its organs anew. Not only do the Holothuria eject their organs and afterwards renew them, but they divide themselves spontaneously into two portions. Their two extremities are first enlarged; then their middle parts gradually become straight, like a thread ; finally, this thread breaks, and each separate part of the animal becomes a perfect Holothuria. It has been cut into two pieces, and each of these pieces becomes a new being. The habits of these animals are but little known. They inhabit the seas, and are spread over every latitude. Their very limited movements consist in a kind of reptation or crawling motion, pro- duced by the undulations of their bodies or by the contractions of their feet. Holothurias are generally found in the act of creeping upon stones or on portions of submarine rock, but always in sheltered places, for they appear to dread the action of light. They sometimes find themselves caught by fishermen in their nets. If held in the hand they contract, their bodies become hard and rigid, and the sea water with which they are filled is ejected with force. We need not add that fishermen reject with disdain the Holothurias taken in their nets ; the sea-cucumber has never been thought worthy of a place on our tables. Truth is on this side, error on that, is a maxim as true in morals as in the cookery. The sea-cucumber, which Europeans disdain, is a favourite dish among the Chinese. The fishery, prepara- Fishing for and Curing the Holothuria in the Indian Ocean. ECI-IINODERMATA. 297 tion of, and transport of these animals to market plays an important part in the commerce and industry of the East. One rather large species, the Holotliuria tubulosa, in which, by-the-bye, a singular . r ■ p^asite fish ( Fierasjer fontanesii ) lives, is common in the Medi- terranean. This species is eatable, and much relished at Naples. In the Ladrone Islands Bolothuria guamehsis is preferred. But nowhere is it esteemed of such importance as in the Malayan and Chinese seas. In these countries, and on most of the shores of the Indian Ocean, the Bolothuria edulis, vulgarly called Trepang , is eaten with delight. Thousands of junks are annually equipped for the Trepang fisheries. The Malay fishermen carry to this fishery a degree of patience and dexterity truly remarkable. Lying down in the fore part of their vessels, and holding in their hands a long bamboo, terminating by a sharp hook, their eyes, accustomed to this fishing, frequently discover the animal at a distance of not less than thirty y^irds, as it creeps along the surface of the submarine rocks or corals Ihe fisher darts his harpoon at this distance, and seldom misses his prey. When the water is shallow, that is to say, not more than four or five fathoms deep, divers are sent down to obtain these culinary monsters, who seize them in their hands, and in this manner can take five or six at a time. To prepare the fish and preserve them for transport to the markets, the Malay and Chinese fishermen boil them m water, and flatten them with stones. They are then spread out on bamboo mats to dry; first in the sun, and then by smoking them lhus prepared, they are enclosed in sacks, and shipped to the Chinese ports, where they are particularly esteemed. This fishery takes place Iu ^ v°yage to the South Pole Captain Dumont d’Urville in tra- veramg tie Chinese seas, had an opportunity of assisting at this ’fishery ivhich he has described very graphically. We quote the passage hi l‘° wm™“, “Ylgator re.1“tes wllat he "Messed at this curious scene While the ships were lying quietly at anchor, “we saw” he says entering the hay, four Malay proas, bearing Dutch colours which dropped their anchors about a cable’s length from Observatory Met The padrones or captains of these vessels soon presented their salutations, and informed me that they had started from Macassar at the end of October with the western monsoon, and that they came to fish for Holotliuria (trepang) along the coasts of New Holland from 298 THE OCEAN WORLD. Melville Island to the Gulf of Carpentaria, where the east wind met them and assisted their return, when they revisited all the points of the coast, anchoring in every bay where they hoped to find fish. We were in the first days of April ; the east monsoon was definitively established ; the Malay fishermen were returning in their circuit, and, in passing, they came to exercise their industry in Kaffle’s Bay. An hour after their arrival they were all at work, and the laboratory for the preparation of their fish was established within our view. The roadstead had no longer the aspect of a vast solitude: wreaths of smoke crowned the summit of Observatory Island, where, as if by enchantment, several large sheds had sprung up, while numerous vessels, supplied with divers, were proceeding to fish for Holothurias, which were passed immediately to the furnaces erected for curing them. In the course of my voyage I have often remarked little walls constructed of dry stones, consisting of several half-circles joined one to the other. I had often, but vainly, tried to discover the use of these little struc- tures : I was now enlightened. The Malays arrived. Their boats were scarcely anchored when several large boilers, in the shape of a half-sphere, the diameter of which might be about forty inches, were placed upon the stone walls of which I have spoken, and now served as improvised furnaces. Near to them are sheds, composed of four strong posts driven into the earth, supporting roofing covered with hurdles, on which it is probably intended to dry the fish. During their sojourn in this bay, the fishermen, having fine weather, made no use of these sheds, having probably only prepared them "as a pre- caution. “ A crowd of men actively employed in establishing their laboratories gave an unaccustomed appearance to the bay, which could not fail to attract the savage inhabitants of the main land. Very soon, indeed, we could see them hastening from all sides, and nearly all reached the little island, either by swimming or wading through the sheet of shallow water which separates it from the main land. I only saw one pirogue, made of the bark of a tree badly put together, which gave a passage to three of these visitors. When night arrived, the Malays had finished all their preparations ; some of them remained to guard what they had left on shore, all the others returned to their boats. “ In the interval, a boat from the Astrolabe being wanted to carry some visitors from the island, I profited by the occasion to visit one ECHINODERMATA. 299 of the proas, accompanied by M. Koquemauel. We were received with much politeness, and even cordiality, by the captain or padrone ol the boats. He showed us over his little ship. The keel appeared to us sufficiently solid; even the lines did not want elegance; but great disorder seemed to reign in the stowage department. From a kind of bridge, formed by hurdles of bamboos and junk, we saw the cabin, which looked like a poultry-house ; bags of rice, packets, and boxes " ere huddled together. Below was the store of water, of cured trepang, and the sailors’ berths. Each boat was furnished with two rudders, one at each end, which lifted itself when the boat touched the bottom. The craft was furnished with two masts, without shrouds which could be lowered on to the bridge at will by means of a hinge • they carry the ordinary sail ; the anchors are of wood, for iron is’ rarely used by the Malays; their cables are made of ratan fibre- the crew of each bark consists of about thirty-seven, each shore-boat having a crew of six men. At the moment of our visit they were all occupied in fishing operations, some of them being anchored very near to us. Seven or eight of their number, nearly naked, were diving for trepang ; the padrone alone was unoccupied. An ardent sun darted his rays upon their heads without appearing to incommode them, an exposure which no European could hold up under It was ZZt 7’ th,e m°“eTnt- “ «“ Malay captain assured us, most , ,l f °r e. 8 ln^‘ ^act’ we saw that each diver returned to the surface with at least one fish and sometimes two in his hand, t appeals that the higher the sun is above the horizon the more easily is the creature distinguished at the bottom. The divers were so Z threw TrTrff tllat ‘hey 1 ‘o-ched the boat into which fi ZiXl \&h 7, thej,X“‘ ™ lied with fish, it proceeded to the shore, and its place was supplied by an empty one. I followed one of these, to witness the process o curing which they adopted. P 01 “ The Holothuria of Baffle's Bay is from five to sin inches long and in foL 7 7 7*7* 18 “ gross fleshy maas- “uiewhat cylindrical n form but no external organ is visible. The mollusc gluj itself to he rocks at the bottom of the sea, and, as it can only move verv slowly, the Malay divers seize it readily. The greatest merit of l fisherman ,s to have a practised eye, to distinguish the animal n bottom, and to dive directly to the spot where it lies. To pr* we THE OCEAN WORLD. :ioo the fish, the fishermen throw them, while still living, into a cauldron ol boiling sea water, where they are stirred about by means of a long pole, which is supported upon another pole fixed in the earth, but having a forked end, which acts as a lever. In this process the tre- pang gives up all the water it contains, and is withdrawn at the end of two minutes. A man armed with a large knife now extracts the entrails, and it is thrown into a second cauldron, having only a small quantity of water, seasoned with mimosa hark. The object of this second operation is to smoke the animal in order to preserve it the better, for the bark is consumed in the process. The trepang is now placed upon hurdles and dried in the sun. When sufficiently dried, it is stowed away in the hold of the proa. It was about two o’clock in the afternoon when the divers ceased their labours and came ashore. My tent was soon surrounded. I recog- nised the captain of the proa among them who had previously visited me. He approached and examined all the instruments used in the Obser- vatory with great attention, seeking to discover their use. I showed him a gun with percussion cap, which astonished him greatly, especially when I pointed out to him its great superiority over the flint-lock. He assured me that these arms were still unknown in the Celebes, his country ; but he failed to convince me of that. He questioned me as to the places we had visited, and where we were going. I endea- voured to sketch a map of New Holland, New Zealand, and New Guinea upon a leaf. He then took my pencil, and added to it the Indian Archipelago, the coasts of China and Japan, and the Philippine Islands. Surprised, in my turn, I asked him if he had visited all these places. He replied in the negative ; but added that he knew their position perfectly, and could easily take his vessel to any of them. Finally, the interview terminated by his asking for a glass of arrack. I do not know if this intelligent Malay professed the Maho- metan religion, but I do know that he drank half a bottle of wine and a quarter of a pint of arrack without being at all the worse for it. He then offered me some prepared trepang, inviting me to taste it, which I did ; to me it appeared to resemble the lobster in taste. My men liked it, and thankfully accepted the captain’s offer; for my part, I felt an utter repugnance even to taste it. “ According to the account I had from the Malay captain, the price of trepang in the Chinese markets was fifteen rupees, about thirty slid- Plate XI.— Synapta Duverna?a. (Quatrgfages ECIilNODERM ATA . 301 lings, the pekoul, or a hundred and twenty-five pounds. He estimated liis cargo to be worth about a hundred and twenty pounds. The fishing had occupied he and his crew three months. From the earliest times this commerce has belonged exclusively to the Malay fishermen, and it will always be difficult for Europeans to compete with them. The Malay vessels are equipped on the most economical principle, and the men are wanting neither in sobriety, intelligence, or activity. “ It was nearly four o’clock when the Malays finished their operations. In less than half an hour they had embarked their cargo ; the tents were struck, and, together with the boilers, carried back to the boats, which were already preparing to set sail. At eight o’clock in the evening they hoisted sail and left the bay.” Some idea may be formed of the extent and importance of the olothuna fishing by the number of ships which it attracts in this part of the East. Captain King assures us that two hundred vessels annually leave Madagascar to fish for the sea slue,, as it is sometimes called. Captain Flinders, being on the coast of Australia, learnt that a fleet of sixty vessels, having a hundred men on board, had left Madagascar two months previously in the same pursuit. ynong the Holothurias, one particular genus, the Synapta, is distinguished from others of the family by the absence of the arn- bulacral feet, and by the fact of its uniting both senes in one indi- tudua . This remarkable Echinoderm, Synapta duvernea, is repre- sented in Pl XI. M. Quatrefages, who discovered it in the Channel gives the following description of it in his great work, “Le Souvenir! un Naturahste. Imagine,” he says, “ a cylinder of rose-coloured crystal as much as eighteen inches long and more than an inch in diameter taversed m all its length by live narrow ribbons of white silk, and its head surmounted by a living flower, whose twelve tentacles of purest white tall behind in a graceful curve. In the centre of these tissues, which rival in their delicacy the most refined products of the loom, imagine an intestine of the thinnest gauze gorged from one end to the other with coarse grains of granite ; the rugged points and sharp edge of which are perfectly perceptible to the naked eye. ut what most struck me at first in this animal was, that it seemed hteially to have no other nourishment than the coarse sand bv which t was surrounded And then when, armed with scalpel and micro sco,*, I ascertained something of its organisation, what unheard-of 302 THE OCEAN WORLD. marvels were revealed ! 1 n this body, the walls of which scarcely reach the sixteenth part of an inch in thickness, I could distinguish seven distinct layers of tissue, with a skin, muscles, and membranes. Upon the petaloid tentacles, I could trace terminal suckers, which enabled the Synapta to crawl up the side of a most highly polished vase. In short, this creature, denuded to all appearance of every means of attack or defence, showed itself to be protected by a species of mosaic, formed of small calcareous shield-like defences, bristling with double hooks, the points of which, dentated like the arrows of the Caribbeans, had taken hold of my hands.” If one of these Synapta is preserved alive in sea-water for a short time, and subjected to a forced fast, a very strange phenomenon will be observed. The animal, being unable to feed itself, successively detaches various parts of its own body, which it amputates spon- taneously. A great compression or ring is first formed, and then the separation of the condemned part takes place quite suddenly. “ It would appear,” says M. Quatrefages, “ that the animal, feeling that it had not sufficient food to support its whole body, was able successively to abridge its dimensions, by suppressing the parts which it would be most difficult to support, just as we should dismiss the most useless mouths from a besieged city.” This singular mode of meeting a famine is employed by the Synapta up to the last moment. After a few days, in fact, all that remains of the animal is a round ball, surmounted by its tentacles. In order to preserve life in the head, the animal has sacrificed all the other parts of its body. In order to find natural novelties — to find unforeseen subjects of study and reflection, it is not necessary to run over the world or travel great distances. It is only necessary to visit the banks of the nearest river, or descend to the sea shore, and leave the sea to reveal a fragment of the marvels which it conceals in its bosom. MOLLUSCA. The class Mollusca constitute one of the four great divisions of the animal kingdom. In its typical figure, “ the mollusc, as represented ri /* : ’ presents the following parts, and is supposed to be i a era y symmetrical : h, is the haemal parts, in which the heart is situated, commonly called the dorsal part, although the word is used in a different sense in different divisions of the animal kingdom In the same manner the opposite region (n) is not I™ the 6 V6ntra1, the neural Part> in philosophical anatomy 1 Pt;e8Tumt ,chfthe «r °e,,tre8 °f ^ ~ th, nth ?e/Itenmnatl0n W » the anterior or oval part ■ the other end (6), the posterior or anal part : between these surtT « ‘ 6 iDteStineS take a course. Th n „ surface S that upon which the majority of molluscs move and bv these 1 purposes' bv^the* ^for “ r co“mo“ly modified to 'subserve called the foot ie * mUSCular elusion or disk, Med from one upper part of the foot, or middle port- of t tdy 1^' ““ fS 'nt° * “ -a each 304 THE OCEAN WORLD. junction of the haemal with the neural region, the Epipodium (e p). The mass of the body between the foot proper and the part of the abdomen which bears the epipodium may be termed the mid-body, or Mesosoma. On the upper part of the sides of the head are two pairs of organs, namely, the eyes and tentacles. In the haemal region the integument may be modified and raised up into a fold at the edges, either in front or behind the anus. When so modified, it is called a mantle, Pallium. In front of the anus again, the branchiae ( t ) project as processes of the haemal region. Among the internal organs, the heart ( u v) lies in front of the branchiae in the haemal regions, the nervous ganglia (x y z), of which there are three principal pairs, being arranged around the elementary canal which they encircle.” Such is the general type of the class Mollusca, of which, however, the variations are innumerable. They are all soft-skinned animals, without either articulated exterior or annular external skeleton. Their nervous system, being without cerebro-spinal axis, is entirely composed of ganglions, which are all reunited in the oesophagus without consti- tuting in any case a lengthened median chain. Their digestive organs are complete — that is, they are provided with two apertures; their principal organs are symmetrical and according to a plan, usually curving, by which their bodies are divided into two parts. Our limits forbid us to dwell upon the organization, manners, and distribution of these soft flimsy creatures : our object will be to make known, as they come before us, the more curious and important species, following a scientific order conformable to the divisions esta- blished by the best modern naturalists. Molluscs vary so singularly among themselves, that it is difficult to establish unity in their little world. We propose dividing them into two principal series, the first of which establishes in some . sort the passage between the zoophytes, whose history we have just concluded, and the mollusc, properly so called. This first series or subdivision, to which Milne Edwards has given the name of Molluscoida, includes under that term the Bryozoaires, Ascidians, and Tunicata. The Molluscs, properly so called, are grouped into four classes : I. Acephalous Molluscs. II. Gasteropodous Molluscs. III. Ptero- podous Molluscs. IY. Cephalopcdous Molluscs. CHAPTER X. M0LLUSC01DA. “ Nature geometrisetli and observeth order in ail things.” Sin Thomas Browne. The Bryozoaires, or Polyzoa, as British naturalists prefer to call them, form the boundary-line which divides the humble mollusc from the humbler zoophytes. In consequence of this intermediate organi- zation, these creatures were long considered as polypes ; but De Blain- ville, Milne Edwards, and Ehrenberg almost simultaneously began to separate them from the molluscs, and form them into a separate group, subsequent naturalists, while considering the Molluscoida as truly and wholly molluscous, admit that the distinction proposed by the French naturalists are most important, and should be retained as a primary subdivision, confining it to those molluscs which have the neural region comparatively little developed, and the nervous system reduced to a single or at most a pair of ganglia, and the mouth surrounded by a more or leas perfect circlet of tentacles: an arrangement which would include the BracMopoda with the Polyzoa. Marine plants are sometimes observed to be quite covered with a velvety parasitic matter, which may at a first glance be mistaken for a moss Ibis apparent moss, however, is simply an aggregation of animalcules each of which has its separate cell, which is placed quite contiguous to its neighbour. * . ?**“, f0® creatures thus form an entire community. Each cell is formed by the skm which has been encrusted by calcareous salts, or o er organic matter, hardened after the manner of a horn. This kind of shell protects the animal from the attacks of its enemies is mode of retreat at the bottom of a protecting shelter is very frequently adopted m the whole series of molluscs. The oyster shuts x 306 THE OCEAN WORLD. itself up by closing its valves, and the snail retires into its shell. This assemblage of small cells presented by the Bryozoaires has long been known as a poly pier. “ We propose,” says our author, “ with very good reasons, to call it a Testier, or shell-builder.” This testier, in which each cell has its opening, is furnished with a naked cushion, dentate, spinous, or protected by an operculum or lid, and presents itself under every variety of form. It is sometimes an as- semblage of branching tubes, occasionally a rounded mass of spongy appearance, and now it presents itself as a flat lamelliform inarticulated expansion. In some of the marine species the shell of the mussel is covered as with a fine lace. It is a remarkable fact that these cells are not always inert. They seem to enjoy the power of motion. It is well known that the leaves and branches of the sensitive plant ( Mimosa ) contracts and expands under the touch of the finger ; the same phenomenon, according to Mr. Rymer Jones, takes place on touching the cells of certain species *of Bryozoaires. The moment they are touched they quickly incline themselves, and the movement is immediately communicated from one to the other, until all the cells of the community are in motion. Returning to the organization of the little creature which occupies the cell, it is found that the upper and retractile portion, which is of extreme delicacy, terminates anteriorly in a circle of long tentacles, in the centre of which is the mouth. These tentacles are fringed laterally by a series of vibratile cilia. “ When the animal displays itself,” says Fredol, “this circle of microscopic threads of extreme tenuity first show themselves rising from the summit of the cell ; this is followed by the upper part of its body, which is more or less flexible ; the tentacles follow between the threads, pushing them on one side.” These tentacles are furnished on the back with a dozen appendages like very fine hairs, attached to them nearly at right angles, in addition to the lateral cils already spoken of, which play a very important part in the arrangements of most microscopic animals. At the moment when the tentacles appear outside the cell, the tunic of the animalcule, which has the power of expanding or contracting itself, is gradually unrolled. It soon spreads out its pretty little arms, the appendages and cils beginning their rapid vibrations, until the eye, deceived by the 1 rapidity and regularity of their movements, is dazzled, and the beholder j begins to think that he sees rosy drops of dew waving to and fro, molluscoTim. 307 twisting and untwisting themselves. The corpuscles which float round the animal are violently agitated, as if they were under the influence of some strong breeze. Unhappy, indeed, is the fate of the unfortunate infusoria which chance leads at this moment into the fatal circle. In many species, observers have discovered a special organ called the vibracule, which deserves our attention for a moment. It is a hollow filament, situated at the upper and outer angle of each cell, filled with a substance which is at once fibrous and contractile, ad- mitting of some very remarkable movements, which occur regularly, and generally at very short intervals. At first the filament Inclines itself towards the base, trembles, oscillates, and seems to sink ; pre- sently it recovers itself, and inclines in the opposite direction, where it repeats the same operation with the same order and in the same time. “ What are the functions thus performed ?” asks Fredol. “ Are they, we would ask, independent up to a certain point of the will of the Bryozoaire ? What is their purpose ?” We think he answers, “ That this organ serves the purpose of cleansing, and especially that of strengthening, the entrance to the cell.. It even continues its move- ment after the animal has been mutilated or killed. The poor sickly or dead creature continues to be defended by its protecting vibracule.” The prey which is drawn into the vortex by the tentacles and their appendages enters into the mouth, to which is attached a pharynx oesophagus, stomach, and intestines. In the back or hamial region’ not far from the mouth, there is a special opening for this intestine. Respiration is provided for in the Bryozoaires by the ciliate appen- dages which surround the mouth ; they are at once tentacula and branchiae. The animal presents no other trace of organs of the senses. A small ganglion and a few fillets constitute all of the nervous system which can be traced; neither heart nor blood-vessels have been found. The egg, in the case of the Bryozoaires, gives birth to a youn^ animal covered with hams on its surface ; it swims about freely until it has chosen a convenient place in which it can establish the new colony which it is to originate. But this choice is not made for itself alone • the young animal encloses under its hairy envelope two new indi’ v^uals which, young as they are, have already the appearance of adult Bryozoaires At first, these only increase the personnel of the colony by budding, but in a short time they produce eggs. x 2 308 THE OCEAN WOULD. From these remarks it will be seen that the animalcule of the Bryozoaires is more complex in its form and functions than that of the polypier, and the study of their anatomy confirms this conclusion. In their case the digestive organs are no longer a simple sac with a single orifice ; there is a mouth, a pharynx, a gullet, a gizzard, a mem- branous stomach and intestines, with a special opening. We have descriptions of some species in which the gizzard seems to be provided with a certain number of interior teeth forming a wonderful pavement — a living mill for the purpose of grinding the food before it enters into the second stomach. The organization of this small creature reveals to our eyes a wonderful amount of combination — of admirable art immeasurably surpassing all that the most perfect human industry and human genius can accomplish. After this general view of the organization of the group, we shall proceed to introduce the reader to some of their more characteristic species. Under the leaves of water-lilies ( Nymphea ), pond-weed ( Potamo - f/eton), or upon floating fragments of submerged wood, are generally to be found certain Bryozoaires, animals described by Trembley under the name of plumed polypes. These are Plumatellee (Fig. 121). These little diaphanous creatures constitute colonies which under fhe microscope re- semble small branching; shrubs ; they consist of small slender tubes grafted one to the other, and having from forty to sixty retractile tentacula, which expand like the petals of a flower; they are furnished with vibratile cils, the move- ments of which serve the purpose of leading food into Fig. 121. Plumatella cristallina (after Eoesel). . , . the mouth. Another genus which is found in ponds in France, and which is also found in fresh water in Britain, is the C'ristatella of Cuvier. “ Perfect specimens of C. mucella occur from six lines to twenty- four in length by MOLLUSCOIDA. ,30!) two or three in breadth,” says Sir J, G. Dalyel, “ of a flattened figure, fine translucent green colour, and fleshy consistence. Some of the shorter tend to an elliptical form, but those of larger dimensions are linear, with parallel sides and curved extremities. The middle of the upper and the whole of the under surface are smooth, the former somewhat convex, occasioned by a border of seventy or eighty, even up to three hundred and fifty, individual polypi, dispersed in a triple row, their number depending entirely on the size of the specimen. Each of these numerous polypi, though an integral portion of the common mass, is a distinct animal, endowed with separate action and sensation. The body rising about a line above a tubular fleshy stem, is crowned by a head, which may be circumscribed by a circle as much in diameter, ot a horse-shoe shape, and bordered by a hundred tentacula. Towards one side, the mouth, of singular mechanism, seems to have projecting lips and to open as a valve, which folds up within, conveying the particles which are absorbed to the wide orifice of an intestinal organ, which descends, perhaps, in a convolution below ; and returns again, terminating in an excretory canal under the site of the tenta- cula.” The inhabitants ot the colony are then united in great numbers under one common envelope; these are longish filaments of the size of a swan’s feather, re- minding one of the appear- ance of the silk thread known by embroiderers as chenille. The downy appearance is produced by the collection of tentacula belonging to this curious swarm. The filamentous mass is the translucent r. .... tig. 122. Cnstatella mucedo (Cuvier). row ot cells m which these animalcules are lodged, and to which they retreat when disturbed These cells are sometimes free in part, sometimes completely rooted to the stems of aquatic plants. The tentacles are of a fine transparent glass colour, the body being of a brown colour. Fig. 122 represents .Oristatella mucedo, which is common both in this country and in France. 310 THE OCEAN WORLD. Most naturalists have now agreed to place among the Bryozoa certain species of animalcules which long remained imperfectly known. Amongst these are the Flustrct, the Eschara, and other ascidians. The Flustra are marine Bryozoa, whose skin in hardening forms a thin shell of horny or cellular appearance ; their little cells, more or less horny, are grouped symmetrically, somewhat like the cells in a bee-hive. Sometimes they form a crust which covers the algae and other submarine bodies ; sometimes they form ribbon-like stems. In Fig. 123. Flustra foliacea (Llnuteus). some species the cells are only found on one side ; in others it occupies both. Their orifices are extremely small, and defended by spines quite microscopic (Fig. 123). Their tentacles are covered with cils, always vibratile, disposed in a straight line, which in their movements produce the effect which a row of animated pearls might he supposed to produce if rolled upwards from the base to the summit of the organ. The Eschara form leaf-like expansions, the entrance to their cells having also their protecting spines. MOLLUSCOIDA. 311 The expansions still represent microscopic bee-hives, the inhabitants of which enjoy at once a common and an independent existence. As it is with the polypiers, so it is here ; each eats for the benefit of itself and for the community. Labour and nutrition for the community,- labour and food for itself. Probably there reign among the inhabitants of one of these groups sentiments of brotherhood of which we have no idea. Since that which is digested by one of the family is beneficial, up to a certain point, to all, ought there not to be between the diverse individuals, especially between those nearest to each other, a physiological bond, more or less direct, to draw them together— a moral bond, more or less strong ? What strange vitalities, organic combination, to find under the brilliant blue of the ocean ! Tunicata. On seeing one of the luniccitci for the first time, a stranger to zoology would scarcely take them for animals at all. Almost always attached to submarine rocks, these beings have the form of a simple sac. Their skin, gelatinous, horny, or rock-like, is at times covered with marine plants and polypiers. They have neither arms, nor feet, nor head. But then they have a mouth, placed at the entrance of a digestive tube, and, in connection with the latter, a special opening intended for evacuations. The mouth is preceded by a great cavity the walls of which are covered with vessels ; for this cavity is the seat of respiration, and is covered with vibratile cilia. Thus the same canal serves first for respiration, and then, farther on, for digestion : another instance of the economy of Nature. Another remarkable instance of circulation is found : they have a heart, but no head. This heart is the centre of a well-developed vascular system, but veiy unlike what usually obtains. The blood which traverses it takes such a course, that, in the space of a very few minutes, the heart changes its aurical into ventrical and its ventrical into aurical blood At the same time the arteries are changed into veins and the veins into arteries. The consequence is, that the current which traverses these canals changes its direction with each contraction of the heart Simple as is their organization, the Tunicata have a nervous system It is an unique ganglion, connected with divers small fillets The 312 the ocean world. organs of sensation present themselves in a very rudimentary fashion. We find eyes, and, after very minute search, a single ear has been found. They are propagated by budding, and also from eggs. The young are subject to some very curious metamorphoses, some parti- culars of which will be given farther on. The Tunicata are divided into Ascidia and Salpa, to which some naturalists add the JBrachiopoda. Ascidians. ! he Ascidia, from the Greek word da^i^iov, leather bottle, have, as the name indicates, the shape ot a bottle or purse. The analogy becomes Fig. 124. Ascidia mlcrocosmus (Cuvier). more evident when it is considered that these creatures are habitually filled with water, which can he expelled by very slight pressure. The Ascidians are sometimes free, sometimes united to others in a manner more or less intimate. Hence their division into the three groups of simple, social, and composite Ascidians. Simple Ascidians attach themselves, each individual singly, to rocks and other submarine bodies, and generally at a fixed depth. Ascidia microcosrnus, a Mediterranean species, represented in Fig. 124, may he quoted as a type of this division of Ascidians. The vulgar name of Cynthia, or the little world, is probably given from its being in- habited by quite an animated colony of algae and polypiers, which dwell MOLLUSCOlDA. 313 upon its surface, and give it a very peculiar, but not very attractive, ap- pearance. The flavour of these molluscoids is very strong, which does not, however, hinder the poorer dwellers on the sea shore from eating them. The genus Phallusia is another type of the group. Phallusia grossularia is of a reddish colour, and about the size of a currant- berry : it usually lodges itself in the oysters of certain localities. At Ostend another species, Phallusia ampulloides , is found in , prodigious quantities in the oyster parks, and is parasitic on living lobsters. Social Ascidians comprehend living Tunieata, connected together on a common prolongation by the roots, but free and unconnected in all other respects. Ascidici pedunculata (Fig. 125) may be quoted as an example. The Composite Ascidians are still more intimately associated together ; a great number of these little beings live together in a single mass. Such are the Botrylla and the Pyrosoma. The Botrylla is a genera the most interesting of all the groups under considera- tion. Only imagine from ten to twenty individuals, oval in form, more or less flattened, adhering by their dorsal surface to some sub- marine body, and holding on by their sides, so as to form a sort of wheel. “ When we excite one of the branches,” says Fredol, “a single mol- lusc contracts itself; when we touch the centre, they all seem to contract themselves (Cuvier). The buccal orifice is at the outer extremity of the radius ; but the intestinal terminations abut on the K‘K' m' AscilIia pcduncllUta (Milne Edwards). common cavity, which occupies the centre of the wheel. Here we .314 THE OCEAN WORLD. behold certain animals which eat separately, but which fulfill together as a community very singular functions — a kind of union and com- munism of which the moral world presents no prototype. With our molluscs, in place of two individuals united, we have a score. We may consider the entire star as one single animal with many mouths. But then, we have with it a luxury of organs for the function of in- telligence which seeks and chooses, and parsimony of the organ of stupidity, which neither seeks nor chooses.” While the Botrylla is fixed and adherent, the Pyrosoma, on the contrary, is perfectly free. The animal colony which constitutes it floats and balances itself upon the waters, like the sea-pen or the physalia, of which we have spoken in treating of the zoophytes. The name Pyrosoma has been given to these animals in consequence of their brilliant phosphorescent properties. According to the observa- tions of Peron and Lesueur, nothing can exceed the brilliant and dazzling light emitted in the bosom of the ocean by these animals. From the manner in which the colonists dispose themselves, they form occasionally long trains of fire; but it is a singular fact that this phosphorescence presents the same curious characteristics that distinguish the cils of the Beroe ; namely, that the colours vary instantaneously, passing with wonderful rapidity from the most in- ; tense red to yellow, from golden colour to orange, to green, or to azure blue. De Humboldt saw a flock of these brilliant living colonies i floating by the side of his ship, and projecting circles of light having a radius of not less than twenty inches in diameter. He could see by this light the fishes which followed the ship’s track, during many days, at the depth of from two to three fathoms. Bibra, a Brazilian navigator, having caught six Pyrosoma, employed ; them to light up his cabin. The light produced by these little crea- - tures was so bright, that he could read to one of his friends the description he had written of these his living torches. Three species of Pyrosoma are known ; namely, P. elegans, two or three inches in length, which inhabits the Mediterranean ; P. gigantea, | which is found in the same sea. It is a long bluish cylinder, bristling | with tubercles, each of which is the abode of an animal, a citizen of this moving republic, and is attached to its colleagues by means of its 1 gelatinous envelope : an alliance imposed by inexorable Nature a forced species of socialism. MOLLUSCOIDA. 315 The third species, P. atlanticus, was discovered by Peron and Lesueur in the Equatorial seas. These curious Ascidians are so created in rings as to constitute a long fine cylindrical tube, closed at one end and open at the other. By the contraction and dilation of the mass of beings, this great cylinder swims slowly through the open sea, lighting up the ocean with its phosphorescent light, shining through the water like a glowing fire. Mr. Bennett thus describes one of these pelagic appearances : “ On the 8th of June, being then in lat. 30° S. and 27° 5' W. long., having fine weather and a fresh south-easterly trade-wind, and the thermometer ranging from 78° to 84°, late at night the mate of the watch called me to witness a very unusual appearance in the water. This was a broad and extensive sheet of phosphorescence extending horn east to west as far as the eye could reach. I immediately cast the towing-net over the stern of the ship, which soon cleaved through the brilliant mass, the disturbance causing strong flashes of light to be emitted, and the shoal, judging from the time the vessel took in passmg through the mass, may have been a mile in breadth. On taking in the towing-net, it was found half filled with Pyrosoma atlanticus, which shone with a beautiful pale greenish light. After the mass had been passed through by the ship, the light was still seen astern, until it became invisible in the distance, and the ocean became hidden in the darkness as before this took place. “ Tlle seconcl occasion of my meeting these creatures was in a high latitude, and during the winter season. It was on the 19th of August, the weather dark and gloomy, with light breezes from north-north- east^ in lat. 40° 30' S„ and 138’ 3' E. long., at the western entrance o Bass s Straits, and about 8 o’clock p.m., when the ship’s wake was perceived to be luminous, while scintillations of the same light were abundant all round. To ascertain the cause, I threw the towing-net overboard, and in twenty minutes succeeded in capturing several Pyrosoma, which gave out their usual pale green light; and it was no doubt, detached groups of these animals which were the occasion of the light m question. The beautiful light given out by these molluscans soon ceased to be seen; but by moving them about it could be reproduced for some length of time after. The luminosity of the water gradually decreased during the night, and toward morning was no longer seen.” ® 316 THE OCEAN WOULD. The genus Salpa forms another interesting group of Tunicata. The Biphoraor Salpa (Fig. 126) are long transparent threads of the most delicate tissues, composed of rows of individuals placed side by side, and grafted, as it were, transversely : ribbons, in which each animal is grafted end on end to its sister : double parallel chains of social creatures, sometimes alternate, sometimes opposite : living chap- lets, of winch each pearl is an individual. Each individual presents an oblong diaphanous or prismatic body, more or less symmetrical, and often furnished in front, rarely behind, with tentaculiform ap- pendages. So great is the transparency, that the various organs may be observed through the skin as they perform their several functions. An ancient philosopher thought it a subject of regret that Nature had not thought of piercing the body with an opening sufficiently Fig. 126. Salpa maxima (Forsk). large for each one to see what was passing in the interior. The creature which now occupies our attention would surely have satisfied the demands of our critic : its body is, metaphorically speaking, a house of glass. In order to move itself, the Salpa has recourse to a singular artifice. It introduces water into its body through a posterior opening, furnished with a valve, which it expels by an anterior outlet situated near the mouth. It is thus pushed backwards, and swims, as it were, by recoil. Moreover, it swims with its belly upwards. All the elements of a chain of Salpas act in concert ; they contract and dilate simultaneously ; they advance as a single individual. One of them floats on the surface with the undulations of a serpent , so that, among sailors, they have gained the appellation of sea-serpents. These long, living trains abound in the Mediterranean, principally towards the African coast, MOLLUSCOIDA. MIT find m the Equatorial seas. They are inhabitants of the open sea, and live immerged at considerable depths ; but when the nights are calm they show themselves on the surface. As they spread them- selves abroad with a strong phosphorescent light, they resemble long ribbons ot fire, unrolling their long waving lines in spite of the waves, as in Fig. 127. What wonders they see who go down into the great deep ! What sights are reserved for the navigator who traverses the Tiopical seas during the silence of night ! When a chain of Salpas is drawn from the water, the rings separate, Fig. 127. Phosphorescent chain of Salpas on the surface of the sea. The social bond has been and they can no longer be made to adhere, dissolved by superior order. Salpas are sometimes met with, isolated and solitary, whose exterior oonlormatlon differs much from that which is proper to the connected &1^; so different, urdeed, that it might iloig to another t ™ But the observations of Chamisso, of Krohn, and of Milne Edwards' are revealed some very remarkable facts. By dint of time natie ’ and sagacity, these observers hove ascertained that the Binlm™*’ Viviparous, and that each species is propagated by alternate generation" the young creature being unlike it, immediate parent One If t generations is represented by the solitary individuals, the other by “ 318 THE OCEAN WOIIL1). aggregation of individuals. Each solitary Biphora engenders a new group — a chain ; each constituted member of the chain engenders a solitary Salpa. Thus a Salpa is not organized like its mother or daughter, but rather like its sister, its grandmother, or granddaughter — another example of alternate generation, which has already been discussed in treating of zoophytes. Those marine creatures which pass their lives in a forced community — animals which eat, sleep, or rest always in company — who abandon themselves together to the soft caresses of the waves, — these colonies, or, rather, republics of animals, leading constantly the same mono- tonous existence, — reveal to us very strange things : an identical com- munity of sentiments in a crowd of beings riveted by the same chain — a chain at once physical, intellectual, and moral ! He who has never brought his attention to bear upon the history of the inferior animals is a stranger to many surprising mysteries ; in short, the study of natural history is the best means of adding to and extending the knowdedge and ideas of the young. CHAPTER XI. acephalous mollusca. “ Sigillatim mortales, cunctum perpetui.” Apur.r.rus. We reach here the true Mollusca. The transition condition of the MoUnscorda has prepared ns the better to comprehend the nature and habits of the molluscs, properly so called. The name Mollusca indicates the characters which most struck the ancients : they are soften Latin, moUe, ; their flesh is cold, humid and viscous. In consequence of their very softness, they are generally furnished with an apparatus of defence or protection, in the shape of « rrir T’ cf ed ,a t? or ** A°“rdins *» the IS a coat ot mail, a buckler, or a tower. The mollusc is thus armed and defended against all attacks from without, nearly after the nmf, ‘ of the m;df ages; W « »»: q to shut up in his armour, while the mollusc is attached to it by “rga“CT ta,dVS“h * Kfe such a habitation f , J , .t- In no otller creature is there the same identity tWiTS ^ “habltant and the nesi D>awn from its own substance ltd Vh C°f™at‘on of ito rauntle. It follows its form edifice. ' “ commuDicaM &> own substance to the is tsTh6«SW 1 °ftb!MolIn8Jca has been variously appreciated by natural- ists. We might regard the shell as the bone nf , T ! occupies it," says a <*lebrated French naturalist ; and then “7 pression to a very different view “ Wo ° ves ex~ that testaceous molluscs are animals with out on the externa, surface in place of the ^1 320 THE OCEAN WORLD. mifera, birds, reptiles, and fishes. In the case of the superior animals the hones lie in the depths of the body ; in the shelled Mollusca the hones are placed on the superficies. It is the same system reversed.” Other zoologists reject as altogether untenable this assimilative theory. “ The shell which serves as a dwelling and a shelter cannot,” say these authors, “ he considered as a skeleton, because it does not assume the external form of the animal ; because it does not attach itself to the organs of locomotion ; and, finally, because it is the product of secretion, which increases in proportion to the development of the body itself.” This last opinion appears to us to be the most acceptable. However that may be, from the immense variety of form and size, from the beauty and brilliancy of their colours, the shells of the mol- luscs are among the most attractive objects of natural history. Nor is it from their beauty alone that a fine collection of shells becomes interesting : a living creature has inhabited the shell, a creature which in its organization and its life, above all, by its habits, excites in a high degree our interest, curiosity, and admiration. It has been said that the shell “ is like a medal struck by the hand of Nature to commemo- rate climates.” In short, the waters of different regions of the globe, whether fresh or salt, are characterised by the presence of particular shells ; moreover, the comparison of living shells with those which lie in a fossilized state buried in the depths of the soil, is a most important element of our knowledge touching the origin of the different beds out of which our globe is constituted. Thus, we must not shut our eyes to these beings, in appearance so miserable and obscure, if we would possess a general knowledge of the animal kingdom. The Creator has endowed them with many won- derful gifts to embellish their lives, and who would dare to disregard them ? Who could examine and compare their structure without being charmed with the study ? Man, who descends into the depths of the earth in search of the precious metals — who dives into the deep in pursuit of the treasures it conceals — who stoops his head over works of art — would surely not refuse to bend himself for a moment to the sand of the sea, to gather in his hand, to bring nearer to his eyes, these marvellous works of the Divine Creator ! The true molluscs are divisible into two great classes : the Ace- phalous, or Headless, and those having a head of structure more or less perfect, which are called Cephalous Molluscs. ACEPHALOUS MOLLUSCA. 321 The Acephalous or Headless Molluscs are so called from the Greek a, privative, and KecftaXrj, head. They have no head ; the body is surrounded by the folds of the skin ; the shell consists of two valves. Such is a summary description of all the Acephalous Molluscs. They are sometimes naked, and sometimes enclosed in a shell or test, whence they are known as Testaceous Molluscs. They are called bivalves, because their shell consists of two halves, or valves united by a hinge. They are sheltered in this double carapace as a book is in its cover. Although they have no head, they can feed themselves ; they have feeling of some sort, and they reproduce their kind. They have friendships and enmities, perhaps even passions ; probably these are not veiy lively, for most of them scarcely ever change their place, even to make the least movement. Many of them remain fixed to the rock on which they were hatched, and tumultuous sensations are not quite compatible with immobility. The bivalves are found in every sea. The shell of the bivalve is ovoid, globulous, trigonal, heart-shaped, elongated like a pea-pod, or flat like the leaves of a tree, having an opening down the ventral side. In some one leaf is flat, the other round and swelling in the centre. The shell is thus an outer envelope, consisting of two pieces, more or less corresponding to each other in size and shape (of which the oyster is an example), formed of carbonate of lime deposited in membranous cells in its outer layers, the inner layers being composed of thin coat- ings of lime deposited in the outer surface of the tissue, called the mantle-leaves. The valves are united to the animal by the insertion of certain muscles, and by the horny epidermis of the mantle which stretches over the edge of the valves. The hinge and ligament which unite the two valves consist of a dense elastic substance, somewhat resembling india-rubber ; the hinge is formed of teeth, and cavities into which the teeth fit. The ligament acts in opposition to certain con- ractile muse es within, which draw them together, and is placed either within or without the hinge, or partly both. On separating the valves the two leaves of the mantle present themselves. These are thin delicate leaves, famished at the margin with sensitive tentacles and other organs of sense, and with glands sometimes highly coloured The use of these organs is thus described by Mr. Eymer Jones ■— “When the animal is engaged in increasing the dimensions of its Y 322 THE OCEAN WORLD. abode, the margin of the mantle is protruded and firmly adherent all round to the circumference of the valve with which it corresponds. Thus circumstanced, it secretes calcareous matter and deposits it upon the extreme edge of the shell, when the secretion hardens and becomes converted into a layer of solid testaceous substance. At intervals this process is repeated, and every newly- formed layer enlarges the dia- meter of the valve. The concentric strata thus deposited remain dis- tinguishable externally, and thus the lines of growth marking the progressive increase of size may easily he traced.” “ While the margin of the mantle is thus the sole agent in enlarging the circumference of the shell,” the professor continues farther on, “its growth in thickness is accomplished by a secretion of a kind of calcareous varnish derived from the external surface of the mantle generally, which, being deposited layer by layer over the whole inte- rior of the previously existing shell, progressively adds to its weight and solidity. There is, however, a remarkable difference in character between the material secreted by the marginal fringe and that fur- nished by the general surface of the mantle membrane. The former we have found more or less covered by glands appointed for the pur- pose, situated in the circumference of the mantle ; but as these glands do not exist elsewhere, no colouring matter is ever mixed with the layers that increase the thickness of the shell, so that the latter always remain of a delicate whitish hue, and form the well known iridescent material usually distinguished by the name of nacre or mother-of-pearl.” ( General Outline, p. 385.) The process by which shells attain their beautiful markings is thus described by Mr. Jones : — “ The external surface is exclusively depo- sited by the margin of the mantle, which contains in its substance certain coloured spots, which are found to be of a glandular character, and to owe their peculiar character to a pigment they secrete, wThich is mixed with the calcareous matter ; coloured lines are therefore found on the exterior of the shell wherever these glandular organs exist. Where the deposition of colour is kept up throughout the process of enlargement, the lines are unbroken and perfect ; but where the coloured matter is furnished only at intervals, spots and patches of irregular form and increasing in size with the enlargement of the mantle are the consequence.’’ Bivalves move about and change from place to place by means of ACEPHALOUS MOLLUSCA. 32.1 an extensible fleshy organ called, from some of its functions, a foot ; in fact, it has less resemblance to a foot than to a large tongue. It is a muscular mass, capable of being pushed out from between the mantle and the valves, and varies much in form ; it is in turn a hatchet, a ventilator, a pole, an awl, a finger, and a sort of whip. This foot is simple, forked, or fringed. In some species the tissues are spongy, and capable of receiving considerable quantities of water. When the organ swells, it is elongated and stiff ; on the other hand, by suddenly ex- pelling all the water, it gets small and pliable, and can now return to its shell. This organ is represented in Fig. 128 (Donax trunculus, mm), m which it is singularly developed. This bivalve is found on the sea shore in shallow water; it buries itself almost perpen- dicularly m the sands. They are so abundant on the French side of the Channel and on the shores of the Mediterranean, that they form a considerable portion of the people’s food. These bivalves have the 128. Donax trunculus (Limueus). Singular power ol leaping to a considerable height and then throwing themsdves to a cbstance of ten or twelve inches-a spectacle which may be witnessed any day at low water. When abandoned by the order to® 1 ’ ** ‘° ^ ^ If seizek“- lenoth et 1 , , TX “ gl“ly triang"lar and compressed; its ength exceeds its height; it is regular, univalve, unequally lateral and its hinge bears three or four teeth on each valve. The action of these feet is very simple, and is compared by Reaumur to t hat o a man placed on h.s belly who, stretching out one hand, seizes „p„n some fixed object, and draws himself towards it. There is iust this difference, that the movement of the member in the mollusc is altogether contractile. ls The molluscs exist in such numbers that our space only permits l 2 324 THE OCEAN WORLD. us to describe a few families, or rather types of families, such as the Oyster, Ostrea; the Mussel, Mytilus ; the Tridacna; the Cockle, Cardium ; and the Ship Worm, Teredo. 1. The Ostreadie form a small group of Acephalous Mollusca, which includes the Oyster, Ostrea spondtjlus, the Pedens, the Hammerheads, Malleus, and the Pintadines, Meleagrina. 2. The Mytilid.e or Mussels are the type of another family, among which the ham-shaped Pinna, the Anodonta, and Unio, are the most remarkable members. 3. The Tridacna stand alone and unrivalled in respect to size, being much used in Pom an Catholic churches to hold the holy water ; hence their French name Benitier. 4. The Yenereda; (Cockles) constitute with Donax, Tellina, and Venus one important family. 5. The Pholadie (Borers) are a redoubtable family of destroyers, of which the Teredo, Solen, and Pliolas are distinguished members. OsTREADiE. The shell of the oyster we need not dwell upon ; it is the one bivalve universally known. It is unequally valved, modified in shape by the form of the submarine body to which it happens to be attached. The lower or adherent valve is concave, always the largest ; the upper one thin, usually flat ; the shell is lamellar, rough externally, and seems to be composed of broken leaves, adhering slightly to each other, as if the successive leaves had been built up from within, and each succeeding layer was an enlargement upon its predecessor. The hinge which unites the valves is an elastic toothless ligament placed behind the centre, which opens the valves. The interior surface of the valves is smooth and white, diaphanous or pearly towards the centre, but near the back an oval or rounded impression may be observed, to which a thick and whitish fleshy body is attached. This is the central muscle which draws the valves toge- ther, hermetically closing them upon the animal. This muscle is cut through in the process of opening the oyster. The animal has no power of locomotion ; its foot is very small and often wanting, no syphon, hut lies with its mouth open, and slightly attached to the shell. The shell itself is always adherent, as if sol- OSTllEADiE. 325 dered to the rock or other submarine body, the point of adherence being near the summit of the' lower valve, at the part called the lieel. Let us suppose the oyster opened by the double dissection of the ligament ot the central muscle and of the adductor valves. When displayed before our eyes, we see in the bottom of the shell a flattened shapeless animal, semi-transparent, greyish, and somewhat oval- shaped. The gastronomist, who seldom sees beyond his nose, thinks that in spite of its culinary merits the oyster belongs to the lowest lank ol animal existence ; but he deceives himself, and does not know how complex and delicate is the organization of the humble bivalve. Ihe animal is enveloped in a sort of smooth, thin, contractile tissue called the mantle, which folds round it, presenting two lobes, separated on the greatest part of its circumference, and forming a sort of hood, the summit of which abuts upon the hinge of the bivalve. The edges of this mantle are fringed with very small cilia, which the creature can extend and draw back at pleasure, and which seem to he gifted with a certain amount of sensibility. It is this mantle which secretes and deposits the calcareous matter which forms the shell, each plate of which is an enlargement on the preceding one, until it constitutes a pyramid of thin convex lamellae. At the point where the lobes of the mantle meet, near the summit ot the valve, is the mouth of the animal, with its thin membranous bps. This organ is large and dilatable, and is accompanied by four flat triangular pieces, by means of which the animal introduces its lood into the stomachal cavity. A very short gullet is attached to the mouth, which leads to a pear-shaped stomach. After this stomach comes a slender sinuous intestine, which, leading obliquely towards the anterior, descends a little, then reascends, passes behind the stomachal cavity, nearly on a level with the mouth, crossing its first path in order to reach the posterior face of the adductor muscle, in the centre of which it terminates with a free opening. The stomach and intestines are surrounded on all sides by the liver, which alone constitutes a notable portion ol the mass of organs. This liver is of a blackish colour pervaded with a deep yellow liquid, which is the bile. Thus the stomach and intestines of the oyster are surrounded by the liver • tb mouth is connected with the stomach, and the intestines open in the 32G THE OCEAN WORLD. The heart of the oyster is placed under the liver, and is surrounded closely by the terminal part of the intestines. It is composed, like the same organ in the superior animal, by two distinct cavities, an auricle and ventricle. From the ventricle issues a vessel, which is divided into three distinct canals. One of these carries the blood towards the mouth and tentacles ; another carries it towards the liver ; the last distributes the nourishing fluid to the rest of the body. The blood of the oyster is limpid and colourless ; it passes successively from the auricle of the heart, where it is vivified, into the ventricle, and from this last cavity into the great vessel of which we spoke, which distributes it into the interior of the animal. The oyster thus possesses a true circulation; not that double system which characterises the mammals, and which includes arterial and pulmonary action, but a simple circulation, as it exists in fishes and many other animals. It breathes also in the bottom of the water, after the manner of fishes, being, like the fish, provided with organs called gills or branchial, whose function is to separate the oxygen dis- solved in the water from its other ingredients ; these branchiae, which are placed under the mantle, consist of a double series of very delicate canals, placed close together, not unlike the teeth of a fine comb. Having no head, the oyster can have no brain ; the nerves originate near the mouth, where a great ganglion is visible, whence issues a pair of nerves which distribute themselves in the regions of the stomach and liver, terminating in a second ganglion, situated behind the liver. The first nervous branch distributes its sensibility to the mouth and tentacles ; the second, to the respiratory branchiae. With organs of the senses oysters are unprovided. Condemned to a sedentary life, riveted to a rock where they have been rooted, as it were, in their infancy, they neither see nor hear ; touch appears to be their only sense, and that is placed in the tentacles of the mouth. The mode of reproduction in these creatures is very peculiar. The oyster unites in itself the functions of both sexes. In the same organ are found the eggs— called spat — and the mobile corpuscles intended to fertilize them. The oyster is hermaphrodite. The eggs are yellowish in colour, and exist in prodigious numbers in each individual. We are assured that an oyster may carry as many as two millions of eggs ! Nature always makes ample provision for the preservation of species ; but in spite of the most ample provision OSTEEAD^E. 327 here displayed, man, in his reckless and wasteful gluttony, has all but defeated Nature. A tyro can compute how many individuals a bank ot oysters reckoned at twenty thousand would produce, at the rate of two millions, or eight hundred thousand as other authorities assert, trorn each one annually, and it will amount to an incredible number — in fact, each would multiply itself by millions in three years ; and yet, thanks to our improvident management, they get scarcer every year. The spawning season is usually from the month of June to the end of September : during this season the oysters deposit them eggs in the folds of the mantle. During the period of incubation the eggs remain surrounded by mucous matter, which is necessary to their develop- ment, the whole having the appearance of a thick cream — this milky appearance being due to the accumulated mass of ova surrounded by the mucus : this mass undergoes various changes of colour while losing its fluidity, becoming successively yellowish, greyish, brown, and violet, a condition which indicates the near termination of the embryo state,5 for the oysters do not, like many other inhabitants of the sea, leave their ova ; they incubate them in the folds of their mantle, and only discharge them when they can live without the maternal protection. Nothing is more curious to witness than a bank of oysters at the spawning season. Every adult individual of which it is composed throws out its phalanx of progeny. A living dust is seen to exhale from the oyster bank, troubling the water and giving it a thick cloudy appearance, which disseminates itself little by little in the liquid, until it dissipates and loses itself far from its focus of production. The spat is soon scattered far and wide by the waves ; and unless the young oyster finds some solid body to which it can attach itself, it falls an inevitable victim to the larger animals which prey upon them. In this its infant state, when it has just left the protection of the parent shell, the microscope reveals the young bivalve, with its shell perfect, Inning an apparatus which is also a swimming pad, readv to adhere to the first solid body which the current drives it against. This pad or cushion (which is represented in Fig. 129) is fur- nished with vibratile ciliaj, disposed round the young shell. Aided by the powerful adductor muscles, with which it is also provided this cushion is projected through the water at the will of the youn- inhabitant, which has every facility for the purpose : it is even said to swim about near the mother, before final dismissal from the maternal THE OCEAN WORLD. 328 protection, seeking shelter at the least alarm between the valves of the parent shell. The pad disappears after the young oyster has finally attached itself to a permanent bed of its own. Before this period of its life arrives, however, many are the dangers to which it is exposed : its enemies are numerous ; they he in ambush for it in every cranny ! It has to guard itself against eddies and currents which would drive it out to sea, and mud banks in which it would be smothered. Crustaceans, worms, and polypes, with other equally voracious marine inhabitants, prey upon it. Last, but not least, come the teirible and multiplied engines ot the eager fisherman and we readily comprehend why the oyster is provided with such accumulated masses of ova. If the young bivalve is fortunate enough to escape all the snares and dangers we have enumerated, it grows rapidly. It is quite micro- scopic at the period of its discharge from the parent shell ; at one month it is of the size of a large pea, at the end of six months it is about three- quarters of an inch, a year after its birth an inch and a half to two inches, Fig. 129. Young Oysters furnished with locomotive organs. finally at th end of three years it has become merchandise ; that is to say, it is in a state to be sent to the parks for preservation and feeding. In Fig. 130 we see a group of oysters* of various ages, attached to a piece of wood : a being oysters of twelve to fifteen months, b five or six months, c three to four months, d one to two months, and e oysters twenty days after birth. The species of oysters usually eaten are the common oyster ( Ostrea eclulis, Linn.) of our own coasts and the opposite shore, and the horsefoot oyster ( 0 . hippopus, Linn.). On the Mediterranean coast are the rose-coloured oyster ( 0 . rosacea , Favanue), and the milky * We give this illustration as representing the comparative size of the oysters at different ages ; but it is necessary to state that the specimens were artificially attached to the block by means of glue for exhibition. Oysters always attach themselves by the back of the rounded shell near to the hinge, as stated at p. 324. OSTREAD/E. 329 oyster ( 0 . lacteola, Moquin), besides the small and little-known crested oyster ( 0 . cristata, Born), and the folded oyster (0. plicata, Chemnitz). On the Corsi- can coast is the oyster called foliate ( 0. lamellosa, Brocchi). There are two principal varieties of the common oyster dredged for on the French coast, which differ in size and deli- cacy of flavour. These are the Cancale and Ostend oyster. When the first has been fed for some time in the oyster park, and has assumed its greenish hue, it is designated the Marenna oyster, from the park SO named 1 '8 13U' Gr0Ups of 0ysterH of different ages attached to a block of wood. m the Bay of Seudre Of this green colour we shall speak elsewhere. geographical distribution of oysters is universal ; wherever there is a sea-board they abound. Who believed Uncle Jack when he told us in our youth of oysters growing on trees, and oysters so lame that ‘hey required to be carved like a round of beef— of oysters on the oromandel coast as large as soup-plates ? Nevertheless Uncle 330 THE OCEAN WORLD. Jack s stories were true : there are oysters which require carving, and oysters have been plucked off trees. In some parts of America they grow very large. Virginia possesses nearly two million acres of oyster-beds. The sea-board of Georgia is famed for its immense supplies ; the whole coast of Long Island, extending to a hundred and fifteen miles, is occupied with them, and all over the States evidence is to he seen of the estimate in which the favoured bivalve is held by the American people. Natural oyster-beds are found in bays, estuaries, and other sheltered sinuosities of the coast, with shelving and not too rocky bottoms, such places being, according to the natural law of production, favour- able for the increase of the colony. Such hanks abound in every sea. In France the oyster-beds of Rochelle, of Rochefort, the Isles of Re and Oleron, the Bay of St. Brieuc, of Cancale, and Granville, are famous for the quality of their produce. On the Danish coast there are from forty to fifty oyster-hanks, situated on the west coast of Schleswig ; the best bed lying between the small Isles of Sylt, Amron, Fohr, Pelworm, and Nordstrand. At the point of J utland, and opposite Shagen, beds less productive are found. The great oyster-beds of England extend from Gravesend, in the estuary of the Thames and Medway, along the Kentish coast on the one hand, and the estuary of the Colne and other rivers on the Essex coast. The Frith of Forth is also famous for its oyster-beds, extending from Preston Pans, famous for its “ Bearded Pandores,” far up the estuary of the river ; hut, curiously enough, all these great banks, without ex- ception, have been impoverished, and all hut exhausted, by improvident dredging, in spite of the “ close season ” which has always existed.* “ He was a hold man who first ate an oyster,” has been said before. The name of the courageous individual has not been recorded, but Mr. Bertram, in his “ Harvest of the Sea,” tells us a legend concerning him : “ Once upon a time,” — it must have been a long time ago, — “ a man of melancholy mood was walking by the shores of a picturesque estuary, listening to the monotonous murmur of the sad sea-waves, * A friend, thoroughly conversant with the subject, protests against this charge against dredging. “ The real reason of the diminution of their productiveness,” he says, “ is that from various causes (of which unsuitable temperature is bcdieved to be the chief) there has, for some years, been no spat.” 0STREAD2E. 331 when he espied a very old and ugly oyster-shell all coated over with parasites and sea-weeds. It was so unprepossessing that he kicked it with his foot, and the animal, astonished at receiving such rude treatment on its own domain, gaped wide with indignation, prepara- tory to closing its bivalve still more tightly. Seeing the beautiful cream-coloured layers that shone within the shelly covering, and fancying that the interior of the shell itself must be beautiful, he lifted up the aged £ native ’ for further examination, inserting his finger and thumb within the valves. The irate mollusc, thinking, no doubt, that this was meant as a further insult, snapped its pearly door down upon his finger, causing him considerable pain. After releasing his wounded digit, our inquisitive gentleman very naturally put it in his mouth. « Delightful !’ exclaimed he, opening wide his eyes ; ‘ what is this ?’ and again he sucked his finger. Then the great truth flashed upon him that he had found out a new delight— had, in fact, achieved the most important discovery ever made. He proceeded at once to realise the thought. With a stone he opened the oyster’s stronghold, and gingerly tried a piece of the mollusc itself. ‘Deli- cious!’ he exclaimed, and there and then, with no other condiment than its own juice, with no accompaniment of foaming brown stout or pale Chablis to wash it down, no newly-cut, well-buttered brown blnqu t ’’ tLat S°lltaiy anonymous man inaugurate the first oyster Another story makes the act of eating the first oyster a punish- ment. liie poetaster also had his views on the subject : The man had sure a palate covered o'er With brass, or steel, that on the rocky shore First broke the oozy oyster’s pearly coat, And risked the living morsel down his throat.” Ami ever since men have gone on eating oysters. Emperors and poets princes and priests, pontiffs and statesmen, orators and painters have feasted on the favoured bivalve. 1 ’ Man has made use of the oyster from the most remote antiquity Among the ddbns of festivals which precede by ages the epoch of wntten history, oyster-shells are found. On the “midden heaps” of northern Europe they are often discovered, mingling with other rubbish and with stone implements, evidently the refuse of very ancient feasts. We have all read of the classic feasts of the Romans, wCh 832 THE OCEAN WOULD. began with oysters brought from fabulous distances. Vitellius ate oysters all day long, and the idea prevailed that he could eat a thousand. Calisthenes, the philosopher, was a passionate oyster eater, so was Caligula; Seneca the wise could eat his hundred, and the great Cicero did not despise the savoury bivalve. Lucullus had sea- water brought to his villa from the shores of the Campania, in which he bred them in great abundance for the use of his guests. To another Eoman, Sergius Orata, we owe the original idea of the oyster-park. He invented the oyster-pond, in which he bred oysters, not for his own table, but for profit. Among modern celebrities whose love of oysters is recorded, we may mention Louis XL, who feasted the learned doctors of the Sorbonne once a year on oysters. Another Louis invested his cook with an order of nobility, in reward for his skill in cooking them. Cervantes loved oysters, although he satirized oyster dealers. Marshal Turgot used to eat a hundred or two just to whet his appetite. Kousseau, Helvetius, Diderot, the Abbe Eaynal, and Voltaire, are recorded lovers of oysters. Danton, Bobespierre, and other of the revolutionists, frequented the oyster salons of Paris. Cambaceres was famous for his oyster feasts, and it is recorded of the great Napoleon that he always partook of the bivalve on the eve of his great battles, when they could be procured. In short, it has been demonstrated as a gastronomic truth that there is no feast worthy of a connoisseur where oysters do not come to the front. It is their office to open the way by that gentle excitement which prepares the stomach for its sublime function, digestion ; in a word, the oyster is the key of that paradise called appetite. “ There is no alimentary substance, not even excepting bread, which does not produce indigestion under given circumstances,” says Beveille-Parise, but oysters never. This is an homage which is due to them : “ We may eat them to-day, to-morrow, eat them always, and in profusion, without fear of indigestion.” Dr. Grastaldi could swallow, we are assured, his forty dozen with impunity — quite a bank must he have eaten. He was unfortunately struck with apoplexy at table before a pate cle foie gras. Montaigne quaintly says, to be subject to colic, or deny oneself j oysters, presents two evils to choose from, since one must choose between the two, and hazard something for his pleasure. OSTREADiE. . England has always been famous for its oysters, and its pearls are said to have been the chief incentive to Caesar’s invasion. It is not, there- fore, to be supposed that British magnates could be indifferent to the “ native.” But the bivalve has perhaps been more celebrated, in prose and verse, north of the Tweed than south, where silent enjoyment is more relished than noisy demonstration. Dugald Stewart, Hume, Cullen, and other Scotch philosophers of the last centuries, had their “ oyster ploys ” as an accompaniment to their “ high jinks,” in the quaint and dingy taverns of the old town of Edinburgh ; and what the bivalve has been to modern celebrities let the Nodes Ambrosianae tell. The oyster may thus be said to be the palm and glory of the table. It is considered the very perfection of digestive aliment. From Stock- holm to Naples, from London to St. Petersburg, it is always in re- quest. At St. Petersburg they cost a rouble (nearly one shilling), and at Stockholm fivepence each. For the last year or two the English amphitryon must pay from two shillings to half a crown a dozen for choice natives. For his daily nourishment a man of middle size requires a quantity of food equal to twelve ounces of dry azotic substance. According to this calculation, it would be necessary to swallow sixteen dozen of oysters to make up the necessary quantity. The small proportion of nutritive matter explains the extreme digestibility of the oyster. It also explains the immense CQnsumption of them attributed to the Emperor Vitellius. The oyster is nothing more than water slightly gelatinized. Without this Vitellius, all emperor and master of the world as he was, never could have absorbed twelve hundred oysters bv way of whetting his appetite. The gourmets were long of opinion that the quadrangular jmd or cushion in the bivalve was the most savoury and exciting part. Certaiu distinguished amateur performers adopted and proclaimed the principle of dividing transversely the body of the mollusc, and eating the cushion only. Natural history explains this gastronomical discovery. It recognises the fact that the bile secreted by the liver is contained in this substance, that it accelerates while it exhausts the qualitative surface of the tongue and palate, aiding also the functions of the stomach. We have described the organization of the oyster, and we have said 334 THE OCEAN WORLD. something of the enjoyment it confers. Did it ever occur to the various Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to corn sider whether the oyster might not be a very proper object of their care ? Let us see if we can bridge over the gulf. We commence operations upon them by dragging them violently from their own element. We place them out afterwards in water-parks, more or less briny and unsuitable, filled with villanous green matter, ulnch presently pervades their breathing apparatus, impregnating, obstructing, and colouring it; the oyster swells, fattens, and soon attains that state of obesity which verges on sickness. When the poor creature has attained its livid green colour, it is fished up a second time. Alas! it is now doomed neither to return to the sea, to the park, nor to its native rock. It has water at its disposal only in the very small quantity which it can retain between its two valves, a quantity scarcely sufficient to keep away asphyxia. It is shut up in an obscure narrow basket— an ignoble prison-house, without door or window. It seems to be forgotten that they are animals : they are piled upon the pavement like inert mer- chandise. The basket is carried by railway ; the animal, shaken out of existence almost, is at last landed at the door of some oyster-shop ; and this is the critical moment for the poor bivalve ! It is thrown into a tub with clean water enough to remind it of its former luxurious life, when it is again seized by the pitiless being who is now its fate. With a great knife he brutally opens the shell, cuts through the muscle by which it adheres to the valve, and violently detaches it, after breaking the hinges. It is now laid out on a plate, exposed to every current of air, and in this state of suffering it is carried to the table. There the pitiless gourmet powders it over with the most pungent pepper, squeezes over the wounded and still bleeding body the abomination of its race in the shape of citric or malic acid or vinegar, and then, alas ! with a silver knife which cannot cut, he wounds and bruises it a second time ; or, worse still, he saws and tears and rends it from its remaining shell ; he seizes it with a three-pronged fork, which is driven through liver and stomach, and throws it into his mouth, where the teeth cut, crush, and grind it, and, while still living j and palpitating, reduced to an inanimate mass, these organs first tritu- rate it, while our gourmet is drinking its blood, its fat, and its bile. We have said that oysters have no head, no arms — that they are Plate XU. — Dredging for Oysters. OSTKEAD/E. 335 without eyes (although that is disputed), without ears, and without nose ; that they do not stir — that they never cry ! Agreed, perfectly agreed ; but all these negatives do not prevent its being sensible to pain. Two eminent Germans, Herren Brandt and Batzeburg, have proved that they possess a well-developed nervous system, and if they possess sensation they must suffer. “ Can an animal with nerves be impassible ?” asks Voltaire. “ Can we suppose any such impossible contradiction in Nature ?” There is consolation, however, for all concerned. Let the humani- tarian fishermen, oyster-dredgers, merchants, and consumers, console themselves with the vast difference between the helpless imperfect mollusc and the higher classes of animals. In the case of the former ve swallow the animal, scarcely thinking of its animal nature. It is the denizen of another element, lives in a medium in which we cannot exist, presents itself in a form, so to speak, degraded — an obscure vitality, motions undecided, and habits scarcely discernible. We may therefore see the oyster mutilated, mutilate them oneself, grind them, and swallow them, without emotion or remorse. A learned naturalist dwelling on the sea shore possessed himself one day of a dozen oysters. He wished to study their organization ; he turned them, and turned them again, examined their several parts inside and out. He made drawings of and described them, and, having satisfied himself that he had exhausted Science in observing, he swallowed them ; the interesting bivalves had lost nothing of their excellence, and the examination did not prejudice the consummation. Oyster fishing is pursued in a very different manner in different countries. Bound Minorca, divers, with hammers attached to the right hand, descend to the depth of a dozen fathoms, and bring up in their left hand as many of the bivalves as they can carry, two fisher- men, usually associating for the purpose, diving alternately until the boat is filled. On the English and French coasts the dredging machine is employed, as represented in Pl. XII. This operation is necessary to keep down vegetation, which would stifle the oysters ; the engine is of iron and is very heavy. It is thrown overboard, and descends to the bottom of the sea, which it ploughs and scrapes up, detaching the oysters, and throwing them into a net attached to the dredger. In this process oysters, large and small, are torn from their native bed, some 336 THE OCEAN WORLD. going into the net, but a larger number, old and young, are torn from 1 their native bed, and buried in the mud. It would be difficult to imagine a more destructive process ; and when the habits of the oyster ; are considered, it is evidently one admirably contrived to destroy the race. In France oyster dredging is conducted by fleets of thirty or forty . boats, each carrying four or five men. At a fixed hour, and under the i surveillance of a coastguard in a pinnace bearing the national flag, the flotilla commences the fishing. In the estuary of the Thames the practice is much the same, although no official surveillance is observed. Each bark is provided with four or five dredges, resembling in shape Fig. 131. Drag-net employed in Oyster fisheries. a common clasp purse. It is formed of network, with a strong iron frame, as represented in Fig. 131, the iron frame serving the double purpose of acting as a sucker, and keeping the mouth open, while giving it a proper pressure as it travels over the oyster-beds. When the boat is over the oyster scarp, the dredge is let down, and no more attractive sight exists than that presented by the well-appointed Whitstable boats on one side of the estuary, or the Colne boats on the other, as they wear and tack over the oyster-beds, bearing up from time to time to haul in the dredge, and empty its contents into the hold. The tension of the rope is the signal for hauling in, and very heterogeneous are the contents — sea- weeds, star-fishes, lobsters, crabs, OSTREAD.-E. 337 actinia, and stones. In this manner the common oyster fields on both sides of the Channel were ploughed up by the oyster dredger pretty much as the ploughman on shore turns up a field. The consequence was that, twenty years ago, the French beds were totally exhausted, and France had to look to foreign countries for its oyster. Oyster farms which had employed fourteen hundred men and two hundred boats were reduced to two hundred men and twenty boats. Similar results from over-dredging would have followed, no doubt, on this side the Channel had the mollusc not been protected by the company and piivate proprietors who held the oyster-beds in the large estuaries. This state of things in France led to some important discoveries in the science of oyster culture, which have produced important changes there. The name of Sergius Orata has already been mentioned as a culti- vator of oysters. He lived in the fifth century before our era, and according to Pliny he first attempted parking oysters at Baia in the times of the orator Lucius Crassus. He was the first to recognise the superior flavour of the oysters of the Lucriu Lake, the Avernus of the poets, probably for trade reasons of his own, for then, as now, Beveille- Parise remarks, writing on the subject, “ tradesmen speculated on the weaknesses of human gourmandism.” But Sergius really created a new industry, which is still practised in thousands of places much as he left it. As a proof of the perfection to which Sergius had brought oyster culture, his contemporaries said of him, in allusion to the hanging banks which he invented, that if he had been prevented from raising oysters in the Lucrin Lake, “he would have made them grow on the house-tops.” The traveller who visits this celebrated a e finds only a miry puddle. The precious oysters placed there by Latrnne s grandfather are metamorphosed into miserable eels which leap in the mud, a vile mountain of ashes, coal, and pumice-stone, which was thrown up m a night like the mushroom, having reduced the once celebrated lake into the state described. Kondeletius also speaks of a fisherman who understood the art of oyster culture. The Neapolitan Late Fusaro — the terrible Acheron of the poets is a great oyster-park, in which Art is made effectually to aid Nature in the multiplication of its products. This famous oyster-bank which is represented in Pi. XIII., lies in the neighbourhood of Baia and z 338 THE OCEAN WORLD. biv T 4i °nm 0lin °f,t ie m°St mteresting sP°ts in that beautiful bay. In the month of February, 1865, M. Figuier tells us he traversed its celebrated coast, seated himself on the banks of the historical lake, and tasted the produce of this curious manufacture of living beings, whose origin dates from the Roman period. Lake Fusaro was in ancient times a place of evil report: Virgil immortalized it as the mythological Acheron, but its landscape hid nothing of the sadness and desolation which accords with the sojourn o the dead. It is a salt pond, shaded with a girdle of magnificent rees. It is about a league in circumference, and about a fathom in Fig. 132. Artificial Oyster-bank in Lake Fusaro. depth at its deepest part ; its bottom is muddy and black, like the rest of this volcanic region. It will be understood, from what has been said, that the chief obstacle to the reproduction of oysters is the absence of any solid body to which the young spawn can attach itself, and the means of shelter fiom animals which prey upon them. The fishermen living on the shores of Lake Fusaro have long realised this, and provided against it by warehousing, as it were, in the lake near the sea, the oysters ready to discharge their spawn, while retaining the young generations captive in the protected basins, where they are sheltered bom various causes ot destruction to which oysters are exposed in the open sea. OSTREAD/E 339 Upon the bottom of the lake, and on its circumference, the proprie- tors of Fusaro have constructed hillocks here and there, with stones heaped up, artificial rocks, raised sufficiently to shelter the depots from mud and slime. Upon these rocks they deposit the young oysters gathered in the Gulf of Tarentum. Each of these rock-works is surrounded by a girdle of piles, driven close to each other, and raised a little above the surface of the water, as represented in Fig. 132. Other piles are distributed in long lines, and bound to each other by a cord, from which is suspended fagots of young wood. In the spawning season the oysters which have been deposited on the Fig. 133. Pillars with cords attached in Lake Fusaro. artificial rocks discharge the myriads of young fry which have been nurtured in the folds of their mantles. The fagots suspended from the piles arrest the germ before it is driven away by the waves, much as a swan attaches itself to the first shrub which comes in the way. By these precautions the riverains of Fusaro have provided for the preservation of the young fry, besides removing many of the natural enemies of the young oyster. In other places the piles are distributed in long lines and bound together by strong cords, from which fagots of brushwood are sus- pended, on which the young spawn lay hold, as in Fig. 133. By means of these arrangements the pregnant oyster deposits its z 2 340 the ocean world. spawny progeny in quiet repose ; the young germs are intercepted by the fagots and hurdles suspended between the piles, where the young oysters develop themselves under the favourable conditions of repose, temperature, and light. When the fishing season arrives, the piles and fagots which surround the beds are removed, and the oysters are gathered suitable for market. The oysters thus selected for sale are packed loosely in osier baskets and sunk, while waiting for purchasers into a reserve or park. This park is established on the shores of the lake. It is constructed of piles which support a gangway provided with hooks, from which the baskets filled with living oysters are suspended, ready for sale. Some twenty years ago the oyster-beds of France had become totally exhausted under the open system of dredging; and circum- stances having brought the protective system pursued at Fusaro under the notice of M. Coste, a learned academician, to whom France is indebted for the restoration of the bivalve, M. Coste reported to the Emperor in 1858 that at Rochelle, Marennes, Rochefort, at the Isles of Re •and Oleron, where there had formerly been twenty-three oyster- beds, there were now only five, and these in danger of being destroyed by the increase of mussels ; that at the Bay of St. Brieuc, so naturally suited for oyster culture, the beds were reduced to three ; that even on the classic oyster grounds of Cancale and Granville, it was only by the j most careful administration that decay was prevented, while the in- creasing numbers of consumers threatened altogether to destroy an industry essentially necessary for the support of a maritime population. The impulse given by this report has been productive of the most , satisfactory results in France. All along the coast the maritime popu- lations are actively engaged in oyster culture. Oyster parks, in imita- \ tion of those of Fusaro, have sprung up. In his appeal to the Emperor, 1 M. Coste suggested that the State, through the Administration of ! Marine, and by means of the vessels at its command, should take steps for sowing the whole French coast in such a manner as to re-establish the ] oyster-banks now in ruins, extend those which were prosperous, and create others anew wherever the nature of the bottom would permit, j The first serious attempt to carry out the views of the distinguished academician was made in the Bay of St. Brieuc. In the month of April in the same year in which his report was received, operations commenced by planting three millions of mother-oysters which had OSTKEAD/E. 341 been dredged in tlie common ground ; brood from the oyster grounds of Cancale and Trequiers were distributed in ten longitudinal lines on tiles, fragments of pottery, and valves of shells. At the end of eight months the progress of the beds was tested, and the dredge in a few minutes brought up two thousand oysters fit for the table, while two fascines drawn up at random contained nearly twenty thousand, from one to two inches in diameter. Two of these fascines exposed to public view at Beni and Patrieux excited the astonishment of the maritime population. This result encouraged M. Coste to pursue his experiments upon a greater scale, and he now proposed to bring the whole littoral under a regulated system of oyster culture. In the roads of Toulon and in Lake Thau, which touches this port, the same system was put in force by the Administration of Marine as had already been done in the Bay of Arcachon and in the Isle of Be. In these localities oyster culture assumed gigantic proportions. Associations were formed for the purpose of prosecuting them and forming oyster-parks. These exertions roused the curiosity of foreign nations. Van Beneden, a distinguished naturalist of Louvain, and M. Eschrecht of Copenhagen, visited France to study the arrangements for oyster cul- ture. M. Coste demonstrated that parks could be established on all places visited by the tide, and under his advice the Bay of Arcachon is now transformed into a vast field of production, which increases every day, giving the happiest presages of an abundant harvest. Already twelve hundred capitalists, associated with a similar number of fishermen, occupy a surface of nine hundred and eighty-eight acres, which emerge at low water. In this bay the State has organized two model farms for experimental purposes, in which tiles, fascines, and valves of shells are laid down with other appliances, to which the young oysters may attach themselves. These expedients have been so successful that the park, which has cost about £114, is now estimated to be worth about £8000 in money, with a total of five million oysters, large and small. The Isle of Be, which was originally surrounded by a muddy bottom ill adapted for oyster culture, has been totally changed, so that in two years four leagues of foreshore have been turned into a rich and profitable oyster-bed ; twelve hundred parks are in full activity, and two thousand others are in course of construction the whole forming a complete girdle round the island. 342 THE OCEAN WOULD. Everyone has heard of the green oysters of Marennes, the preserva- tion, amelioration, and ripening of these oysters, so to speak, repre- senting a very considerable branch of industry in France. In order to give the reader some idea of ii s importance, we shall give here a brief summary of M. Coste’s voyage of exploration on the French littoral. The parks at Marennes, in which the oysters are placed in order to acquire the green colour which characterises them, are basins stretch- ing along both banks of the Seudre for many leagues. They are locally known as derives, and differ from the oyster-parks of other countries in this particular — that, while the ordinary parks are so arranged as to be submerged at every return of the tide, the basins of Marennes are so arranged that they can only be submerged at spring tides ; that is, at the new and full moon, when the waters rise beyond the ordinary level. The basins or daires occupy from two hundred and fifty to three hundred square yards of superficies ; two sluices permit of the entrance and withdrawal of water at will, so as to maintain it at the level most convenient to the industrial wants of the place, or to empty it alto- gether when it is necessary to cleanse the basin, pave the bottom, and furnish it with a fresh supply of oysters. When these necessary works are completed, advantage is taken of the first spring tide to fill the basin. When the tide begins to ebb, the sluices are closed, so as to retain sufficient water in the basins ; and while thus shut up, salt held in solution is deposited, and qualities analogous to those of marine bottoms are produced, purged by cleansing processes of all products offensive to the bivalves. When the basin has been filled with sea-water for the necessary time, and the bottom is sufficiently impregnated, it is emptied and left to dry ; and now, the soil being prepared, it only remains to furnish it with oysters of a mellow and ripe age, in order to give them their green hue. Towards the month of September, at low water, the whole sea-side population of Marennes go to gather oysters on the pavement left uncovered by the ebbing tide, or by using a dredger in the deeper parts of the daires where the water still remains. A temporary magazine for the reception of the oysters thus gathered is erected on the banks, which the water revisits twice a day. The young are reserved for cultivation on the parks or daires; the fullest are sold for consumption in the neighbourhood ; but the quantity of oysters raised OSTREAD.E. 343 at Marennes is insufficient to supply the demand. About a third of the provision intended for the clcures come from the coasts of Brittany, of Normandy, and La Vendee. “ These foreign oysters,” says M. Coste, “ never attain the fine flavour of those bred in the locality. It is necessary to keep them for a long time in the claires before they are sufficiently ameliorated, and, even when they become green, they retain traces of their primitive nature, remaining hard, in spite of the new qualities imparted to them by cultivation ; a certain bitterness remains, which is easily distinguished by the true amateur ; it is the same with indigenous adult oysters. When they are taken at this stage of their existence the colouring does not succeed with them ; — it is only, so to speak, the false brand used to give a speculative value to the merchandise. It is not enough that the mollusc should have a fine flavour; it must have the peculiar taste. It is not enough that it has the green hue ; it is necessary that these qualities should pervade it from the earliest age, and that the culture of the claires should con- tinue to the end.” It is thus necessary that the oysters for the claires of Marennes should be selected when from twelve to eighteen months old, that the shells should be well-formed, and free from all foreign bodies adhering to the surface. . Being thus carefully picked out, the oysters are distributed over the bottom of the claires with a shovel, and afterwards so arranged by the hand that they may not touch each other when they increase in size ; that they do not embarrass each other by the movements of their valves; and that nothing should interfere with the regularity of their forms. The young colony re- poses under a sheet of water from twelve to eighteen inches deep, which is, as we have said, only renewed at spring tides, which reach the level. Nor are the oysters abandoned to themselves in these pri- vileged beds while they are growing and ripening. They are objects of continual care and of special manipulation. The spring tides visit the claires charged with mud, which, if deposited in the motion- less basins, would act as a mortal poison to the young mollusc ; hence the necessity of transporting them from one claire charged with mud into others free from such accumulations : and this is a process in constant operation until the animals are finally gathered for consumption. Oysters deposited in the claires aged eighteen months should remain two years before they are ready for use ; but three and even four years are required to give them the full degree of 344 THE OCEAN WOULD. perfection which characterises the best products of the Marennes oyster-parks. Oysters placed in the reservoirs in an adult state become green, it is true, in a very few days, hut they never attain the exquisite flavour of those which have been bred in the parks, and have undergone the costly manipulation described, from their earliest years. The question arises, What is the colouring principle which is here in operation? The green colour is not general; it is shown princi- pally on the branchiae, upon the labial feelers and intestinal canal ; it is rather undecided; and the colouring matter appears to differ chemically from all other known pigments of green colour. Must it be attributed to the soil of the claire ? This is its most probable origin. But many naturalists insist that the colouring matter proceeds from an infusorial animalculae, the green-coloured Yibrion. Others ha\e hazaided the opinion that it is a disease of the liver in our unfortunate bivalve which produces the colour. Bile secreted in excess by a diseased liver would give a green hue to the parenchyma of the respiratory organs of an animal rendered sick by the exceptional treatment to which it has been subjected. Of these three opinions, says M. Figuier, the first, as we have said, presents the greatest appear- ance of probability. ihe system ot oyster farms, which has worked admirably for the companies themselves, has proved of doubtful utility, so far as the oyster-eating public is concerned, as the following sketch of the Whit- stable oyster farms will show. The oyster farm at Whitstable is co-operative in the best sense of the term, and has been in operation for many years. The Company possesses large oyster grounds, and a fine fleet of boats kept for the purpose of dredging and planting the beds ; it is established under the Joint Stock Companies Act, but there is no other way of entrance into it but by birth, as none of the free dredgermen of the town can hold shares. When a man dies his interest in the Company dies with him, but his widow, if he leaves one, obtains a pension. The affair’s of the Company are managed by twelve directors, who are called “ the jury.” “ The layings at Whitstable,” to summarise Mr. Bertram, “ occupy about a mile and a half square ; and the oyster-beds have been so prosperous as to have obtained the name of the ‘ happy fishing OSTREADiE. 345 grounds.’ Wbitstable bes in a sandy bay, formed by a small branch of the Medway, which separates the Isle of Sbeppey from the main- land. Throughout this bay, from the town of Wbitstable at its eastern extremity to the old town of Faversham, which lies several miles inland, the whole of the estuary is occupied by oyster farms, on which the maritime population, to the extent of three thousand people and upwards, is occupied ; the sum paid for labour by the various com- panies being set down at £160,000 per annum, besides the employ- ment given at Wbitstable in building and repairing boats, dredges, and other requisites for the oyster-fishing. The business of the various companies is to feed oysters for the London and other markets, to protect the spawn or floatsome, as the dredgers call it, which is emitted on their own beds, and to furnish, by purchase or otherwise, the new brood necessary to supply the beds which have been taken up for consumption.” We have hinted above that in oyster, as in other fisheries, a wasteful spirit ol extravagance has hitherto prevailed. It appears, however, that no rule can be laid down even as to the particular year in which the oysters will spawn, much less where it will be carried to ; for, although the artificial contrivances adopted by Sergius Orata for saving the spawn are perfectly well known to the parties interested here, they have not hitheito been imitated ; the practice of the companies and piivate owners ol oyster-layers being to purchase their young brood from the dredgers and others who fish along the public foreshore and open giounds on the Kent and Essex coasts, and even as far north as the Frith of Forth. The little bay of Pont, for instance, on the Essex coast, which is an open piece of water sixteen miles long and three broad, tree to all, and which formerly yielded considerable supplies to Billingsgate, now gives employment to a hundred and fifty boats, each with crews of three or four men, who are wholly employed in obtaining young brood that is, oysters from eighteen months to two years old, which they sell to the oyster farmers. The result is, that the oyster faims have become a vast monopoly. By tacit consent they agree to feed the market at some eight pounds sterling per bushel ; they pay the dredger one-fourth of that sum ; and as the common fishing grounds are thus rendered mere nurseries of young brood, the lover of the bivalve must reconcile himself to pay a monopoly price for the precious morsel The system pursued at Wbitstable, and other oyster-parks in the THE OCEAN WORLD. 340 estuary of the Thames and Medway, is most efficient. The oysters reared in them, called “ natives,” in contradistinction to those called commons.” which are bred in their natural beds, are justly considered to be very superior in flavour, although they are a mixed breed, being brought from every quarter to augment the stock. The Thames, ox native system, is as follows : Every year each layer is gone over and examined by means of a dredge, successive portions being done day by day, till it may be said that each individual oyster has been examined ; the young brood is detached from its bed, the double oysters are separated, and all kinds of enemies killed. During three days in each week dredging is pursued for “planting;” that is, for transference from one bed to another more suitable for their growth or fattening, and for the removal of the dead or sickly oysters and mussels. On the other three days dredging for market takes place, when the more mature beds are dredged, and as many are lifted as are required. Not only is this constant dredging of the beds themselves necessary, but the public beds immediately outside require the same care to keep them in a fit state, and free from enemies. The same story of over-fishing and improvidence extends round our whole coast. The far-famed Pandores obtained at Preston Pans, near Edinburgh, once so cheap, are becoming scarce and dear. The brood is caught and barreled for export to Holland and other places, especially the Thames oyster farms. English buyers pick the grown oysters for Manchester and other large provincial markets, and the Corporation of Edinburgh, the Duke of Buccleuch, and other pro- prietors of the foreshore, have just interfered in time to prevent the total destruction of the trade, when the wild song of the Cockenzie dredgerman might have been left to charm some future antiquary, as it is now said to charm the oyster into the dredge with its refrain : “ The herring it loves the merry moonlight, The mackerel it loves the wind ; But the oyster it loves the dredger’s song, For it comes of a gentle kind.” The Scallop-shell ( Peden ) is round, nearly equal-sided, resting on the right valve, which is more convex, and marked with radiating rihs. Linnaeus made the mistake of confounding with the Ostrea a great number of shells, which, by their channeled edges and surfaces, 1. Pecten pallium. (Lirra.) Pecten purpuratus. (Lamarck.) III. Pecten foliaceus. IV. Pecten tigris. (Lamarck.) V. Peclen nodasus. (Linn.) VI. Pecten islandicus. (Oliemnitz.) Plate XIV.— Pectinidre, 0STKEA1LE. 347 strongly reminded one of the arrangements of the teeth of a comb, whence their name of Pecten. They were well known to naturalists long before the time of Linnaeus, under the name of Pilgrims shells, a name which came into use from the practice which prevailed among pilgrims in the middle ages — we know not why — of ornamenting habits and hats with the valves of some of the species. The shell of the Pecten is in general nearly circular, more or less elongated, and terminated towards the summit in a straight line, forming a sort of triangular appendage called the ear, to which the hinges are attached. The valves are very regular, but with no resemblance to each other. In some species, the shell of which is closely shut, the lower valve is more or less convex than the upper one. In others, both valves are convex. The hinge is without teeth, and the ligament, which is intended to close the shell, is inserted into a triangular depression or dimple. The re- tractile muscle is unequal, and nearly central. FiS- 13»- Pecien pseudamussium The valves are not nacred inside, and are formed on their exterior surface of numerous fluted channels, which spring from a lobe more or less pointed at the summit, diverging towards the circumference. The edges are sometimes smooth, as in the Watered Pecten (P. pseudamus- sium, big. 134), but more frequently they are formed in strips or scales, as in the Smooth- shelled Pecten (P. glaber , Fig. 135). Upon the whole, however, the Pectens are very vari- able, but always elegant in form ; the colours are frequently lively and bril- liant. In Pl. XIV., some of the most striking forms are represented, as in Fig. I., the Ducal Mantle ( Pecten FiB'135' Pecten e,aber (Limbus). pallium), an inhabitant of the Indian Ocean, remarkable for its elegant form, its twelve radiatmg stripes, diverging towards the circumference the horizontal furrows of its salient scales, and the striking distribution 348 THE OCEAN WORLD. oi its white spots upon a bed of red and brown marble ; Fig. II., the Purple Pecten; Fig. III., the Coral Pecten ; Fig. IV., the Tiger Pecten ; ^o- ^ the holiaceous Pecten; and Fig. VI., the Northern Pecten. The animal which inhabits the Pecten shell has the general form of the oyster, differing however from it in a remarkable manner. The edges of the mantle are furnished with multiplied fringes of simple tentacles, between which we find other tentacular appendages a little thicker, each terminating in a sort of small pearl, vividly coloured, to which is attached a nervous thread, which has been taken for an eye. Another difference : the branchiae, in place of being connected by a striated lamina, as is the case in the oyster, are cut into parallel capillary filaments, forming a free and floating fringe, and the mouth is surrounded by salient many-cleft lips. While the oyster shell is completely fixed to its bed, the Pecten is, on the contrary, peifectly free, and shifts from place to place, moving in the water even with a certain amount of agility ; by smartly closing its halt-opened valves and forcibly expelling the water, it moves backward by a sort ot reaction; this action, repeated many times, compels the animal to move almost in spite of itself, and enables it to avoid danger, 01 dnects its steps towards the spot it wishes to reach. Some naturalists even assert that, when raised to the surface, the Pecten half opens its Fig. 136. Pecten opercularis (Linmeus). and Fig. 138, the Concentric Pecten shell in such a manner that the upper valve serves the purpose of a sail. The Pecten s, of which a hundred species are de- scribed, are inhabitants of every known sea. Twenty species belong to Europe, among which we may men- tion P. opercularis, repre- sented in Fig. 136; it in- habits European seas. Fig. 137 represents the White- mantled Pecten (P. plica, Linn.) of the Indian Ocean, (P. Japoniea) of the Japan OSTR EADAS. 849 Tlie genus Pectunculus are abundant on the shores of the Mediter- ranean and along the Atlantic coast. If we take up at hazard a Fig. 137. Pecten plica (Linnaus). Fig. 138. Pectcn Japonica (Gmellin). handful of shells on any part of the French coast, one-third will consist of Pectwncula. They are found mixed with Cardium, Yenus, Razor- fish, and Pectens. Their round and robust frame attracts much atten- tion. They form the first of those charming infantile collection which are gathered at the mother’s feet. 1 he animal which inhabits this pretty shell is moulded on its curva- Fig. 139. Pectunculus aureflua (Reeve). Fig. 140. Pectunculus delessertii (Reeve). ture; like the shell, it is round and squat; it is furnished with a mouth, large, and thick for its size, and with double branchi®. When the animal is taken alive, it sometimes exudes a thick mucous liquid over the shell, which has disgusted many a young collector with his conquest. Among numerous species of Pectunculus we note as worthy of representation: P. aureflua, Reeve (Fig. 139); P. delessertii, Reeve 350 THE OCEAN WORM). (Fig. 140); P. pectin if onnis, Lamarck (Fig. 141); and P. scriptus Born (Fig. 142). ’ Among the Ostreadm the shells of Spondylus are distinguished for their variety oi form and the brilliant colours with which they are decorated. This makes them much sought after by amateur collectors, | and procures for them a high price. The shell of Spondylus is solid and thick, with unequal adherent valves, nearly always bristling with spines, forming a very peculiar kind of ornamentation to the valves; i the hinges have two very strong teeth. The animals which inhabit this shell resemble the oyster in many respects, but they still more closely resemble the Pectens. The edges of the mantle are provided with two rows ot tentacles, the exterior row being, many of them, furnished at their extremities with coloured tubercles. As examples, we note several species of these bivalves for representation. Spon- dylus regius (Pl. XV. Fig. I.) is, perhaps, the most remarkable for its immense spines. Spondylus radians, Lamarck (Fig. III.), is noted for its elegant form. Spondylus avicularis (Fig. IV.) shows remark- j able inequality in the valves. Spondylus imperialis, Chenu (Fig. II.), has long projecting spines, like feet, and the Scaly Spondylus (S. crassisquama, Fig. V.), is covered with scales arranged like so many roofing-tiles. Like oysters, the genus Spondylus is frequently found firmly rooted to rocks and other submarine bodies, and, oftener still, heaped one upon the other, like herrings in their barrel. These animals belong essentially to the seas of warm countries. We find them, however, occupying considerable space in the Mediter- ranean, where (Fig. VI.) the Ass-footed Spondylus ( S . g/ederopus ) abounds. I Spondylus regius. (Liun.) II. Spondylus iuiperialis. (Chenm.) Spondylus radians. (Lamarck.) 1 V. Spondylus avicularis. (Lamarck.) Plate XV.— Spondylus. OBTREADjE. 351 But the most remarkable species of all is assuredly Spondylus regius (Pl. XY. Fig. I.). This species is a native of the Indian Oceau, and there scarcely exist three fragments of this rare shell in the museums of Europe. M. Chenu relates in one of his hooks an anecdote which would prove — if any proof were necessary — how far the desire of a collector to obtain possession of some rare and costly specimen will carry him in order to attain his object. “ M. R ,” says M. Chenu, “ was Professor of Botany to the Faculty of Paris, and was, as some- times happens, more learned than rich ; he wished, on the invitation ot a stranger, to purchase one of these shells at a very high price, which might be from 6000 to 6000 francs ; the bargain was made, and the price agreed upon ; it was only necessary to pay. The money in the professor's hands made only a small part of the sum the merchant was to receive for his shell, and he would not part with it without pay- ment. M. R , now consulting his desire to possess the shell more than his weak resources, made up secretly a parcel of his modest plate, and went out to sell it. Without consulting his wife, he replaced his silver plate by coverings of tin, and ran to the merchant to secure his coveted Spondylus, which he believed to be S'. regius. “ ^e hour of dinner arrived, and we may imagine the astonish- ment of Madame R , who could not comprehend the strange meta- morphosis of her plate. She delivered herself of a thousand painful conjectures on the subject. M. R , on his part, returned home happy with his shell, which he had committed to the safe custody of a box placed in his coat pocket. But, as he approached the house, he paused, and began for the first time to think of the reception he might meet with. The reproaches which awaited him, however, were compensated when he thought of the treasure he carried home. Finally, he reached home, and Madame R in her wrath was 01 thy of the occasion; the poor man was overwhelmed with the grief he had caused his wife; his courage altogether forsook him. He forgot his shell, and, in his trepidation, seated himself on a chair with- out the necessary adjustment of his garment. He was only reminded of his treasure by hearing the crushing sound of the broken box which contained it. Fortunately, the evil was not very great— two spines only of the shell were broken ; but the good man’s grief made so -reat an impression on Madame R , that she no longer thought of her own loss, but directed all her efforts to console the simple-minded philosopher.” 1 352 THE OCEAN WOULD. The tendency to throw out spines in Spondylus is one of its striking features. When the whole lower surface adheres to branches of coral, a very fre- quent occurrence, they are confined to the upper valve, but when a part only of the valve, the whole sur- face becomes covered. The shells of the Hammerheads (Mal- leus) have a rough resemblance to the implement from which they derive their name. The valves are nearly equal, blackish, and somewhat wrinkled on the exterior, often brilliantly nacred in the interior. They are enlarged to the right and left of the hinge, forming prolonga- tions on each side, which give them the fancied resemblance to the Hammerhead. Fig. H3. Malleus aiba (Lamarck). ^ same time they grow in a direction opposite to the hinge, which gives some- thing approaching the handle of the implement. This is the first feature which a glance at Malleus alba (Fig. 143) conveys. The hinge is without teeth, having instead a deep conical fossette or dimple, for the recep- tion of a very strong ligament which acts upon the valves. The animal is contained in the interior of the shell, its mantle fringed by very small ten- tacular appendages. Only twelve ac- tually living species of the genera are Fig. 144. Malleus vulgaris (Lamarck). , , . , . , ... , e,i known, which are inhabitants ot the Indian Ocean, of the Australian seas, and the Pacific Ocean. OST README. 353 Another remarkable species, Malleus vulgaris (Fig. i 44) is a rare shell, much valued and much sought after by amateurs and dealers. The beautiful diaphanous nacre which embellishes the interior of so many ornamental cabinets are principally produced by the animal inhabiting the Meleagrina, a bivalve, sometimes designated the pinta- dine, or mother-of-pearl shell. This bivalve moors itself to the bottom of the sea by a strong byssus of a brownish colour. The door posts of the shells are irregularly rounded in their young days ; they are externally lightly foliated, and ornamented with bands of green and white, which spring from the summit in rays, and afterwards break oft into two or three slightly scattered branches. In old age they become rugged and blackish. The shell is in its perfection when about eight or ten years old, their size being then about six inches in diameter, with a thickness of about an inch and a quarter. IS acre is the hard and brilliant substance with which the valves of certain shells are lined in the interior. This substance is white, silky, slightly azure, and more or less iridescent. Most of the bivalves ! are suppled with nacre ; some of them even yield a blue, or blue and violet pigment. The iridescent Ilaliotis iris, for instance, is an emerald-greenish blue of changing colour, with reflections of a purple violet. Turbo argorastymus (Linnaeus) presents a mouth of bright silvery hue, while Turbo chrysostomus appears in all the glory” of gold ; but the Pintadme yields the purest white nacre, as well as the most uniform, and especially the thickest. This product owes its brilliant and delicate appearance to the play of light on it in its highly-polished state. For practical purposes the nacre is separated from the shell with an instrument ; sometimes all the exterior part of the shell being dissolved away from the precious substance, leaving only the naked bed of nacre. But the most interesting of ali the nacre-bearing shells is the pearl oyster margaritifem), the exterior, as well as the interior of which is represented in Fig. 145. In the interior of the shell pearls are sometimes found so fine and so beautiful that they ore only surpassed by the diamond. This shell is nearly round, and greenish in colour on the outside; it furnishes at once the finest pearls under favourable circumstances, and the nacre so useful in manv industrial arts. Fine pearls and nacre have, in short, the same origin The nacre invests the whole interior of the shell of Meleagrina margmti 354 THE OCEAN WORLD. fera ; being the same secretion which in the pearl has assumed the globular form : in one state it is deposited as nacre on the walls of the bivalve, in the other as a pearl in the fleshy interior of the animal. This nacre is therefore at once a calcareous and horny matter, which the animal secretes, and which it attaches to the interior walls of the Fig. 145. Meleagrina mnrgaritifera (Linnreus). Outside of the shell. inside of the shell. shell during the several periods of its development. Pearls are formed of the same substance, only in place of being deposited upon the valves in beds, the material is condensed and agglomerated in small spheroids, which develop themselves either on the surface of the Fig. 14 6. Meleagrina margaritifera (Linnams). valves or in the fleshy part of the mollusc. Between nacre and pearls, therefore, there is only the difference of the form of deposition, Fig. 146 represents the pearl oyster with calcareous concretions in various states of progress. OSTREAD^E. 355 The finest pearls, solidified drops of dew, as the Orientals term them in the language of poetry, are secretions supposed to be the result of disease in the animal. The matter, in place of being spread over the surface of the valves in their beds, is condensed either on the centre of the valves or in the interior of the organ, and forms a more or less rounded body. The pearls, when deposited on the valves, are generally adherent ; those which originate in the body of the animal are always free. Generally we find some small foreign body in their centre which has served as a nucleus to the concretion, the body being perhaps a sterile egg of the mollusc, the egg of a fish, a rounded animalcule, a grain of sand even, round which has been deposited in concentric layers the beautiful and much-prized gem. The Chinese, and other Eastern nations, are said to turn this fact in the natural history of bivalves to practical use in making pearls and cameos. By introducing into the mantle of the mollusc, or into the interior of a living valve, a round grain of sand, glass, or metal, they induce a deposit which in time yields a pearl, in the one case free, and m the other adhering to the shell. In some cases they are said to be produced in whole chaplets by the insertion of grains of quartz connected by a string into the mantle of a species of Symphynoia ; in other cases, a dozen Chinese figures seated have been produced by inserting small plates of figured tin in the valves of the same species. The pearls are very small at first ; they increase by annual beds deposited on the original nucleus, their brilliancy and shade of colour varying with that of the nacre from which they are produced. Some- times they are diaphanous, silky, lustrous, and more or less irides- cent ; occasionally they turn out dull, obscure, and even smoky. The pearl oyster is met with in very different latitudes; they are founu m the Persian Gulf, on the Arabian coast, and in Japan in the American seas, and on the shores of California, and in the islands of the South Sea ; but the most important fisheries are found in the Bay of Bengal, Ceylon, and other parts of the Indian Ocean. The Ceylon fisheries are under Government inspection, and each year before the fisheries commence, an o'fficial inspection of the coast takes place. Sometimes the fishing is undertaken on account of the State at other times it is let to parties of undertakers. In 1804 the pearl fishery was granted to a capitalist for £120,000; but, to avoid im- 2 a 2 35(i THE OCEAN WORLD. poverishing all the beds at once, the same part of the gulf is not fished every year. The great fishery for mother-of-pearl Pintadines (Meleagrina mar- garitifera ) takes place in the Gulf of Manaar, a large bay to the north-east of the island ; it commences in the month of February or March, and continues thirty days, taken collectively, and occupies two hundred and fifty boats, which come from different parts of the coast ; they reach the ground at daybreak, the time being indicated by a signal gun. Each boat’s crew consists of twenty hands, and a negro. The rowers are ten in number. The divers divide themselves into two groups of five men each, who labour and rest alternately ; they descend from forty to fifty feet, seventy being the very utmost they can accomplish, and eighty seconds the longest period the best divers can remain under water, the ordinary period being only thirty seconds. In order to accelerate their descent, a large stone is attached to a rope. According to travellers the oars are used to rig out a stage, across which planks are laid over both sides of the boat; to this stage the diving-stone is suspended. This stone is in the form of a pyramid, weighing about half-a-hundredweight ; the cord which sus- tains it sometimes carries in its lower parts a sort of stirrup to receive the foot of the diver. At the moment of his descent he places his right foot in this stirrup, or, where there is no such provision, he rests it on the stone with the cord between his toes. In his left foot he holds the net which is to receive the bivalves ; then, seizing with his right hand a signal-cord conveniently arranged for his purpose, and pressing his nostrils with the left hand, he dives, holding himself vertically, and balancing himself over his foot. Each diver is naked, except the band of calico which surrounds the loins. Having reached the bottom, he withdraws his foot from the stone, which ascends immediately to the stage. The diver throws himself on his face, and begins to gather all the pintadines within his reach, placing them in his net. When he wishes to ascend he pulls the signal-cord, and is drawn up with all possible expedition. A good diver, we have said, seldom remains more than thirty seconds under water at one time ; but he repeats the operation three or four, and, in favourable circumstances, even fifteen or twenty times. The labour is extremely severe. On recovering the boat they some- times discharge water tinged with blood by the mouth, nose, and ears. OSTHEADAi. 357 They are also exposed to great danger from sharks, which lie in wait for and frequently devour the unhappy divers. They continue to fish till mid-day, when a second gun gives the signal to cease. The proprietors wait on shore for their boats, in order to superintend their discharge, which must take place before night sets in, in order to prevent concealment and robbery. In past times the Ceylon fisheries were very valuable. In 1797 they are said to have produced £144,000, and in 1798 as much as £192,000. In 1802 the fisheries -were farmed for £120,000 ; but for many years the banks have been less productive, and are now said to yield the sum of £20.000 per annum. The natives of the Bay of Bengal, those of the Chinese coast, of Japan, and the Indian Archipelago, all abandon themselves to the pearl fishery, the produce being estimated to realise at least £800,000. Fisheries analogous to those ot Ceylon take place on the Persian coast, on the Arabian Gulf, along the coast of Muscat, and in the Pied Sea. ’ In these countries the pearl fishing does not commence till the months of July and August, the sea being at that time calmer than in other months of the year. Arrived on their fishing-ground, the fishermen range their barques at a proper distance from each other, and cast anchor m water from eight to nine fathoms deep. The process is pursued here in a very simple manner. When about to descend the divers pass a cord, the extremity of which communicates with a bell placed in the barque, under the armpits ; they put cotton in their ears, and press the nostrils together with a piece of wood or horn • they close their mouths hermetically, attach a heavy stone to their feet, and at once sink to the bottom of the sea, where they gather indiscriminately all shells within their reach, which they throw into a bag suspended round the haunches. When they require to breathe they sound the bell, and immediately they are assisted in their On the oyster-banks off the Isle of Bahrein the pearl fishery pro- duces about £240.000; and if we add to this the addition furnished by the other fisheries of the neighbourhood, the sum total yielded bv the Arabian coast would probably not fall short of £350,000* In South America similar fisheries exist. Before’ the' Mexican rrf^6 PTrl “ Were l0Cated befcween Acapulco and the Gulf of Tehuantepec; subsequently they were established round the 358 THE OCEAN WORLD. Islands of Cubagua, Margarita, and Panama. The results became so full ol promise that populous cities were not slow to raise them- selves round these several places. Under the reign of Charles V., America sent to Spain pearls valued at £160,000; in the present day they are estimated to be worth £60,000. In the places mentioned, the divers descend into the sea quite naked ; they remain there from twenty-five to thirty seconds, during which space they can only secure two or three pintaclines. They dive in this way a dozen times in succession, which gives an average of between thirty and forty bivalves to each diver. The bivalve is carried on shore, and piled up on mats of Espartero grass. The mollusc dies, and soon becomes decomposed ; it requires ten days to be thoroughly disorganized. When in a thoroughly corrupt state, they are thrown into reservoirs of sea-water, when they are opened, washed, and handed over to the dealers. The valves furnish nacre, and the parenchyma the pearls. The valves are cleansed, and piled up in tons or casks ; by raising their external surface plates of nacre are obtained more or less thick, according to the age of the mollusc. Nacre of three kinds are distinguishable in commerce : silver-faced, bastard white, and bastard black. The first are sold in cases of two hundred and fifty to two hundred and eighty pounds ; they are brought from the Indies, from China, and Peru. The ships of various nations import these shells as ballast. The second is delivered in casks of two hundred and fifty pounds weight ; it is a yellowish white, and sometimes greenish ; sometimes red, blue, and green. Pearls form by far the most important branch of this material. When they are adhereat to the valves they are detached with pincers ; but, habitually, they are found in the parenchyma of the animal. In this case the substance is boiled, and afterwards sifted, in order to ob- tain the most minute of the pearls ; for those of considerable size are sometimes overlooked in the first operation. Months after the mollusc is petrified, miserable Indians may be observed busying themselves with the corrupt mass, in search of small pearls which may have been overlooked by the workmen. The pearls adherent to the valve are more or less irregular in their OSTKEAD/E. 359 shape ; they are sold by weight. Those found in the body of the animal, and isolated, are called virgin pearls , or paragons. They are globular, ovoid, or pyriform, and are sold by the individual pearl. In cleaning them, they are gathered together in a heap in a hag and worked with powdered nacre, in order to render them perfectly pure in colour and round in shape, and give them a polish ; finally, they are passed through a series of copper sieves, in order to size them. These sieves, to the number of twelve, are made so as to be inserted one within the other, each being pierced with holes, which determine the size ot the pearl and the commercial number which is to distinguish it. Thus, the sieve No. 20 is pierced with twenty holes, No. 50 with fifty holes, and so on up to No. 1000, which is pierced with that number of holes. The pearls which are retained in Nos. 20 to 80, said to be mill, are pearls of the first order. Those which pass and are retained be- tween Nos. 100 to 800 are vadivoe, or pearls of the second order; and those which pass through all the others and are retained in No. 1000 belong to the class tool, or seed pearls, and are of the third order. They are afterwards threaded ; the small and medium-sized pearls on white or blue silk, arranged in rows, and tied with ribbon into a top-knot ot blue or red silk, in which condition they are exposed for sale in rows, assorted according to their colours and quality. The small or seed pearls are sold by measure or weight. In America the bivalve is opened with a knife, like the common edible oyster, and the pearl is obtained by breaking up the mollusc between the finger and thumb without waiting for its decomposition ; nor is it boiled. This is a much longer and less certain process than that pursued in the East ; but the Americans consider that the pearls are preserved in greater freshness by the process — that they get the true orient pearl, in short. Some few pearls have become historical, from their size and beauty. A pearl liom lanama, in the form of a pear, and about the size of a pigeon's egg, was presented in 1579 to Philip II., King of Spain: it was valued at £4000. A lady of Madrid possessed an American pearl in 1 605 valued at 31,000 ducats. The Pope Leo X. purchased a pearl of a Venetian jeweller for £14,000. Another was presented to the Sultan Soliman the Great by the Venetian Republic valued at £16,000. Julius Ctesar, who was a 360 THE OCEAN WORLD. great admirer of pearls, presented one to Servilia which was valued at a million of sesterces, about £48,000 of our money. There is no data for the volume or value of the two famous pearls of Cleopatra ; one of these which the queen is said to have capriciously dissolved in vinegar and drank — Heavens preserve us from such a draught ! — is said by some authors to have been worth £60,000 ; the other was divided into two parts, and suspended one half from each ear of the capitoline Venus. Another pearl was purchased at Califa by the traveller Tavernier, and is said to have been sold by him to the Shah of Persia for the enormous price of £180,000. A prince of Muscat possessed a pearl so extremely valuable — not on account of its size, for it was only twelve carats, but because it was so clear and transparent that daylight was seen through it — he refused £4000 for it. In the Zozema Museum at Moscow there is a pearl, called the “Pilgrim,” which is quite diaphanous; it is globular in form, and weighs nearly twenty-four carats. It is said that the pearl in the crown of Rudolph II. weighed thirty carats, and was as large as a pear. This size, besides being indefinite, is more than doubtful. The shahs of Persia actually possess a string of pearls, each indi- vidual of which is nearly the size of a hazel nut. The value of this string of jewels is inestimable. At the Paris Exposition of 1855, Her Majesty the Queen exhibited some magnificent pearls ; and on the same occasion the Emperor of the French exhibited a collection of 408 pearls, each weighing over nine pennyweights, all of perfect form and of the finest water. The Romans were passionately fond of pearls, and they have transmitted their taste to the Eastern nations, who attach notions of great grandeur and power to the possession of large and brilliant pearls. The many interesting details connected with the oyster and its products have led us to write at greater length than we intended. With the Mdeagrina, true proletarian of the ocean, we terminate the history of the first group of Acephalous Molluscs, whose mouths are largely opened, but which have neither tubes nor spiral openings. CHAPTER XU. THE MUSSEL — MYTILID^. “Ecce inter virides jactatur raytilus algas.” An’.hologia. Ihis family ot Acephalous Molluscs includes the Sea Mussel, Mytilus ; the Pond Mussel, Anodonta ; the Painter’s Mussel, or Mulete, Pina cardium ; and some others, in which the mantle is open before, Fig. 147. Mytilus edulus (Linnseus). with a distinct and separate opening for the issue of the residue of digestion ; also a loot, which assists the animal to creep, or at least to draw itself forward, to guide it, and to attach itself by the byssus. The well-known shell of the mussel (Fig. 147, Mytilus edulus) is longitudinal, equivalve, and regular, pointed at the base, with capa- city to attach itself by a byssus ; the hinge has no teeth, but a deep furrow, in which the ligament is located. In the genus Mytilus the byssus is divided to its base. In Modiola it has a common corneous centre. In Pina the anus is furnished with a long angular base. In all these genera the foot is small, its retractile muscles numerous and THE OCEAN WORLD. mm the byssus large. In Lythodemus the byssus is rudimentary; the muscles are retractile, equal, and two pairs only. In Anio, Cardium, and Syria, the foot is large and not byssiferous. The animal, as described by M. Chenu, is elongate, oval, the lobes ot the mantle simple or fringed, divided at the edge into two leaves, the interior being very short, bearing a fringe of small, cylindrical’ and movable fillets ; the exterior leaf is united to the shell very near the edge. The opening by which water and food are introduced supplies the branchiae at the same time. The stomach consists of a white membiane, thin, like opaline, and presenting itself in longitudinal folds, the liver is granulous, composed of greenish grains more or less deep, contained in the meshes of a whitish tissue forming a thickish bed, which surrounds the stomach, the intestines taking the direction of the median and dorsal line, and beneath the heart are received and terminate in a small appendage, floating in the cavity of the mantle near to the hinge. The foot is, perhaps, the remarkable organ of the mussel : it is small, semi-lunar when not in motion, but capable of great elongation, resembling thus a sort of conical tongue, having a longitudinal furrow on its side. It is put in motion by several pairs of muscles, all of which penetrate and are interlaced with the tissue : behind it is the silky byssus. The mouth is large, and furnished with two pairs of soft palpi, which are pointed and fixed by their summit. Abdominal masses emanate, and on each side a pair of nearly equal branchiae. Two additional muscles, one anterior and small, the other posterior, large, and rounded. At the base of the foot is a gland which furnishes a viscous secretion; this viscous liquid is organized and moulded in the groove of the foot, and forms a thread, and originates the byssus ; it is a bundle of hairs, mane, or thread, which holds on to its shell. The byssus plays an important part in the organization of the mussel. While the oyster remains eternally riveted to its rock, until torn from it by violence, the mussel moves about, and in this motion the byssus is an active agent. The mussel attaches its byssus to some fixed object, and drawing upon it, as upon a line, the shell is displaced. The house is drawn onwards ; the animal is in motion. It takes great strides, but a fraction of an inch satisfies its desires ; it is, however, an advance upon the oyster, and a lesson in mechanics. The mussel stretches out its foot, and, at the point chosen, it hooks on a hair of MYTILTD/E. 363 the byssus ; then, withdrawing the foot suddenly, and hauling on the thread, the animal and shell are moved forward. Every time it repeats this motion it seems to attach an additional hair, so that at the end of the four and twenty hours it has used many inches in length of cordage. In the byssus of some mussels we find as many as a hundred and fifty of these small threads, with which the animal anchors itself most securely to the rock. Aided by this cordage, the mussel suspends itself to vertical rocks, holding on a little above the surface of the water, so that the shell is smooth and polished as compared with the coarse and rugged shell of the oyster. o q x n k tig. 148. Byssus, mantle, mid oviduct. o, heart; p, ventricle* ^auricle';’ x^pvricard’ium*"^ fo?H k poste!1or musc'p: l, superior tube; tractile muscle of the foot • A vmi'vp ' Ir rt, , ’ e,>tacles; d, byssus; e, gland of the byssus ; g, re- nal ditto. the loot, A, valves of the mantle; t, oviduct; j. orifice of the excretory organ ; k, thter- The mussels, like the oysters, are gregarious, and widely diffused over all European seas. They abound on both sides the Channel their lower price having procured for them the name of “the poor mans oyster ■” but it is infinitely less digestible and savoury than its Many of our readers may think that mussels are found on the shore m a state of nature of good size, well-flavoured, and fit for the table. Nothing of the kind ! Detached from the rocks and cliffs of the sea where it has been growing in a natural state, it is lean, small acrid’ and unwholesome food; and it is only when human industry inter ’ venes to ameliorate this child of Nature that it becomes palatable and "wholesome food. In order to trace the ameliorative process by which the coriaceous flesh of the mussel was rendered tender, fat, and even savoury, we must conduct the reader back into the middle ages. Some time in 1236 a barque, freighted with sheep and manned by three Irishmen, came to grief upon the rocks in the creek of Aiguillon, a few miles from Rochelle. The neighbouring fishermen who came to the relief of the crew succeeded with great difficulty in saving the life of the master, a man named Walton. Exiled upon the lonely shore of the Aunis, with a few sheep saved from shipwreck, Walton at first supported himself by hunting sea-fowl, which frequented the shore and neighbouring marshes in vast flocks. He was a skilful fowler, and invented or adapted a peculiar kind of net, which he called the night net. This consisted of a net some three or four hundred yards in length by three in breadth, which he placed horizontally, like a screen, along the quiet waters of the bay, retaining it in its position by means of posts driven into the muddy bottom. In the obscurity of the night the wild-fowl, in floating along the surface of the waters, would come in contact with the net, and get themselves entangled in its meshes. But the Bay of Aiguillon was only a vast lake of mud, in which boats moved with difficulty, and Walton, having arranged his bird-net, began to consider what kind of boat would enable him most con- veniently to navigate this sea of mud. The flat-bottomed, square- sided boat, known in our rivers as a jpunt, and on the Norman coast as an aeon, was the result. Walton’s boat had a wooden frame some three yards long and one in breadth and depth, the fore part of whicli sloped down into the water, in the form of a prow, at a slight angle. In propelling the boat the rower, who occupied the stern of the punt, knelt on his right knee (as represented in Fig. 149), inclining forward, with one hand on each edge, and the left leg outside the boat. A vigorous push with the left foot gave the frail boat an impulse, under which it rapidly traversed the bay from one point to the other. The mussels swarmed in the little bay ; and Walton soon remarked that they attached themselves by preference to that part of his post a little above the mud, and that those so placed soon became fatter, as well as more agreeable to the taste, than those buried in the mud. He saw in this peculiarity the elements of a sort of mussel culture which might become a new branch of industry. “ The practices he intro- duced,” says M. Coste, “ were so happily adapted to the requirements of the new industry that, alter eight centuries, they are still the rules by which the rich patrimony he created for a numerous population is governed. He seems to have applied himself to the enterprise conscious not only of the service he was rendering to his contem- poraries, but desirous that their descendants should remember him, lor in every instance he has given to the apparatus which he invented the form of his initial letter W. After due consideration, Walton I-’ig. 14>J. Punt or Pirogue of the Marsh. began to carry out his design. He planted a long range of piles along the low marshy shore, each pair forming a letter V, the front of the lettei being towards the sea, and each limb diverging at an angle of forty-five degrees. These posts were driven about a yard asunder ;°they were about twelve feet long, six feet being above water, and interlaced with branches wattled together, so as to form continuous hurdles each about two hundred yards long, which are called louchots. By the assistance of this apparatus, which intercepted spat which would 360 the ocean world. otherwise have been swept away to sea by the tide, Walton formed a magnificent collection of mussels ; but be did not abandon bis isolated piles. Ibese, being without fascines or branches, and always sub- merged, anested the spat at the moment of emission.” The advantages of this system of culture adopted by the Irish exile weie so obvious that bis neighbours along the shore were not slow to imitate bis example. In a short time the whole bay was covered with similar boucbots. At the present time these lines of hurdles form a perfect forest in the little creek. About two hundred and thirty thousand piles support a hundred and twenty-five thousand fascines, which, according to M. Coste, “ bend all the year under a harvest Fig. 150. Isolated piles covered with the spawn of mussels. which a squadron of ships of the line would fail to float.” There are about five hundred of these boucbots in the bay, each from two hundred to two hundred and fifty yards in length and six feet high. The isolated piles are without palisadoes, and are uncovered only at spring tides. In the months of February and March the spat collected on them scarcely equals in size a grain of linseed ; by the month of May it will be about the size of a split pea; in July, a small haricot bean : this is the moment for its transplantation. In this month the bouchotiers, as the men occupied in this culture are called, launch their punts and proceed to the part of the bay where these piles are driven. They detach with a hook the agglomerated masses of young MYTILIDiE. 367 mussels, which they gather in baskets, and carry them to their bouchots. These bouchots, that is to say, the piles covered with fascines and branches, are of four different heights, forming, so to speak, four stages, according to the age and growth of the mussel. Each stage receives the mollusc suitable to it. In the first stage of its existence the mussel cannot endure exposure to the air, and remains constantly under water, except at the period of spring tides. These are gathered in sacks made of old matting, or suspended in interstices of the basket- work. “ These immense palisades,” says M. Coste, “ cover themselves with black clusters of mussels developed between the meshes of their tissues.” At that time the second rows are cleared away to make Fig. 151. Piles, with basket-work, covered with mussels in a fit state to be gathered in. room for younger generations ; the mussels, which no longer dread the air, are transported to the more advanced bouchots, which remain above water in all tides, where they stay till they are fit for market which usually happens after ten or twelve months of culture on the more advanced bouchots. But, ill order to prepare for this consummation, they are subjected to a second and even a third remove. There is no longer any danger in subjecting them to the air for many hours. From this they to a fourth stage, termed Amont (Fig. 151). From this sta4 the full-grown mussel is removed. Under this system of culture the reproduct, on, nursing, collecting, and preparing for market, are made THE OCEAN WORLD. 368 simultaneously. From July to January the mussel trade is in full opeiation, and the flesh in perfection. From February to April is the close season ; their flesh is then poor and leathery. It is also remarked that those which inhabit the upper rows of the wicker-work aie of a mellower flavour than those on the lower ranks, and that the intermediate rows are an improvement on those which are buried in the mud, although even these are preferable to mussels gathered on the sea shore in a state of nature. M. Coste gives a graphic description of the manner in which this industry is carried on. “ Having supplied the neighbouring villages,” he says, “ for the purpose of supplying the more distant cities, the bouchotiers land their punts, filled with mussels, which their wives carry into grottoes hollowed out of the cliffs ; there they clean and piack them in hampers, baskets, and panniers, for conveyance by carts or pack-horses. They depart on their respective journeys at night, so as to reach their markets at La Rochelle, Rochefort, Surgeres, Saint- Jean-d’Angely, Angouleme, Niort, Poictiers, Tours, Angers, and Saumur, at an early hour. A hundred and forty horses and ninety carts make upwards of thirty-three thousand journeys annually to these cities. Besides this, forty or fifty boats come from Bordeaux, the isles of Re and Oleron, and from the sands of Olonne, making an aggregate of seven hundred and fifty voyages per annum, distributing the harvest ot the little bay at places where horses could not serve the purpose. “A bouchot, well furnished, supplies annually, according to the length of its wings, from four to five hundred charges. The charge is a hundred and fifty kilogrammes (over three hundred pounds), and sells for five francs ; a single bouchot thus carries a harvest equal in weight to a hundred and thirty to a hundred and forty thousand pounds, equal in value to £100 ; the whole bay probably yielding a gross revenue of £480,000. This figure, and the abundant harvest which produces it, gives only a slight idea of the alimentary resources of the sea shore ; and every part of the coast, properly adapted for the purpose, could be turned to equal advantage. In the meantime, the Bay of Aiguillon remains a monument of what one man may accomplish.” While commending the mussel as an important article of food, we must not conceal the fact, that it has produced in certain persons very MYTILIDiE 399 Fig. 152. Pina radis (Linnams). grave effects, showing that for them its flesh has the effects of poison. The symptoms, commonly observed two or three hours after the repast, are weakness or torpor, constriction of the throat and swelling of the head, accompanied by great thirst, nausea, frequent vomitings, and eruption of the skin and severe itching. The cause of these attacks is not very well ascertained ; they have in turn been ascribed to the presence of copper pyrites in the neigh- bourhood of the mussel ; to certain small crabs which lodge themselves as parasites in the shell of the mussel ; to the spawn of star-fishes or medusae that the mussel may have swal- lowed. But, probably, the true cause of this kind of poisoning resides in the predisposition of individuals. The remedy is very simple : a vomit, accompanied by drinking plentifully of a light acidulated beverage. The genus Pina, so called by Linnaeus, from one of the species which was so designated from the resemblance of its byssus to the aigrette or plumelet which the Boman soldiers at- tached to the helmet. French naturalists name them jambonneau, from their singular resem- blance to a dried ham (Figs. 152 and 153), their brown, smoky colour not a little aiding the resemblance. This shell is fibrous, horny, very thin and fragile, compressed, regular, and equivalve, triangularly pointed in front, round or truncated behind. The hinge is linear, straight, and without teeth ; the ligament, in great part internal, occupies more than half the anterior half of the dorsal edge of the shell, forming a straight elongated fossette. The animal is thick, elongated, with mantle open behind, presenting a conical furrowed rig. 153. pi™ nigrina foot, bearing a considerable byssus. (Lamarck). The Pinas are found in almost every sea, and at various depths ; they are constantly attached by their byssus, and in a vertical position' 2 B 370 THE OCEAN WORLD. the larger side of their shell being uppermost. They assemble on sandy bottoms in considerable numbers. The byssus has in all ages fixed the attention of the Mediterranean fisher- men upon these curious shells. With its tuft of fine silky hairs, six or seven inches in length, and its fine reddish-brown colour, articles of luxury are formed, which are often mentioned by the Latin writers. The threads of the byssus, which are lemarkable lor their unalterable colour, were formed by both Greeks and Romans into a fabric to which there is nothing analogous in the world. The Maltese and Neapolitans still fashion soft tissues from it, but the stuffs so manufactured are pure objects of curiosity. Twelve species are described as living in the seveial seas. Pina nobilis (Fig. 155), the bvssus Fig. 154. Pina bullata „/• 1 • 1 ^ J (Swainson). oi wlucli was employed m the ancient Neapolitan industry, inhabits the shores of the Mediterranean. Pina bullata, Swainson (Fig. 154), is also a well-known species. The pond mussels, Anodonta, are found in lakes, rivers, and seas of almost every region of the globe. Their shells are rounded or oval, generally very thin, re- gular, and equivalve, not gaping, the hinges without teeth, whence their name from the Greek, oSwto?, without teeth. These shells are nacred inside, but very plain; their external epidermis being of a grave tint of greenish black. The Anodonta cxjgnea (Fig. III., Pl. XYI.) is broad, deep, and light, and is sometimes employed for skimming the cream off milk. The genus is divided into many groups, the principal forms of which are represented in Pl. XYI. Fig. 155. Pina nobiiia, with its The river mussels, Unio, are, like the Anodontas, found in the muddy bottoms of all countries. The animal resembles the Anodonta, but the shell pre- I. Anodonta angnlata. (Lea.) 1H. Anodonta cj-gnea. (Linn.) V. Anodonta anserlna. (Spix.) — IV. Anodonta magnifica. (Lea.) Plate XVI. — Anodonta. 371 MYTILIIVE. sents a toothed hinge. The lower face of the valve is nacrous, but shaded with purplish violet, copreous, and iridescent; the anterior face is of a green colour, which varies from tender to blackish green. Among the species found in European seas may be noted the Rhine mussel, a large species, the nacre of which is employed for or- namental purposes. Unio littoralis (Cuvier), repre- sented in Fig. 156, and the painter’s mussel, Unio jpictorum (Fig. 157), em- ployed in the arts to con- tain certain colours. Those known as the river mussels are leathery, of an insipid taste, and scarcely eatable : Kig' 156, Unl° littoralis (Cuvier), the finest species are found in the great American rivers. Mussels, as we have seen, produce pearls of moderate value Linnams, Fig. 157. Unio pictorum (Linnaeus). who was aware of the origin of the Pintadine pearls, and of pearls in general, was also aware of the possibility of producing them artificially 2 b 2 :?T2 THE OCEAN WORLD. from various molluscs. He suggested bringing together a number of mussels, piercing holes in their shells with an auger in order to pro- duce a wound, and afterwards pack them for five or six years to give the pearl time to form. The Swedish Government consented to try the experiment, and long did so in secret ; pearls were produced, but they were of no value, and the enterprise was abandoned as un- successful. Scottish pearls were much celebrated in the middle ages, and between the years 1761 and 1784 pearls to the value of £10,000 were sent to London from the rivers Tay and Isla ; “ and the trade canied on in the corresponding years in the present century,” says Mr. Bertram, “ is far more than double that amount.” The pearl, according to Mr. Bertram, is found in a variety of the mussel, which is characteiised by the valves being united by a broad hinge, and having a strong fibrous byssus, with which it attaches itself to other shells, to rocks, and other solid substances. “ The pearl fisheries of Scotland,” he adds, may become a source ot wealth to the people living on the large ii\eis, if prudently conducted.” Mr. Unger, a dealer in gems in Edinburgh, having discerned the capabilities of the Scotch pearl as a gem ol value, has established a scale of prices which he gives for them, according to their size and quality ; and it is now a fact that the beautiful pink-hued pearls of our Scottish streams are admired beyond the orient pearl. Empresses and queens, and royal and noble ladies, have made large purchases of these gems; and Mr. Unger estimates the sum paid to pearl-finders in the summer of 1864 at £10,000. The localities successfully fished have been the classic Doon, the Forth, the Tay, the Don, the Spey, the Isla, and most of the Highland rivers of note. Among molluscs, the genus Tridacnae furnish the largest shells known among Acephalous Molluscs. The historian of the wars of Alexander the Great speaks of oysters inhabiting the Indian Ocean which were more than a foot long; these were probably Tridacnae, the shells of which were most likely to be seen by the Macedonian conquerors. The valves of Tridacna gigas are sometimes found a yard and a half in length, and weighing five hundred pounds. Mag- nificent examples may be seen in the church of Saint Sulpice, Paris, where they hold the holy water. These beautiful shells were the gift of the Venetian Repul lie to Francis I. Under Louis XIV., the Plate XVII. — Triducna gigantea. — Holy Water Basin in the Church of Saint Sulpicc at Paris. MYTILIDA3. 373 euro LaDgaet bad them presented to the cburch of Saint Sulpice, where they are used as fonts for holy water. Another pair are exhibited in the church of Saint Eulala, at Montpelier, but much smaller in size. The shells of Tridacnte are formed, as represented in Pl. XVII., of three acute angles, festooned on their edges by broad sides bristling with white scales. The hinges have two teeth ; the ligament is elongated and external. The animal of Tridacnte is remarkable for its fine colours. Tridacna safrana is of a beautiful blue round the edges, rayed through a shade of very pale blue. More in the interior is a row of small moons of a yellowish green ; the centre is a bright violet, with brownish longitudinal punctured lines. “We have at this moment before our e)res, say the travellers Quoy and Gaimard, “ one of . the most charming spectacles that can be seen, when at a little depth beneath the surface a number of these animals display the brilliant velvety colours and varying shades of their submarine parterres. As we can only perceive the gaping opening of the valves, we may imagine to our- selves what is its first aspect.” The mantle of the animal is closed and ample ; its edges are swollen, and reunited in nearly its whole circumference in such a manner as to leave only three very small openings two in the upper part ; the one serves the purpose of discharging the products of digestion, the other gives entrance and exit to the water necessary for respiratory purposes. The third opening is in the lower part of the body, and free ; it leaves an opening for the passage of the foot, which is enormous, and is surrounded with an ample tuft of byssoidal fibres. Aided by this silky tuft, the animal attaches itself to the rocks, and suspends its weighty shell from them. If it is intended to remove those attached to the sides of the rock, it is necessary to cut the cords of the tendonous byssus, by which it is held suspended, with a hatchet. All the Tridacnm are inhabitants of Tropical seas. The Tridacna yi f the south of France under P the name of Clovisse, are ea^en there like oysters. KBBlfk Prepared with fine herbs, i Fig. 171. Venus verrucosa (Linnaeus). the clovisse, we have M. Figuier’s authority for saying, is not to be de- spised. “We may be believed also,” he adds, Venus plieata. (Gmel.) II. Venus puerpera. (Linn.) III. Venus reticulata. IV. Venus Gnidia. (Broderip.) V. Cytherea zonaria. (Lamarck.) VI. Cytherea petecbiulis. (Lamarck.) VII. Cytherea maculata, Trnm™ Wk ''1 Pf l*i. ate XVIII. — Venus and Cytherea MYTILIDiE. 379 Fig. 1T2. Cytherca geographica (Chemnitz). able species of Cytliereci. In Fig. 172 we have the elegantly pencilled shell of Cytherea geograpliica, together with the animal in its natural connection. The last sections of Acephalous Molluscs which we shall notice are the Solens, Pholades, and Teredos, which have re- ceived from Cuvier the common designation of Acephales ren ferme. The kind of life of these molluscs is most singular. Not only do they bury themselves in the sand, as those do of which we have been speaking — they even excavate a dwelling for themselves in the solid rock of hardest stone, and even in wood. They may be called mining or boring molluscs — their labour, incessant, obstinate, slow, silent, and hidden, often causing terrible ravages in the constructions of man. The Solens, or Kazor-fish, are easily recognised by their elongated shell gaping at both extremities. These molluscs live buried vertically in the sand, a short distance from the shore ; the hole which they have hollowed, and which they never quit, sometimes attains as much as two yards in depth ; by means of their foot, which is large, conical, swollen in the middle, and pointed at its extremity, they raise them- selves with great agility to the entrance of their hole. They bury themselves rapidly, and disappear on the slightest approach of danger. When the sea retires, the presence of the Solen is indicated by a small orifice in the sand, whence escape at intervals bubbles of air. In order to attract them to the surface, the fishermen throw into the hole a pinch of salt ; immediately the sand becomes stirred, and the animal presents itself just above the point of its shell. It must be seized at once, for it disappears again very quickly, and no renewed efforts will bring it to the surface a second time. This shell has by some been compared to a knife-handle ; by others to a razor, which has become its popular name. It is a thin, trans- parent, long and slender equivalved bivalve, with parallel edges, gapin^ and truncated at both extremities. The tints are rose-coloured, "bluish grey, and violet ; the valves slightly covered with an epidermis of a greenish brown. 380 THE OCEAN WOULD, The animal which lives in this elegant dwelling has the form of an elongated cylinder. Its mantle is closed in its whole length, and only open at the ends at one side for the passage of the food, and at the other for the passage ot a tube formed of two syphons united together. This curious shell, the various species of which are represented in Pl. XIX., are known as razor-fisli, sabre-fish, and other names, which in some respects indicate the peculiar form of the shell. In the Pholadse we have a family which not only bury themselves Fig. 173. Pholades dactylus, having hollowed out a shelter in a block of gneiss. in the sand, like the Solens and their congeners, hut they are able in some mysterious way to excavate for themselves a dwelling in argil- laceous rocks, and even in harder stone. The engraving represents P- dactylus, which has hollowed itself a home out of a block of gneiss. This dwelling is a cell just deep enough to contain the animal and its shell, as represented in Fig. 173. To excavate its cell at the bottom of one of these gloomy retreats seems to he all that the animal lives for. To ascend to the summit or sink to the bottom of their narrow dormer window makes up all the accidents of existence to these strange creatures; I. Solen siliqua. (Linn.) IT. Solen vagina. (Linn.) III. Solen ensis. (Linn.) IV. Solen ensis major. (Lamarck.) V. Solen ambtguus. (Lamarck.) VI. Solen legnmen. Plate XIX.— Razor-fish. Solenid®. PFIOLADI I ).!•]. 381 they are born to dig their grave, and there they die in the groove of a rock. What a profound mystery does the organization of animal life present ! What thoughts does not the life of these little beings suggest ! Submerged at the bottom of the waters, penned up eternally in a gallery of stone not an inch in depth ! For what were they created ? Human intelligence recoils before such unfathomable mysteries ! How the Plioladfe contrive, with their inefficient tools, to bore into the heart of the stone which shelters them, is a point by no means settled. The organization of the mollusc is not even perfectly known. In its structure the shell differs notably from other Acephalous Mol- luscs, which led Linnaeus to place it with the multivalve shells. Between the two ordinary valves, in short, this shell presents certain accessary pieces, smaller than the true valves, and placed near the hinge, as re- presented in Pholas dactylus (Fig. 174), pieces which would not be there without a purpose. The shell is equivalve, gaping on each side, swelling below, very thin, transparent, and white. The Fig. 174. Pholas dactylus (Linnaeus). animal is a thick, white, elongated, fleshy body ; its mouth opening anteriorly, throws out a long tube traversed by two canals or syphons, through one of which the water necessary for the respiration of the animal is absorbed, and ejected through the other. Through another opening in the mantle a very thick and short foot is protruded. . “We lift one its cavity,” says Crosse, “all helpless and unre- sisting, yet manifesting its indignation at the untimely disturbance by successive spasmodic contractions of these rough yellow syphons, 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.” ®y wliat means fi° the Pholades contrive to hollow out their cell? What implement do they employ in their very limited space ? This 382 THE OCEAN WORLD. Las long puzzled philosophers. The animal was supposed by some to secrete an acid which dissolved the stone and other substances. But how could this be done without dissolving the shell ? De Blainville thought that a simple movement of the shell, incessantly repeated, would suffice to pierce the stone macerated by the water inhaled through the breathing apparatus. Experiment proves that this ex- planation is the correct one. Mr. Eobertson, of Brighton, exhibited living Pholades in the act of boring through masses of chalk : “ A living combination of three implements: a hydraulic apparatus, a rasp, and a syringe.” “ If you examine these living shells,” says Gosse, you will see that the fore part, where the loot 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 pre- served from being itself prematurely worn away by the fact that it is composed of aragonite, a substance much harder than those rocks in which the Pholas burrows. The animal,” Gosse adds, “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 sub- stance is abraded in the form of a fine powder, which is gradually ejected from the mouth of the hole by contraction of the bronchial syphon.” The Pholades are met with on every sea shore, and are plentiful in the Channel ; on the French coast they are called Bails, and sought for their fine flavour. As examples of the genus, we may quote Plwlas dadylus (Fig. 174) ; Pholas Candida, found in the Channel, and in the Atlantic Ocean, which lives buried in the mud or in decayed wood ; Pholas crispata (Fig. 175), also found in the Channel; Pholas papyracea (Fig. 176); and Pholas melanoura (Fig. 177). Fig. 175. Pholas crispala (Linnreus). PHOLADlim 383 Besides this curious property of boring and burrowing in the hollows of wood and stone, the Pholades possess another important character — that of phosphorescence. The bodies of many genera of Mollusca have the property of shining in the dark, but none emit a light more brilliant than that of the Pholades. Those who eat the Pholades in an uncooked state (which is by no means rare, for the flavour of the mollusc does not require the aid of cooking to render it palatable) would appear in the dark as if they had swallowed phos- phorus ; and the fisherman who, in a spirit of economy, supped on this mollusc in the dark, would give to his little ones the spectacle of a fire-eater on a small scale. Fig. 176. Pholas papyracea (Solander). Fig. 177. Pholas melanoura (So werby). he perforations produced m stone by the Pholades have become important evidence in a geological sense. In many countries there rrhcl Wl °f \COn8lderable sinkin8 of the earth. But in no place is the evidence of this so clear as in the monument of high antiquity on the Pozzuolan coast, known as the Temple of Serapis In speaking of the culture of oysters bv flip b . occasion to nation the disappe^f £ ^”lTe Zte leplacement by an enormous mountain, the Monte Nuevo’ No • Pozzuolo is situated at the foot of Mrmfp M ’ ^ow’ mmeral waterB- ^ 384 THE OCEAN WORLD. However that may be, the building has been nearly levelled by the band of time, aided by the band of man ; and the ruins now consist of three magnificent marble columns of about forty leet high. But the curious and important fact is, that these three columns, at about ten feet above the surface, are riddled with boles, and full of cavities bored deeply into the marble, and these borings occupy the space of three feet on each column. The cause of these perforations is no longer doubtful. In some of the cavities the shell of the operator is still found, and it seems settled among naturalists that it belongs to a species of Pholas, although M. Poucbet, a naturalist of Rouen, denies this : “ As far,” be says, “ as I have been able to judge from the fragment which I extracted from this temple, which is destitute of the binge, it is infinitely more probable that this mollusc is a species of the genus Corallisphaga” In spite, however, of M. Poucbet s scep- ticism, the mass of evidence is opposed to bis theory. There are two modes of explaining the fact to which we have called attention. To enable the stone-boring molluscs which live only in the sea to excavate this marble, the temple and columns must have been buried several fathoms deep in sea-water. It is only in these conditions that the borers could have made an incision, and laboured at their ease, in the marble column. But since the same traces of perforation are now visible ten feet above the surface, it follows that, after being long immersed under water, the columns have been elevated to their present position. The temple has been restored to its primitive state, carrying with it, engraved m marble, ineffaceable proofs of its immersion. Sir Charles Ly ell has consecrated a long chapter to the successive sinking and elevation of this temple, which proves the fact most conclusively. Beside the Pbolades naturalists usually place the Teredos: marine animals having a special and irresistible inclination for submerged wood • for while wood exposed to the am becomes a prey to terrestrial animals, so submerged wood is subject to invasion by aquatic amends, of which the Teredo is by far the most formidable. The Teiedos the bosom of the ocean perforate the hardest timbers, whatever be their essence. The galleries bored by these imperceptible ^miners riddle the whole interior of a piece of wood, destroying ent, el; , without the slightest external. indication of its raiages. g Plate XX. — Temple of Serapis at Pozzuolo. PfIOLADID/E. 38a. sometimes follow the thread of the wood; sometimes they cut it at light angles ; the miners, in fact, change their route the moment they meet in their way either the furrows hollowed out by one of their con- geners, or some ancient and abandoned gallery. By a strange kind of instinct, however multiplied may be their furrows or tubes in the same piece of wood, they never mingle — there is never any communication between them. The wood is thus attacked on a thousand diverse points, until it is invaded and its entire substance destroyed. It is by secret ravages of this kind that the piles and other submarine con- structions upon which bridges are built are often riddled and perforated. They appear to all outward examination as solid and perfect as at the moment they were first driven; but they yield to the least effort, bringing ruin and destruction on the edifices they support. Ships have been thus silently and secretly mined, until the planks crumbled into dust under the feet of the sailors. Others have gone down with their crews, entirely caused by the ravages of these relentless enemies, which are terrible from their very littleness. M. Quatrefages, who has minutely studied the organization and habits of the Teredos in the Port of Saint Sebastian, reports the fol- lowing fact, which will give the reader some idea of the rapidity with which these dangerous molluscs pursue their ravages : — A boat, which served as a passage-boat between two villages on the coast, went down in consequence of an accident at the commencement of spring. Four months after some fishermen, hoping to turn her materials to advantage, raised the boat. But in that short space of time the Teredos had committed such ravages that the planks and timbers were riddled and worm-eaten so as to be totally useless. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, half the coast of Holland was threatened with annihilation because the piles which support its dikes and sea-walls were attacked by the Teredo, and it proved no contemptible foe. Many hundreds of thousands of pounds were expended in order to avert the threatened danger. Fortunately, a closer attention to the habits of the mollusc has brought a remedy to a most formidable evil ; the mollusc has an inveterate antipathy to rust, and timber impregnated by the oxide of iron is safe from its ravages. This taste of the Teredo being known, it is only necessary, in order to scatter this dangerous host, to sink the timber which is to be submerged in a tank of prepared oxide of iron— clothed, in short in a 2 c THE OCEAN WORLD. thick cuirass of that antipathy of the Teredo, iron rust. Ships’ timbers are also served with the same protecting coating ; but the copper in which ships’ bottoms are usually sheathed serves the same purpose. The singular Acephalous Mollusc known to naturalists as the Teredo navalis, and popularly as the Ship Worm (Fig. 178), has the appearance of a long worm without articulations. Between the valves of a little shell, with which it is provided anteriorly, may be seen a sort of smooth truncature, which surrounds a swelling projecting pad or cushion. communicating by two syphons with the exterior. The mantle adheres to the circumference of the shell. Above, it forms two great folds, which may both be swollen by the afflux of tlie blood, and acquire considerable size. One of these folds placed in advance, which is called the cephalic hood, is worthy of attention. The tissue of the mantle is of a greyish tint, very light, and transparent enough, especially in the young, to permit of the mass of liver, the ovary, the branchiae, and the heart being distinguished in the interior, even to counting its pulsations. The syphons are extensible, and attached the one to the other for about two-thirds of their length, the upper part being longer and thinner than the lower. It is by these tubes that the aerated water enters which feeds and enables the animal to breathe. It is discharged by the second tube, when deprived of its oxygen, and no longer respirable, carrying with it the useless products of digestion. This movement is continuous ; but from time to time the animal shuts at once the orifices of both tubes, and slightly contracts itself. The shell, seen on the side, presents an irregularly triangular form ; it is nearly as broad as it is long ; other above and below by the mantle in such a manner as only to permit of very slight movements. It is coloured in yellow and brown This cushion is the only part of the body of the animal which can be regarded as a foot. Starting from this point, all the body of the Teredo is enveloped by the shell and mantle, which form a sort of sheath Fig. 178. Teredo navalis (LimiEeus). its two valves are solidly attached the one to the PIIOLA DID/E. 387 lines ; sometimes it is quite plain. On the upper edge of the anterior truncature of the body of the animal is the mouth, a sort of funnel, flat and slightly bell-shaped, furnished with four labial palpi, a stomach without any peculiar feature, and a well-developed intestine. The heart consists of two auricles and a ventricle, which beat at very irregular intervals, four or five in the minute. The blood is colourless, transparent, and charged with small irregular corpuscles. The art of breathing is accomplished in the branchiae, or gills, and mantle. Nevertheless the one half of the blood returns to the heart without passing through these branchiae. The nervous system is well developed, and consists of a brain, nervous filaments, and of ganglions, which are distributed in the mantle, the branchiae, and the syphon tubes. The adult animal is surrounded by a sort of sheath, consisting of a solid mucus, which has sometimes been described erroneously as form- ing part of the animal. The Teredo, shut up in this tube, is limited in its movements ; when observed in a vase, its motions are slow and deliberate— movements of extension and contraction, by the aid of which it contrives with difficulty to change its place; but nothing indicates a true creeping movement. In a state of nature, according to M. Quatreiages, the body of the animal is stretched out to three times its length without diminishing in any respect its proportional thickness ; the afflux of water penetrating under the mantle, and of the blood which accumulates in the interior vessels, sufficiently ac- countmg for a phenomenon which at the first glance is very singular. Ihe Teredo deposits a spherical greenish-yellow egg. Shortly after fecundation, these eggs are transformed into larvm. At first naked and motionless, these lame are soon covered with vibratile cils when they begin to move, at first by a revolving pirouette, afterwards swimming about freely in the water. When one of these larvm has found a piece of submerged wood, without which it probably could o ive, the cunous spectacle is observed of a being which fabricates step by step, and as it requires them, the organs necessary for he pei ormance of its functions. It begins by creeping along the surfece of the wood by means ot the very long feet with which it is furnished Then i is observed from time to time to open and shut the valves of he little embryo shell which partly envelopes it. As soon as it ho! found a part of the wood sufficiently soft and porous for its purpose^ 2 c 2 388 THE OCEAN WORLD. pauses, attacks the ligneous substance, and soon produces a little pore, or cell, which will be the entrance to the future canal. Once fairly lodged in this little cell, the young Teredo is rapidly developed ; it covers itself with a coating of mucous matter, which, condensing by degrees, assumes a brownish tint, forming a solid cover- ing, with two small holes for the passage of the syphon tubes. At the end of three days this covering has become quite solid ; it is the com- mencement of the organized tube, in which the animal is to be de- veloped. When secured beneath this opaque screen, the little miner is no longer exposed to observation ; but if his cell is opened at the end of a few days, it is found that it has secreted a new shell, larger and more solid than the original one ; it is the shell of the adult animal. The young Teredo, which feeds on the raspings of the wood, in- creases rapidly ; it passes from first a spheroid form to an elongated shape, and when its body can no longer be contained in the shell, it projects beyond the edge, and would find itself naked were it not protected by its membranous sheath, which adheres to the walls of the ligneous channel, now the dwelling-place of the animal. The process by which a creature soft and naked like the Teredo should break into a solid piece of the hardest wood so quickly, and destroy it with so much facility, was long a mystery. Until very recently, the shell was looked on as the implement of perforation. But in that case the shell should preserve certain traces of its action upon surfaces so insistent as oak and fir ; but the shell, on the con- trary, is perfect, with no signs of friction. On the other hand, the muscular apparatus of the Teredo is not calculated to put the shell into rotatory action, were the process a boring one. It does not seem there- fore possible to attribute these perforations to a simple physical action. Some naturalists have suggested, in explanation of this phenomenon, that the animal is furnished with the means of secreting a liquid capable of dissolving the woody fibre. This has been met by the statement that, in whatever way the wood is attacked, whether the gallery is excavated with or across the fibre of the wood, the groove is as exactly and neatly cut as if it had been perforated by the sharpest tool, and that a corroding dissolvent could not act with this regularity, but would attack the harder and more tender parts un- equally. This objection, which M. Quatrefages opposes to the idea of a chemical solvent, appears to us to admit of no reply. But, while PH0LADID2E. 389 opposing unassailable reasons against two theories, the learned author does not leave us without a very reasonable explanation of a very puzzling phenomenon. “ Let us not forget,” lie says, “ that the interior of the gallery is constantly saturated with water ; consequently all the points of the walls which are not protected by the tube are subjected to constant maceration. In this state a mechanical action, even very inconsiderable, would suffice to clear away the bed of fibre thus softened, and, if this action is in any degree continuous, it suf- fices to explain the excavation of the galleries, however extensive their ramifications. Again, the upper cutaneous folds, especially the cephalic hood already mentioned, hav- ing the power of expanding at will by an afflux of blood, covered with a thick coriaceous epidermis, and moved by four strong muscles, seems to me very capable of performing the operation. It appears very probable that it is this hood which is charged with the removal of the woody fibre, rendering it incapable of resistance by previous maceration, which may also be assisted by some secretion from the animal.” That the fleshy parts of the mollusc, acting upon the surface, softened by long maceration in water, is the true boring implement employed by the Teredo, is, probably, the only explanation the case admits of; at all events, in the present state of our knowledge, the explanation ot the learned naturalist is the most reasonable which can be given. As an appendage to the history of the Teredo, we shall here add a few words on a very curious animal, which has received the strange name of the Watering Pot (Aspergillum). This animal, which is represented m Fig. 1 7 1), inhabits a calcareous tube, tliick, solid of considerable length, and nearly cylindrical, presenting at one extremity an opening fringed with one or many fohaceo,,8 folds in the form of frills, and at the other extremity a convex disk, pierced with holes like a vaguiiferum (^ainurck)- watering-pot: whence its name. The animal ie^i ,, ' . muscles to the interior of the tube. Chenu, 'to whom Z a“e1“ y ru 390 THE OCEAN WORLD. e Red for our information respecting tin's curious mollusc, tells us tlmt the animal which inhabits this curious shell was first described by Russel, whose account of it is deficient in the anatomical details, winch might explain the utility of the holes in the disk of the central fissure, and of the spiriform tubes found there.” We suppose that this arrangement is necessary in order to facilitate respiration ; and M. De Blainville thinks the small tubes are intended for the passage of the fillets which are necessary to fix the animal to the body on which it is to live, and in such a manner as to admit of its movements round a fixed point. The animal which inhabits the Aspergillum is elongated, contrac- tile, and only occupies the upper part of the tube, but it can stretch itself out sufficiently for all its wants. Shells of this genus are very rare, although a great number of species are known. They are found in the Red Sea, and in the seas of Australia and Java. The shells are generally of a white or yellowish tint ; some have the tube covered with a glutinated sand, mixed with small fragments of shells of diverse colours. We know nothing of their habits, and their singular forms have left naturalists in doubt as to the place which should be assigned to them in the method of arrangement. It is only after having recognised the existence of two valves, which was detected with great difficulty just under the disk, and forming part of the sheath in which the animal is encased, that it has been decided to range them with the 1 ubicola, and with the shells, presenting an arrangement analogous or equally singular. These molluscs are, as M. Chenu says, little known, rare, and hence much sought for by collectors. They are exclusively exotic, the most common species being from Java. It is imported into Europe by the Dutch. CEPHALOUS MOLLUSCA. We take leave of our little decapitated friends of Headless Molluscaor Aeephala , and direct our attention to those molluscs to which Nature has been more generous, and furnished with a bead. This bead, how- ever, is still carried humbly ; it is not yet os sublime dedit ; it is drawn along an inch or so from the ground, and in no respect resembles the proud and magnificent organ which crowns and adorns the body of the greater and more perfectly organized animals. The organization of the Cephalous Mollusca present three principal types, which has led to their being divided into three classes, after their more salient characteristics of form and locomotive apparatus ; namely, Gasteropoda, Pteropoda, and Cephalopoda. In the class Gasteropoda (from yaarpp, belly, 7 roO?, gen. 7 roSo?, foot) the locomotive apparatus consists of a flattened muscular disk, placed under the belly of the animal, aided by which it creeps. The Snail {Helix aspersa ), the Slug (Limax rufus), and the Porcelains ( Cijprea tigris), are types of this class. In the Pteropoda, from irrepov, wing, and 7 roO?, foot, the locomotive apparatus assumes the form of wings, or membranous swimming- fins, placed on each side of the neck. The Hyalea and Clio are types of this class. Ill the Cephalopoda, from /ce "»ed The -Bullae can swim with facility in deep water, but they evidently preici the shallows and a sandy bottom, feeding upon smaller mol luscs. Ihey are found m every sea, but they abound chiefly in the 410 THE OCEAN WORLD. ndian Ocean and Oceania. Some species, however, such as Bulla am- pulla (Figs. 206 and 207), the shell of which is shaded grey and brown, and the Water-drop ( Bulla hydatida), inhabit European seas. Bulla oblonga and Bulla aspersa (Adams), and Bulla nebulosa (Gould), represented in Figs. 208, 209, and 210, are also well-known species. ’ In the Pectinibranchial Gasteropoda the gills are composed of numerous leaflets cut like the teeth of a comb, and attached, on one or many lines, to the upper part of the respiratory cavity. They constitute the most numerous order of Cephalous Molluscs, compre- hending nearly all the univalve spiral shells, and many others which are simply conical. They inhabit the sea, rivers, and lakes, and are of all sizes. The most remarkable genera to which we shall limit ourselves belong to the family of Trocho'idas and Buccinoidie. Trochoids. The genus Trochus are found in all seas, and near to the shore in the clefts of rocks, especially in places where seaweeds grow luxuri- antly. borne of these thick, cone-shaped shells are extremely beautiful, being richly nacred inside, and remarkable for the beauty and diver- sity of colour exhibited. Generally smooth, the great spiral is, never- ■ Fig. 211. Trochus niloticus (Linnseus). Fig. 212. Trochus virgatus (Gmel.). theless, sometimes edged with a series of regular spines. The form is conical, the spiral more or less raised, broad and angular at the base ; the opening entire, depressed transversely, and the edge disunited in the upper part. The animal which inhabits this shell is also spiral ; its head is fur- NON-PULMONARY GASTEROPODS. 411 nished with two conical tentacles, having at their base eyes borne on a peduncle ; its foot is short, round at its two extremities, edged or fringed in its circumference, and furnished with a horny operculum, circular and regularly spiral. The family is divided into many sub-genera. Among the Tro- choidae, properly so called, we may notice a typical species, Trochus niloticus (Fig. 211) and Troclius virgatus (Fig. 212). The Zedaria comprehend the false-sided Trochoidce, typical of which we may notice Trochus inermis (Fig. 213), whose greenish-yellow shell is found in Fig. 213. Trocbus mermis (Umel.). Pig. 214. Trochus Cookii (Chemnitz). the American seas; Trochus Cookii (Fig. 214), whose rusty -brown shell is brought from the distant seas of Australia ; and Trochus imbricaius (Fig. 215), whose white-coloured shell comes from the Antilles. Fig. 215. Trochus imbricaius (GmeL). Fig. 216 Trochus aggItltinan8 (La Chorus conchyliophorus (Born). Another remarkable species, the Phorus conchyliophorus (Born) True], us agghtimans (Lamarck), is a native of the Antilles popularly known as the Mason (Figs. 210 and 217), from the singular faculty it has ol collecting on the hack of its shell, in proportion as they THE ocean world. irr.OT fl- Te> m0VabIe bodieS’ SOmetimes of considerable bulk, such ma infcs^ stems of plants, fragments of shells, all of which it carries : hence its name of Mason. The Spurred Trochue, in the shell of which the turns of the spiral re studded with radmtmg spines, is represented by Trochus della Fig. 217. Trochus agglutinans (Lamarck); Fig 218 Trochn* Kf/»ilsi r\ \ Phorus couchyliophcrus (Born). b iTocnus Stella (Lamarck). (Fig. 218) and Trochus steUarh (Fig. 220); they are natives of the Australian seas. Trochus imperial is, vulgarly called the Royal Spur, and Trochus or Botella Zealandica (Fig. 219), the New Zealand Spur,' the spiral turns of which are sculptured in descending furrows, and studded with imbricated scales, which form a projecting edging round Fig. 219. Kotella Zealandica. Fig. 220. Trochus stellaris (Gmet.). the margin ot the shell, and give it a radiating form. This species is of a violet brown above and white below, and is still rare in collections. Botella Zealandica, from the Indian Ocean, whose shell, represented in big. 219, presents the most lively colours, forms one of a genus by no means numerous in species. Beside the genus Trochus naturalists range a pretty marine shell, called the Sun-dial ( Solarium ), recognised by its profound umbilicus, wide and funnel-shaped, in the interior of which may be seen the little crenated teeth which follow the edge of every turn of the spiral up NON-PULMONARY GASTEROPODS. 413 to the top. In most collections of these pretty shells we find the striped Sun-dial ( Solarium per sped ieum of Linnaeus), from the Indian Ocean (Figs. 221, 222), the diameter of which is about two inches Fig. 221. Solarium perspecticum (Lionteus). Fig. 222. Solarium perspecticum (Linnaeus). and a half. The Australian Sun-dial ( S . variegatwn, Linnaeus, Fig. 223) is another species frequently seen in collections : it is as much variegated above as below, of a white and rusty brown. The minute trellised Sun-dial, which is only ten lines in diameter, comes from the coast of Tranquebar. Fig. 223. solarium variegatum (Linnoms). The genus Turbo are very generally diffused, being found on every shore, where they cling to rocks beaten by the waves. About fifty Fig. 224. Turbo niargaritaceus (Linnaeus). Fig. 225. Turbo argyrostomus (Liumcus). species are known, some of them large shells, others very sm Turbo margaritaceus (Fig. 224) is large, thick, and weighty, rou 414 the ocean world. !*’S a“d de8P^ f"rrowed; in colour it is yellow, or rust-coloured, , J square brown spots. Turbo argyrostomus, the Silver- “0U t-L rh° ('Flg' ~25^’ 1S Stil1 larSer> witJl projecting spines on the top 01 its larger spiral. Turbo marmoratus (Linnaeus), the Marbled urbo (Fig. 226), is the largest shell in the group. It is marbled, Fig. 226. Turbo marmoratus (Linnaeus). Fig. 227. Turbo undulatus (Chemnitz). green, white, and brown outside, and superbly nacred within. The Gold-mouthed Turbo is so named from its nacre being of a rich golden yellow. The Wavy Turbo (T. undulatus, Fig. 227) is vulgarly known as the Australian Serpent’s Skin. The shell is white, orna- mented with longitudinal waving flexible lines of spots of green, or greenish-violet. Turbo imperialis (Fig. 228), from the Chinese seas, is green without, and brilliantly nacred within ; it is vulgarly known as the paroquet. The Turbos are found in the North seas, in the Channel, and on the Atlantic coast. The animal is eaten in nearly all the sea-ports of the Channel. Near to the Trochidse and Turbos „„ s in the system are the Monodonta, I Delphmula, and Turritella. The Monodonta are elegantly-marked shells, belonging to the seas NON-PULMONARY GASTERt IPODS. 4] 5 of warm countries, ill. Australis (Fig. 229) is a native of Austra- lian seas. M. labia (Fig. 230) is a small brown shell, with -white spots, which is very common on the shores of the Mediterranean. Of the Delphinula only a small number of living species are known. They are natives of the Indian Ocean, and remarkable for the nume- rous spinous asperity of their shell (Fig. 231). AustraUs (Lamarck jf “(la ^ 231‘ Mphinula sphatrula (Kiener). The Turritellidse are numerous, and found in every sea. All these shells, as their name indicates, represent a winding pyramid, ter- minating in a sharp point, some of them having fluted spirals, others Fig. 232. Turritella Fig. 233. Turri- replicata (Linnams). tella angulata (Sowerby). rounded, angular, or flat, Figs. 232 to 236 represent Fig. 234. Turritella Fig. 235. Turri- sanguinea (Reeve). tella goniostoma. Fig. 236. Turri- tella terebellata (Lamarck). and some of them elegantly pencilled, •some of the varied forms they assume. 41fi the ocean world. The attention of naturalists has long been directed to a curious ruo use nown under the name of Janthina communis (Fig. 237) • its body is globular, and it presents an opening in frout without contracting itself in order to VWJWk form the head, which is long and trumpet- shaped, terminating in a large buccal opening, furnished with horny plates, and covered with T „ . llttle llooks > and two conical tentacles, slightly (Lamarck). contracted, but very distinct, each bearing at their external base a long peduncle. The foot is short oval divided into two parts: the anterior, concave and cup- shaped; the posterior, flat and fleshy. It is this foot which bears a vesiculous mass like foam, which gives its peculiar character to the pretty mollusc. The mass consists of a great number of small bladders, which combine to keep the animal on the surface of the water. The shell is light, transparent, violet-coloured, and very much resembles the shell of the Helix. The Janthinas inhabit the deep sea, and often form banks of many leagues in extent. Messrs. Quoy and Gaimard have seen legions of Janthinas driven by the current. They have sailed during many days through these wander- ing tribes, which would be the sport of every gale if they could not, by drawing their heads within their shells and contracting their natatorial vesicles, diminish their volume and increase their weight at will, so as to sink quietly to the bottom of the water tiH the tempest was over. It is even pretended that at the approach of danger the Janthina discharges a liquid of a dark violet colour, which disturbs the water, and permits it to escape from its enemy. Buccinida:. This family includes a vast number of molluscs almost exclusively marine, among which are the beautiful genera Conus, Porcelaina, Almea, Cassis, and Murex, which we propose to pass in review. The genus Conus is especially rich in species, as well as numerous in individuals. They are much sought after by collectors, being very rare, and command high prices. The shells belonging to this group present a very remarkable uniformity of shape, at the same time that the colours are very fine, and much varied in design. The shell is * I. Conus imperiaiis. (Linn.) II. Conus geographus. (Linn.) III. Conus teasellatus. (Born.) IV., V., and VI. Conus ammiralis. (Linn.) I'wf P i WWm ■ w&Ji 1 u 1 1 1 1 rriiij mrlttll ii , Lm\ JgHf / JariU v r iITTmT r tem llji 7 \ II. Conus nobilis. (Linn.) VIII. Conus textile. (Linn) IX. Conus gloria man's. (Cliemn.) j Plate XXI.— Conus NON-PULMONARY GASTEROPODS. 417 thick, solid, inversely conical, wreathing spirally from the base to the apex, the spiral being generally short, the last turn constituting alone the greater part of the surface of the shell. The opening extends nearly along its whole length, occupying all the height of the last whirl. It is always narrow, its edges quite parallel ; the columella presents neither fold nor curvature ; the right edge is plain, sharp, and thin, detached from the front of the last spiral by a sloping hollow, more or less deep. The animal which inhabits the Conus shell creeps upon a foot, elongated, narrow, truncate in front, furnished behind with a horny rudimentary operculum, altogether insufficient to cover the opening. The head, which is large, is elongated into a little snout, or muzzle, at the base of which rises on either side a conical tentacle, having an exterior eye upon its anterior extremity. At the extremity of the muzzle is the mouth, which is armed within with numerous horny hooks, inserted in the tongue. A cylindrical syphon, reversing itseif in the shell, serves the purpose of carrying water to the branchige or gills. The shells inhabit the seas of warm countries, especially those between the Tropics, where they affect sandy coasts, with a depth of ten to twelve fathoms of water. Among the species bearing a spiral crown, we may mention Conus fvdomiUi, of which many varieties are known, which come from the South American Seas and the Antilles. Of all species of the genus it is the rarest, and, consequently, most sought after for its rarity and beauty. The commonest species is Conus hebraica, from the shores of Asia, Africa, and America. It is white with black spots, which are nearly square, arranged in transverse bands. In Pl. XXI. vye have represented some interesting species. Conus miperuihs (Fig. I.) is a fine species, of white colour, with bands of a greenish yellow or tawny colour, ornamented with trausverse, cord- like, articulated lines of white and brown. One of the largest species of the genus is Conus geograplius (Fig. II.), which sometimes attains the length of six or seven inches; it is shaded white and brown. Among the non-crowned species, we have represented in Fi" HI Conus tessellatus, common in the Indian Ocean. Its anterior part is violet m the interior. The spots with which it is surrounded are‘ of a fine red or scarlet, or, in short, a red lead colour upon a white Ground Conus ammiralis, of which three varieties, Figs. IV.. V., and VI are 2 e <118 I’HE ocean world. natives of the seas which bathe the Moluccas: they are beautifully marked varieties, of a brownish citron colour, marked with white spots neai y nangular, with tawny bands painted in very fine tracery. ns species has been, and is still, much sought after by collectors, and presents many varieties besides those represented. Among the shells, which seem almost ready to become cylindrical may be noted Conus Mis (Fig. VII.), a rare shell of yeiWish colow approaching citron, ornamented with white spots. The golden dron tonus (Fig. VIII.), is yellow in colour, ornamented with waving longitudinal lines of brown, and white corded spots edged with tawny CO our. The glory ot the sea, Conus gloria mark (Fig. IX.), is white in colour, banded with orange, and reticulated with numerous triangular white spots edged with brown. This is a native of the East Indies and one of the most beautiful shells of the whole group. The porcelain shells, or Cypriea, are brilliant, smooth, and polished qualities which have procured for them the denomination under which they are best known. They are oval-shaped or oblong convex with edges rolling inwards and longitudinal openings, narrow, arched, dentate on both edges, and notched at the extremities. The spiral,' placed quite posteriorly, is very small, and often hidden by a calcareous bed of a vitreous appearance. It is now known that the form and colouring of the shells vary very considerably, according to the age of the animal : so much so, indeed, that the same species examined at various stages of its growth would almost seem to species and even to genera essentially different. In their youth Porcelains are thin, conical, elongated; with con- spicuous, spiral, and large openings. The right edge soon becomes thicker, and folds itself inwardly ; the opening is restricted ; finally, the spiral is unfolded in successive folds from the right edge, and by successive deposits of the vitreous matter we have spoken of the opening is gradually contracted, its extremities hollowed out, its edges disconnected, and the shell, until now only shaded in pale tints, assumes its most brilliant colours, disposed in bands or spots, as exhi- bited in Pl. XXII., in which Figs. I. and II. are the adult shells, and Fig. III. the young shell, of Oyprsea Seottii. The animal which inhabits this shell is elongated, and is provided with a well-developed mantle, furnished on the inside with a band of tentacles ; it is aide to fold itself up in its shell in such a manner as I Young. Ilf. Cypiwa. (Broderip.) Adults. 1. Cypnea Scottii. (Broderip.) II. Cypra* Scottii. (Broderip.) V and VI. Cypraja histrio. (I. inn.) IV. Cyprtca mappa. Cypnea tlgris. (Linn.) Cypnea argus. (Limn) Ti-atr XXII. — Cypnendrr, NON- P ULMO NARY G ASTEROPODS. 410 to be enveloped all round. The head is provided with two very long conical tentacles, each having a very large eye, in which a pupil and iris can be distinguished. The foot is oval, elongate, and without operculum, and is well represented in Cijprsea tigris (Fig. 238). The Porcelains are found at a little distance from the shore, generally in clefts of the rocky bottoms ; but sometimes they bury themselves in the sand. They are timid, shun the light, and only leave their re- treats to creep about in search of food, which appears to be exclu- sively animal. These magnificent molluscs are natives of every sea. One small creature lives in the Channel ; another and much larger species is found in the Adriatic ; but the Indian Ocean is the home of the larger and finer species of porcelain shells. As objects of curiosity and ornament these shells have been much in request in all ages. The inhabitants of the Asiatic coast make brace- Fig. 238. Cypnea tigris (Linnaeus). nella (Lamarck). lets, collars, amulets, and head-dresses of them, and use them to orna- ment boxes and harness. In New Zealand the chiefs carry a rare and choice species, suspended from the neck, as a badge of their rank or smn ot distinction This is Cypnea coccinella (Fig. 239). In some parts of India and Africa a very little species, the Cowrie, passes as current money. The species are, indeed, very numerous, and we can only find room for very brief descriptions of a few of the best known among them. The Waving and Zigzag Porcelains, whose native country is un- known, are beautifully ornamented with waving and broken lines, as we see them in Figs. 240 to 243. The Aurora Porcelain, of which we have spoken above, is nearly globular, of a uniform orange colour above, and white below : the teeth ot the opening are of a bright orange. The shell is rare, and much sought after. ’ cu The Cowrie Porcelains, Gyp ma moneta (Figs. 244 and 245), is a 2 e 2 420 THE ocean world. Me oval shell, depressed, flat below, with very thick edges, and • 'o 1 1 waving. It IS ol a uniform yellowish white colour, sometimes Figs. 2-10 and 241. Cypra-a umlaut (Lamarck). Hgs. 212 and 213. Cy print zigzag (Linnajus). eitrou-yeUow above and white below. There are usually twelve teeth ill the opening. It comes from the Indian Ocean, the Maldivian isles, and the Atlantic Ocean. This shell, so common in collections, is gathered by the women on he shore of the Maldivian Isles, three days after the full moons and jefore the new moons; it is afterwards transported to Bengal, to India, and Africa, where, as we have already said, it is used by the negroes and other natives as money. rigs.: 244 mm 245 0 n „ , Cyprrea moneta (Lin mens) B 24 6‘ cyPr®a Madagascariensis (Gmel.). '' (1 and 2). Ihe Madagascar Porcelain, Cyprsea Madagascariensis (Fig. 246), and the Granular Porcelain, Gy prim nucleus (Figs. 250 and 251), are’ beautifully marked species, having the general appearance of the Cowrie. The species most abundant m the Channel is the little Coccinelli already mentioned ; it is very small, oval, tun-bellied, the opening dilated in front with smooth transverse stripes of greyish, tawny, or rose colour, with or without spots. Cypnea mappa (Pl. XXII, Fig. IV.) is oval-shaped, swelling below its sides, well-rounded, ornamented with small white spots below, with a dorsal NON-PULMONARY GASTEROPODS., 421 branching line above; the interior is violet colour, with thirty-six teeth on one side and forty-two on the other. It belongs to the Indian Ocean. The Harlequin Porcelain, Cy greed histrio (Figs. V. and VI.), from 21 Cvpra-a Figs. 248 and 24!). Cyprtea testudlnariu (Linnaeus), capensis (Gray). ' the coast ot Madagascar, is ornamented with white spots very closely arranged, and much circumscribed above, with black spots upon the sides. The under side is violet. Figs. 250 and 251. Cypra;a nucleus (Linnaeus). Fig. 252. Cyprma pantherina (Sol.'). . ^ vei7 **ne species, which is very common in collections, is foum m the Indian Ocean, from Madagascar to the Moluccas— the Ti< gei 422 THE OCEAN WOULD. Porcelain, already figured with its inhabitant. This shell (Fte yn \ is large, oral, tun-bellied, thick, and convex, of a bluish white' orna- mented with numerous broad, black, round spots, much scattered, and straight dorsal line, brown above and very white below. It has gene- hV l T 0n GaCh edge’ qmte white- Somewhat rfsein- mg the Tiger Porcelain is the Cyprsea pantherina (Fig. 252) which is probably a variety of the same species. Another remarkable species is Ct/prsea argus, as represented in Pl. XXII. (Figs YIII and l\ } Fig. 253. Natural size of Ovula oviformis (Limueus). The genus Ovula, so called from their egg-shaped form, occupy a place near the cones in the system. The shell is highly polished, white or rose coloured, oblong or oval, convex, attenuate, and acuminate at the extremities without apparent spiral, the edges milled within the long, narrow, and curved opening, vith teeth upon the left edge, and with a few ripples on the right edge. The Ovula; are inhabitants of the Indian 54 Natural ^C6an anq Chinese seas. Some few species, however, of Ovula belong to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea The cornea (Lamk). ,-i . three species represented m Figs. 253, 254, and 255, pre- sent very singular contrasts of form and size. In the genus Voluta, from volveve, to turn, the shell is oval, more oi le.ss tun-bellied. A spiral rising, slightly mammelate, the opening large, the edges notched, without channel ; the columellar edge is lightly excavated and arranged in oblique folds. The right edge is arched, thick, or cutting, according to the species. Fig. 254. Natural size V. Voluta imperials. (Lamarck.) m — VI. Voluta scapha. (Gmel.) IV. Voluta muslca. (Linn.) VII. Voluta vexiUum. (Cheiu.) I 1’i.Axii XXIII. — Voluta. NON-PULMONAKY GASTEllOPODS. 423 The animal has a large head, provided with two tentacles. The mouth terminates in a thick trunk furnished with hooked teeth. The Fig. 255. Ovula volva (Linnaeus). foot is very large, furrowed in front, and projecting from all parts of the shell, but without operculum. The Volutae live on the sands near the shore ; sometimes they are found high and dry, left by the retreating tide. Their shells, of various forms, are ornamented with the most lively colours, the surface covered with irregular lines, the tint of which is generally in strong contrast with that of the ground. Among the more remarkable species illustrated in Pl. XXIII., we may note : Fig. I., I oluta undulata ; Fig. II., Voluta cymbium ; Fig. III., Voluta delessertii ; Fig. IV., Voluta musica ; Fig. V., Voluta im- ■perialis ; Fig. VI., Voluta scapha; and Fig. VII., Voluta vexillum. Besides the genus Voluta, naturalists range the kindred genus Oliva, so named from their resemblance in form to the olive. Their nearly cylindrical shell is slightly spiral, polished, and brilliant as the Porcelains ; its opening is still long and narrow, strongly notched Fig. 256. Oliva erythrostoma (Lamarck). Fig. 257. Oliva por- phyria (Liunteus). Fig. 258. Oliva iri- sans (Lamarck). Fig. 259. Oliva Peru- viana (Lamarck). in fiont, its edge columellar, swollen anteriorly into a kind of cushion and striped obliquely in all its length. "* the ocean world. ilic Molluscs belong to the seas of warm countries, where they fre- quent the sandy bottoms and clear waters. They creep about with much agdity, reversing themselves quickly when they have been overturned; they live upon other animals, and are flesli-eaters. They are, in fact' taken at the Isle of Tranu by using flesh as bait. The colours of the shell are very varied, and sometimes fantastically streaked. Oliva erythro- i doma (Fig. 256) is ornamented externally with flexual lines of a .! yellowish-brown, with two brown bands, combined with the fine yellowish tint of gold colour within. Oliva porphyria, from the Brazil coast (big. 257), presents lines of a reddish-brown, regularly inter- i laced with spotted large brown marks, upon a flesh-coloured ground. Oliva irisans (Fig. 258) is painted in zigzag lines, close and brown, edged with orange-yellow, and with two zones of darker brown, and reticulated. Oliva Peruviana (Fig. 259) is furrowed with regularly spaced bands. ° J Mitra and Cassis. Beside the Olives and Volutes in the system, and resembling them in many respects, we find the Mitres, so called from their resemblance i to the bishop’s mitre. They are j natives of warm climates, such as j the Indian Ocean, the Australian Seas, and the Moluccas. The shell j ot the Mitra is long, slender, and I spiral, the spire ending in a point 1 at the summit ; the openiug is small, 1 narrow, and triangular, and notched in front. The inhabitant of the j shell has the peculiarity of project- j ing from its mouth a sort of cylin- j drical trunk, which is long, very j extensible as well as flexible, and probably prehensile, the use of j which is only subject of surmise, rig. 26o. antra epis- Fig. 26i. Mitra papaiis Mitra episcopalis (Fin. 260) from copatls (Lamarck). (Lamarck). , ■> T v . ' . 0 . ’ tne Indian Ocean, is white, orna- mented with square spots of a fine red, and capable of high polish. NON-PULMONARY GASTEROPODS. 425 Mitra papalis (Fig. 261) has dentiform folds round the opening, which also crown each turn of the spiral ; the spots are smaller, and much more numerous and varied in form than those of M. episoopalis. In the casque Cassis, the shell is oval, convex, and the spiral of con- tig. '262. Cassis glauca (Linnajus). Fig. 263. Cassis rufu (Linnaos). Fig. 264. Cassis canaliculata (Brugiferes). siderable height. The longitudinal opening narrow, terminating in front in a short channel, which becomes suddenly erect towards the back of the shell, as in Cassis glauca (Fig. 262), a glaring grey shell l'igs. 265 and 266. Cassis Madagascariensis (Lamarck). from the Moluccas. The columella is folded or toothed transverse! ns m Fig. 203 (Cassis mfa) ; the right edge thick, furnished with sort ol pad externally, and dentate within. This shell is from t] 426 THE OCEAN WORLD. Indian Ocean, and is of a fine purple colour, vaiied with black above ; e e ges ol the opening being of a coral red colour, the teeth alone being white. The bead of the animal is large and thick, furnished with two conical elongated tentacles, at the base of which are the eyes. The mantle is ranged outside the shell, falling back upon the edges of the opening, and terminating at its an- terior extremity in a long cylindrical channel, cloven in front, and passing by a hollow at the base into the bronchial cavity. The foot is large, and furnished with a horny oper- culum. These animals keep near the shore, in shallow water. They walk slowly, and often sink themselves into the sand, where they prey upon small bivalves. They are not numerous in species; but specimens from the Indian Ocean are often large and beautifully marked. The shells of the less marked species are frequently used in India as lime, and employed as mortar. Fig. 267. Cassis zebra (Lamarck). Our space only permits us to mention, among the more curious specimens, Cassis canalicidata (Fig. 2/34), two varieties of Cassis Madagascar iensis (Figs. 265 and 266), and the curious Cassis undata (Martini), Zebra (Lam.), or Zebra-marked Casque (Fig. 267). Purpura. The Purpuras have a classical name and history, having furnished the Greeks and Romans with the brilliant purple colouring mn.tt.pr which was reserved for the mantles of patricians and princes. The Purpura is an oval shell, thick-pointed, with short conical spiral, as in Purpura capillus (Fig. 268). In some it is tubercular or angular, the last turn of the spiral being larger than all the others put together. The opening is dilated, terminating at its lower extremity in an oblique notch. I he columellar edge is smooth, often terminating in a point ; the right edge often digitate, thick internally, and folded or rippled. NON-PULMONARY GASTEROPODS. 427 The animal presents a large head, furnished with two swollen conical tentacles, close together, and bearing an eye towards the middle of their external side. Its foot is large, bilobate in front, with a semicircular horny operculum. The Purpuras inhabit the clefts of rocks in marine regions covered with algae. On occasions they bury themselves in the sand. They creep about by the help of their foot in pursuit of bivalves, which they open by means of their short snout. They are found in all seas ; but the larger species and greatest numbers come from warm regions, more especially from the Australian seas. The Purpura of the ancients was not, as is generally thought, a vermilion red, but rather a very deep violet, which at a later period came to have various shades of red. The secret of its preparation was only known to the Phoenicians, that being most esteemed which came from Tvre. An English traveller, Mr. Wilde, has discovered on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, near the ruins of Tyre, a certain number of circular excavations in the solid rock. In these excavations he found a great number of broken shells of Mur ex trun- culus. It is probable that they had been bruised in great masses by the Tyrian workmen for the manufacture of the purple dye. Many shells of the same species are found actually living on the same coast at the present time. Aristotle, in his writings, dwells upon the purple. He says that this dye is taken from two flesh-eating molluscs inhabiting the sea which washes the Phoenician coast. According to the description given by the celebrated Greek philosopher, one of these animals had a very large shell, consisting of seven turns of the spiral, studded with spines, and terminating in a strong beak ; the other had a shell much smaller. Aristotle named the last animal Buccinum. It is thought that the last species is recognised in the Purpura capillus (Fig. 268), which abounds in the Channel. Reaumur and Duhamel obtained, in fact, a purple colour from this species, which they applied to some stuffs, and found that it resisted the strongest lye. The genus Mur ex is supposed to have been the first species in- dicated by Aristotle. Up to the present time, the production of the purple remains a mystery. It was long thought this fine dye was furnished by the stomach, liver, and kidneys; but M. Lacaze-Duthiers has demon- 428 THE OCEAN WORLD. strated that the organ which secretes it is found on the lower surface of the mantle, between the intestines and the respiratory organs, where it forms, a sort of fascia, or small band. The colouring matter, as it is extracted Irom the animal, is yellowish ; exposed to the light, it becomes golden yellow, then green, taking finally a fine violet tint. ^ hile these transformations are in progress a peculiarly pungent odour is disengaged, which strongly reminds one of that of assafcetida. That portion of the matter which has not passed into the violet tint is soluble in water ; when it has taken that tint it becomes insoluble. The appearance of the colour seems provoked rather by the influence ot the sun’s rays than by the action of the air. The matter attains its final colour, in short, in proportion to the powder of the sun’s rays. It is a question, how far the colour evolved under the solar rays lemains indelible. It is known that the contrary is the case with the colouring matter of the cochineal insect, which changes very quickly when exposed to the sun. It is probably the remarkable resistance it opposes to the rays of the sun which recommended it to the ancients. The patricians of Rome, and the rich citizens of Greece and Asia Minor, loved to watch the magical reflec- • tions of the sun on the • glorious colour which or- namented their mantles, j But to return to our humble shells. Purpura lapillus (Fig. 268) is a thick shell, oval acute, with conical spiral, generally of a faded or yellowish white, zoned with brown, and more or less spotted. Purpura patula (Fig. is a species so common in the Mediterranean that Columella thought it was from this species in particular that the Romans obtained their fine colour. Purpura consul (Fig. 270) is one of the largest shells, and of a fine thick white colour. NON-PULMONA II Y GASTEROPODA •429 The Buccinums resemble the Purpura in many respects. Their shell is oval or conical* much notched in front. They inhabit every Fig. 270. Purpura consul (Liunrous). Fig. 271. Bucdnum Fig. 272. Buccinum undatum senticosum (Linnicus). (Linnajus). sea, especially those of Europe. The animal has a small flat head, furnished with lateral tentacles or horns, bearing the eyes upon an external swelling, situated near their central length. We need only refer to Fig. 271, Buccinum senticosum , and Buccinum undatum (Fig. 272), for their general form, the well-known whelk of our markets. The Ear pas are shells of the Indian Ocean, richly enamelled within, and orna- mented externally with slightly oblique longitudinal stripes in gay colours, with finely sculptured forms in the intervals ; spiral very small, and opening large. Among the more attractive species are Earpa ventricosa (Fig. 273), Earpa F‘8'273' 1Iari“ ventricosa (Umarek> imperialis (Fig. 274), and Earpa articularis (Fig. 275). The Murex, or Itock Shells, include a large number of species, all remarkable for their bright colours and somewhat fantastical and varied forms. They are found in all seas, but become larger and more branching in the seas of warm regions. The shell is oval, or rather 430 THE OCEAN WORLD. oblong, the spire more or less elevated, its surface generally covered with rows of spines, or tubercular ramifications.’ The opening, which Fig. 274. Harpa imperialis (Lamarck). Fig. 275. Harpa ardcularis (Lamarck). is oval, is prolonged in a straight canal often of very considerable I length, as in F ig. 2/7 (Mur ex haustellum ) ; the external edge is ! often smooth or rippled, S the columellar edge i sometimes callous. The head of the j animal is furnished with j two horns or tentacles, J ocular upon their ex- j ternal side, the mouth elongated in the form of a trunk. The foot is large and round, and furnished with a horny operculum. Among the species f j with long slender tube, covered with spines, one of the most notable is Fig. 270. Murex tenulspma (Lamarck). Fig. ^277. ^ jlauste1' MureX tenuispina (Fig. 276), which is a native of the Indian Ocean and the Moluccas. NON-PULMONARY GASTEROPODS. 431 Among the strong-tubed species with long canal and no spines, from the same regions, is Murex haustellum (Fig. 277). Among the short-tubed species, furnished with foliaceous and jagged fringes, is Murex scorpio (Fig. 278). Fig. 280. Triton variegatum (Lam.) Fig. 281. Triton lotorlum (Linn.) Flg. 282. Triton anus (Lam.) in the Channel. Other species worthy of notice are found in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, some of them, according to Cuvier tig. 2 1 3. Murex scorpio (Linnajus) Fig. 279. Murex erinaceus (Linmeus). One more typical species may be noted, namely, Murex erinaceus (Fig. 279), which is found on all the coasts of Europe, and especially 432 THE OCEAN WORLD. and De Blainville, species which furnished the true Tyrian purple of the ancients ; but our space prevents us from dwelling on them. The Tritons are ranged beside the genus Murex in the system. Their shell is irregularly covered with scattered swelling excrescences, not, as in Murex, in longitudinal rows, but scattered all over the Fig. 284. Cerithium Fig. 285. Cerithium giganteum aluco (Linnaeus). (Lamarck). surface. About forty species of Triton are known. They inhabit : every sea, but more especially those in warm countries. Triton va- 1 riegatum, vulgarly called the Marine Trumpet (Fig. 280), is a very large shell, which even attains a length of sixteen inches ; it is enamelled with great elegance, in white, red, and tawny-brown. They come from the Indian Ocean, where they are very common. Triton lotorium Fig. 283. Cerithium fascia turn ( Brug.). NON-PULMONARY GASTEROPODA. 433 (Fig. 281) is of a reddish-brown externally and white within. The Triton anus (Fig. 282) is of a whitish colour, spotted with red. Cerithium is a marine shell, which is found in muddy bottoms ; on ships, and more frequently at the mouths of rivers, but rarely beyond the point to which the tide reaches. The genus is numerous in species. Such are Cerithium fasciatum (Fig. 283) and Cerithium aluco (Fig. 284). The Giant Cerithium, Cerithium giganteum (Fig. 285), is the liv- ing analogue of a magnificent fossil species belonging to the tertiary Fig. 286. Fusus pvoboscidiferus (Um.l. Fig. 287. Fusus pngodus (Lesson). Fig. 288. Fusus coins (Unnajus). formation. The single known example of this species belongs to the Delessert Museum at Paris. A manuscript note by Lamarck, attached to this specimen, relates that this shell was first brought to Dunkirk in 1810 by an Englishman, one of the crew of an English ship 2 f 434 THE OCEAN WORLD. The English sailor had drawn it up from the bottom of the sea with the sounding-lead from a bed of rocks off the coast of Australia. Ihe genus Fusus, or spindle shells, is distinguished by the elegance j of its form rather than by the brilliancy of its colours. They are spindle-shaped, spire many whorled, canal long, operculum egg-shaped. Among tliG moie lomnikciblo spocios may bo noted Fusus pvobos - l cidiferus (Fig. 286), Fusus pagodus (Fig. 287), and Fusus colus i (Fig. 288). The genus Strombus is a marine shell, belonging to Equatorial seas, ■ of whose habits and manners very little is known. It is probable that ] they are long-lived, for their shells, when found perfect, have acquired a very considerable thickness and weight. They are even found Fig. 289. Strombus gigas (Linnaaus), with the animal. encrusted in the interior with numerous layers of soft earthy sediment, and covered externally with small polypiers and other marine pro- ductions, as represented in Strombus gigas (Fig. 289). Some species of Strombus attain great size and are placed as orna- ments in halls and dining-rooms. In some of them the opening is brilliantly shaded, and those are chiefly sought after to decorate grottoes in gardens, or for collections of shells, where, from their size, they necessarily occupy a prominent place. These shells are tun-bellied, terminating at their base by a short canal, notched or truncated ; the right edge gets dilated with age ; simple on one wing, lobed or cimeated in the upper part, and pre- senting in its lower part a groove or cavity separated from the canal or from the notch at the base. NON-PULMONARY GASTEROPODS. 435 The animal which inhabits this shell presents a distinct head, pro- vided with a trunk or snout, and with two tentacles or horns, each bearing a large and vividly-coloured eye. The foot is compressed and Fig. 290. Shell of Strombus gigns. Fig. 291. Strombus gallus (Linr.). divided into two portions, the posterior one, which is the longest, bear- ing a horny operculum — a true claw. In the eagle- winged S 'trombus, represented in Figs. 290 and 291, these several peculiarities are Fig. 292. Strombus lubuanns Fig. 293. Strombus can- Fig. 294. Strombus thersites (Gray') (Linuffius). cellatus (Lamarck). well developed. This shell is large, turbinate, distended in the middle, with an acutely-pointed spiral studded with conical tubercles 2 f 2 436 THE OCEAN WORLD. the right edge very broad, rounded off below. The opening is ot a Vivid rose purple fading into white. It is a native of the Antilles. i trombus gallus, or the angel-winged (Fig. 291), veined with stripes of white and red, comes from the coasts of Asia and America. rombus Miuarms ( Fig. 292) is fawn-coloured, sown with white and externally the right edge is red and striped ; inside the columella is shaded purple and black. Strombus cancellatus, the trellised Strombus (Fig. 293), is small in size and white in colour. Strombus thersites is also represented (Fig. 294). JrTEROOERA. The Pterocera, from ttt epbv, wing, and Kepa,, horn, in many respects lesemble the Strombi. They are distinguished from them chiefly in this that the light edge developes itself with age in long and slender digital spines more or less numerous, the numbers of which vary Fig. 295. Pterocera Scorpio (Linnaeus). Fig. 296. Pterocera .millepeda (Linnaeus). according to the species. The Pteroceras are found in the seas of both hemispheres, their vulgar denomination being sea-spiders or scorpions. A glance at the illustrations (Fig. 295, Pterocera scorpio ; Fig. 296, P. millepeda ; Fig. 297, P. chiragra; and Fig. 298, P. lambis ) will satisfy the reader as to the general correctness of this designation. CYCLOBRANCHIAL GASTEROPODS. 437 The family of Pterocera, whose remarkable form is so well calcu- lated to excite our admiration, has yet another attraction : the colour- in" of the shell exhibits many shades, which are particularly varied towards the opening, where it is generally distinguished by great freshness and brilliancy, which, added to its other characters, render it the most interesting of all the Gasteropods. The Cyclobranchial Grasteropods have the branchiae in the form of leaflets or small pyramids, attached in one row on each side under the edge of the mantle. These are essentially marine animals, which form two families, viz. Chitonidm and Patellidie. The Chitons are very singular creatures, destitute of eyes, of tentacles, and without jaws ; they bear upon their back in place of a shell a cuirass composed of imbricated and movable scales. They have the power of elongating and contracting themselves like the snails. They roll themselves up into a ball like the woodlouse. They adhere with great force to the rocks, affecting those places most Fig. 297. Pterocera chiragra (Linnteua). Fig. 298. Pterocera lambis (Llnnajus). Cyclobranchial Gasteropods. 43S the ocean world. exposed to the beating waves. Chiton magnificua (Fig. 299) is found m all seas. The Patellidfp, or Limpets, constitute a very numerous family, distinguished at once by the form and structure of the animal, and by that of the shell. It was indebted to the ancients for its vulgar name of Limpet, which Linnaeus changed to Patella, or little plate, although the majority of the species have little resemblance to a plate, large or small. The shell of the Patellidae is univalve, oval, or circular, non-spiral, but terminating in an elliptic cone, concave and simple beneath, non-pierced at the summit, entire and inclined anteriorly. It is smooth, or ornamented on the sides with ridges radiating from the summit, and often covered with scales ; the edges are frequently dentate. The colours are vivia and much varied. The interior is very smooth, and remarkable for the brilliancy and vigour of its tints. I he head of the animal is furnished with two pointed tentacles , or horns, having an eye at the external base of each. The body is <>\al and neaily circular, conical, or depressed. The foot is in the toim of a thick fleshy disk. Certain lamellar branchiae are arranged in series all round the body. lhe Limpets dwell upon the sea shore, in the parts alternately covered and uncovered by the waves. They are almost always j attached to rocks, or other submerged bodies, to which they adhei’e v\itk gieat tenacity. If the Limpet is touched before any attempt is ; made to dislodge it, no human force, it is said, can remove it without I breaking the shell. We are assured that a Limpet can sustain without yielding a weight of many pounds weight. It holds on by the great quantity of vertical fibres of the foot, which in raising the median part forms in the centre a sort of sucker. It is the celebrated experiment of the Magdeburg cups which these little molluscs realise by their vital action. These animals bury themselves in the chalky rocks to the depth of two or three lines ; when they are dispersed, they are observed constantly to return to the same place. Their movements are, besides, extremely slow ; the advance of the Limpets being only perceived CYCLOBRANCHIAL GASTEROPODA. 439 by watching the slow upheaval ol the shell above the plane of its position. It is supposed, from the mouth being armed on its upper edge with a large semi-lunar, homy, cutting tooth, and in its lower part from having a tongue furnished with horny hooks, and horn their inhabiting in great numbers places covered with marine plants, that their food is chiefly vegetable. Fig. 302. Patella granatina (Linnaeus). ’ Fig. 303. Patella barbatn (Iaimarck). They are found in every sea; but are, however, found to be larger as well as more numerous, and much richer in colour, in Equatorial seas, and especially in the southern hemisphere, than in European seas. The common Limpet is thick, solid, oval, and nearly circular, generally conical, and covered with a great number of very fine stripes. Its colour is of a greenish grey, uniform above, and of a greenish yellow inside. It is abundant in the Channel and on Atlantic coasts. The Blue Limpet, Patella cserulea (Fig. 300), from St. Helena, The poorer inhabitants of the coast eat Limpets when they have nothing else, but their flesh is singularly coriaceous and indigestible. Fig. 300. Patella cterulea (Lamarck). Fig. 301. Patella umbella (Gmel.). 440 THE OCEAN WOULD. lias an oval shell, broadest behind, moderately thick, depressed, flattened, covered with angular wrinkles, and dentate on the edge. It is of a spotted green outside and of a fine glossy blue within. Other very elegant species are Patella umbella (Fig. 301), from the African coast. Patella granatina (Fig. 302), the ruby-eyed Limpet from the Antilles ; Patella barbata, the bearded Limpet (Fig. Hgs. 304 and 305. Patella longicosta (Lamarck). 303), and the long-shore Limpet, Patella longicosta (Fig. 304), the outside of the shell, and Fig. 305 the inside. CHAPTER XV. MOLLUSCOUS PTEROPODS. " Natura non facit saltus.” Linn^us. Between the Gasteropoda and Cephalopods naturalists place a small group of marine animals very limited, both in genus and species, the principal characteristic of which is a membranous expansion situated on the right and left side of their head, from which they take their name of Pteropoda, from Trovs-TTTep'os, winged feet. Our space only permits us to notice the most remarkable of these curious creatures. To omit them would be to leave a gap in our history of molluscous animals. The wings or flappers with which they are provided enable them to pass rapidly through the water, in which they feel about with rapid and continual movements, which can only be compared to those of a butterfly. Like these, the movements of the Pteropods are incessant, their flappers being not unlike the wings of the insect. They advance in this manner in a given direction, while the body or the shell remains in an oblique or vertical position. These little molluscs may be seen to ascend to the surface very suddenly, turn themselves in a determinate space, or rather swim, without appearing to change their place "while sustaining themselves at the same height. If anything alarms them they fold up their flappers, and descend to such a depth in their humid world as will give them the security they seek. They thus pass their lives in the open sea far from any other shelter, except that yielded by the gulf weed and other algaj. In appearance and habits, these small and sometimes microscopic creatures resemble the fry of some other forms of mollusca. They literally swarm both in Tropical and Arctic seas ; sometimes so 442 TIIIO OCEAN WOULD. numerous as to colour the ocean for leagues. They are the principal loot! of whales and sea birds in high latitudes, rarely approaching the coast. Only one or two species have been accidentally taken on our shores, and those evidently driven thither by currents into which they have been entangled, or by tempests which have stirred the waters with a power beyond theirs. Dr. Leach states that in 1811, •hiring a tour to the Orkneys, he observed on the rocks of the Isle of Staffa several mutilated specimens of Clio borealis. Some days after, having borrowed a large shrimp-net, and rowing along the coast of Mul1 wljen tlle sea> wllich had previously been extremely stormy, had become calm, he succeeded in catching one alive, which is now in the British Museum. Iu structure, Mr. Huxley tells us, “ the Pteropods are most nearly related to the marine univalves, but much inferior to them. Their numerous ganglia are concentrated into a mass below the oesophagus ; they have auditory vesicles containing otolithes, and are sensible ot light and heat, and probably of odours, although at most they possess very imperfect eyes and tentacles. The true foot is small 01 obsolete ; in Cleodera lanceolata (Fig. 310) it is combined with the fins ; but in Clio it is sufficiently distinct, and consists of two elements or spirals ; the superior portion of the foot supports an operculum. The fins are developed from the sides of the mouth or neck, and are the equivalents of the side-lappets (Epipoda) of the sea- snails. The mouth of Pneumodermon is furnished with two sup- porting miniature suckers ; these organs have been compared to the dorsal arms of the cuttle-fishes; but it is doubtful whether their nature is the same. A more certain point of resemblance is the ventral flexure of the alimentary canal, which terminates on the under surface near the right side of the neck. The Pteropods have a muscular gizzard armed with gastric teeth, a liver, a pyloric cascum, and a contractile renal organ opening into the cavity of the mantle. The heart consists of an auricle and a ventricle, and is essentially opistho- branchiatic, although sometimes affected by the general flexure of the body. The venous system is extremely incomplete. The respiratory organ, which is little more than a ciliated surface, is either situated at the extremity of the body, and unprotected by a mantle, or included in a branchial chamber with an opening in front. The shell when present is symmetrical, glassy, and translucent, consisting of a dorsal PTEROPODOUS MOLLUSCS. 443 and a ventral plate united, witli an anterior opening for the head, lateral slits for long filiform processes of the mantle, and terminated behind in one or three points ; in other cases it is conical 01 spii ally- coiled, and closed by a spiral operculum. The sexes are united, and the orifices situated on the right side of the neck. According to Vogt, the embryo Pteropod has deciduous vola like the sea-snails, before the proper locomotive organs are developed.” The Pteropods seem to he eminently sociable and gregarious, swarming together in great numbers ; they present some analogical resemblances to the Ceplialopodm ; but permanently they represent the larval stage of the sea-snails. De Blainville divides the group into two sections, Tliecosomata and Gytunosomata, the first including the 1 lyalceidse and Lemacinidx ; the second contains one family, the Clionidfe. The Hyalceidae have small horny shells, very thin and transparent, globulous, or elongated, open anteriorly, cloven on the Figs. 306 and 307. Hyalea gibbosa (Rang.) Figs. 308 and 309. Hyalca longlrostris (Lesueur). sides, and truncate at the posterior extremity. Their globular body is formed of two parts, the one including the head, bearing two very strong tentacles, and two large fins or flappers in the form of wings, springing from each side of the mouth. These molluscs are small, and generally of a yellowish-blue or violet colour. They are inhabitants of the deep sea, and rarely seen out of what sailors call “ blue water.” They plough the waves with great rapidity by the aid of their formidable fins. Certain winds throw them sometimes in great numbers on the shores of the Mediterranean. These little creatures, so inoffensive, and which live together in vast numbers, seem to be an easy and ready-prepared prey, wliicii the great marine animals may swallow by thousands. Twenty species of Hyalea are described as actually living in the Atlantic and Australian seas. Of these Hyalea gibbosa (Figs. 806, 307) and Hyalea longi- rostris (Figs. 308, 309) are here represented. the ocean world. The great flappers of Ilyalea striclentata are yellow, marked at their base with a fine violet spot. Its shell, plain above, convex beneath is cloven on the side. The superior part is longer than the inferior’ and the transverse line which unites them is furnished with three l'ig. 310. Cleodora lanceolata (Lesueur). 1’ig. 311. Cleodora compressa (tiydoux and Souleyet). teeth. This shell is yellow, and nearly translucent. When the animal swims, two expansions of its mantle issue from the lateral clefts in the shell. The genus Cleodora lanceolata is a delicate and graceful creature ; its body, of gelatinous appear- ance, has a distinct head, with its fins near the neck, notched in the form of a heart (Fig. 310); its posterior part is globulous, transparent, and luminous even in the dark. The animal which Fig. 3i2. cioodora cnspidata inhabits it sometimes shines through the shell like a light placed inside a lantern. This shell is triangular, as in Cleodora cuspidata (Fig. 312), thin, vitreous, and fragile, terminating in a long spine at the base. CHAPTER XYI. CEPHALOPODOUS MOLLUSCA. “ Monstrura, horrenclum, infomic, ingens.” V irgil. We approach the more voluminous and perfect molluscs in the Cephalopods. Their name, as already stated, is taken from the posi- tion of the feet, which are inserted in the anterior part of the head : in Greek /cecpaXr], head, and foot. The Cephalopodous Molluscs are greatly advanced in the scale of being, for they possess in a high degree the sense of sight, hearing, and touch. They appear with the first animals which present them- selves on the earth, and they are numerous even now, although they are far from playing the important part assigned to them in the early ages of organic life upon our planet. The Ammonites and Belemnites existed by thousands among the beings which peopled the seas during the secondary epoch in the history of the globe. This great class is divided into two orders : Acetabuliferons, or sucker-bearing, and Tentaculiferous Cephalopods, those furnished with strong fleshy tentacula. Acetabuliferous Cephalopoda. To this group belong the cuttle-fish, squids, and argonauts, among existing species, and the Belemnites among the fossil species. Some of these creatures are large, and essentially flesh-eaters, or carni- vorous ; and, if we may believe all that has been written respecting them, very formidable ones. Listen to Michelet, while he paints the warlike humour of these inhabitants of the deep: — “The Medusae and Molluscs,” says this popular author, “ are generally innocent 446 THE OCEAN WORLD. creatures, and I have lived with them in a world of gentle peace. Few flesh-eaters among them ; those even which are so, only kill to satisfy their wants, living for the most part on life just commenced — on gelatinous animals, which can scarcely be called organic. From this world grief was absent. No cruelty and no passion. Their little souls, if mild, were not without their ray of aspiration towards the light, and towards what comes to us from heaven, and towards that love, revelling in that changing flame which at night is the light of the deep. It is now, how- ever, necessary to describe a much graver world : a world of rapine and of murder ; from the very beginning, from the first appearance of life, violent death appeared ; sudden refinement, useful but cruel, purification,’ of all which has languished, or which may linger or languish, of the slow and feeble creation whose fecundity had encumbered the globe. “ In the more ancient formations of the old world we find two mur- derous beasts — an eater and a sucker. The first is revealed to us by the imprint of the trilobite, a species now lost, the most destructive of extinct beings. The second subsists in one fearful fragment, a beak nearly two feet in length, which was that of a great sucker or cuttle- fish (Sepia). If we may judge from such a beak, this monster, if the other parts of the body are in proportion, must have been enormous ; its ventose, invincible arms, of perhaps twenty or thirty feet, like those of some monstrous spider. The sucker of the world, soft and gelatinous ! it is himself. In making war on the molluscs he remains mollusc also ; that is to say, always an embryo. He presents the strange, almost ridiculous, if it was not also terrible, appearance of an embryo going to war ; of a foetus furious and cruel, soft and transparent, but tenacious, breathing with a murderous breath, for it is not for food alone that it makes war : it has the wish to destroy. Satiated, and even bursting, it still destroys. Without defensive armour, under its threatening murmurs there is no peace ; its safety is to attack. It regards all creatures as a possible enemy. It throws about its long arms, or rather thongs, armed with suckers, at random.” Such is the somewhat exaggerated picture which the eloquent historian and poet draws of the Molluscous Cephalopod, and it must be admitted that there is a basis of truth in this, as well as in the more recent one painted by Victor Hugo, in his eloquent book, “ Les Travaifleurs de la Mer.” Where, however, there is so much of the fictitious floating about, it will be our endeavour to eliminate facts only. CEPHALOPODS. 447 The following fact is abbreviated from the “ Natural History and Fishery of the Sperm Whale.” Mr. Beale had been searching for shells among the rocks in Bonin Island, and was much astonished to see at his feet a most extraordinary-looking animal, crawling back towards the surf which it had just left. It was creeping on its eight legs, which, from their soft and flexible nature, bent considerably under the weight of its body, so that it was just lifted by an effort above the rocks: It appeared much alarmed, and made every attempt to escape. Mr. Beale endeavoured to stop it by putting his foot on one of its tentacles, but it liberated itself several times in spite of all his efforts. He then laid hold of one of the tentacles with his hand, and held it firmly, and the limb appeared as if it would be torn asunder in the struggle. To terminate the contest, he gave it a powerful jerk ; it resisted the effort successfully, but the moment after the enraged animal lifted a head with large projecting eyes, and, loosing its hold of the rocks, suddenly sprang upon Mr. Beale’s arm, which had been previously bared to the shoulder, and clung to it with its suckers, while it endeavoured to get the beak, which he could now see, between the tentacles, in a position to bite him. Mr. Beale describes its cold slimy grasp as extremely sickening, and he loudly called to the captain, who was also searching for shells, to come to his assistance. They hastened to the boat, and he was released by killing his tormentor with a boat-knife, when the arms were disengaged bit by bit. Mr. Beale states that this Cephalopod must have measured across its expanded arms about four feet, while its body was not bigger than a large hand clenched. It was the species called the rock-squid by whalers. These formidable and curious Cepbalopods, the MaAd/cta of Aris- totle, Mollia of Pliny, and Cephalophora of De Blainville, have the mantle, according to Cuvier, united beneath the body, thus forming a muscular sac which envelopes the whole viscera. The body is soft and fleshy, varying much in form, being sub-spherical, sub-elliptical, and cylindrical, the sides of the mantle in many species extending into fleshy fins. The head protrudes from the muscrdar sac, and is distinct from the body ; it is gifted with all the usual senses, the eyes in particular, which are either pedunculate or sessile, being large and well developed. The mouth is anterior and terminal, armed with a pair of horny or calcareous mandibles, which bear a strong resemblance 448 THE OCEAN WOULD. to the bill of a parrot, acting transversely, one upon the other. Its j position is the bottom of a sub-conical cavity, forming the base of j numerous fleshy tentacular appendages which surround it, and which 1 are termed arms by some writers. These appendages in the great | majority of living species are provided with suckers, acetabula (cupping- ’ glass-like appendages), by means of which the animal moves at the j bottom of the sea, head downwards, or attaches itself to its prey. ' These suckers are armed or unarmed with a long, sharp, horny claw. In the unarmed acetabulum, the mechanism for adhesion is well described j by Dr. Eoget : The circumference of the disk, ’’says this writer, “is raised by a soft and turned margin ; a series of long slender folds of ■) membrane covering corresponding fascicula of muscular fibre converge ; from the circumference towards the centre of the sucker, at a short < distance from which they leave a circular aperture ; this opens into a cavity which widens as it descends, and contains a cone of soft substance rising from the bottom of the cavity, like the piston of a syringe. When the sucker is applied to the surface, for the purpose - of adhesion, the piston, having previously been raised so as to fill the cavity, is retracted, and a vacuum produced, which may be still farther increased by the retraction of the plicated portion of the disk.” Here we have an excellent description of the apparatus for holding on. When the animal is disposed to let go his hold, according to Professor j Owen, “ the muscular arrangement enables the animal to push forward : the piston, and thus in a moment destroy the vacuum which retraction j had produced.” In the case of the armed Cephalopods ( Onychoteutliis ), Professor ^ Owen remarks, “that there are circumstances in which even the \ remarkable apparatus described by Dr. Eoget would be insufficient to j fulfil the offices in the economy of Nature for which the Cephalopod was created, and that in species which have to contend with the agile I mucous-clad fishes more powerful organs of prehension are superadded . to the suckers, so that in the calamary the base of the piston is, he ' remarks, enclosed in a horny hoop, the outer and anterior margin of which is developed into a series of sharp curved teeth, which can be firmly pressed into the flesh of a struggling prey by the contraction of the surrounding transverse fibres, and can be withdrawn by the action of the retracting fibres of the piston. “ Let the reader,” the professor adds, “ picture to himself the projecting weapon of the homy CKl’l-IALOPODK. 4-19 hoop developed into a long, curved, sharp-pointed claw, and these weapons clustered at the expanded terminations of the tentacles, and arranged in a double alternate series along the internal surface ot the eight muscular feet, and he will have some idea ot the formidable nature of the carnivorous cephalopod.” The professor notices another structure which adds greatly to the prehensile powers of the uncinated Cephalopods. “ At the extremities of the long tentacles a cluster of small, simple, unarmed suckers may be observed at the base of the expanded part. When these latter suckers are applied to one another, the tentacles are firmly locked together at that part, and the united strength of both the elongated peduncles can be applied to drag towards the mouth any resisting object which has been grappled by the terminal hooks. There is no mechanical contrivance which sur- passes this structure ; art has remotely imitated it in the fabrication of the obstetrical forceps, in which either blade can be used separately, or, by the interlocking of a temporary blade, be made to act in com- bination.”— Cyc. of Anat. Family of the Sepiad.e. The body of. the cuttle-fish (Sepia) is thus a very singular structure, somewhat reminding us of certain species of polypes. We find a body or abdominal mass, and a head, separated by compression, sufficiently marked. The body is covered by the mantle, which has the form of a sac opened only in front by a transverse cleft. The head has a projecting and well-developed eye on each side ; it is surmounted by a sort of fleshy funnel, which is divided by four pairs of tentacles. At the bottom of this tentacular funnel is the mouth ; and from the an- terior opening in the mantle a tube issues, which is wide at its base. If we study the general aspect of the animal more closely, we find that the tentacles — which serve at once as organs of locomotion for swimming, for creeping, and as prehensile organs for seizing and retaining its prey— -are conical, very long, and all of the same form. Each of them has towards its axis a longitudinal canal, which encloses a great nerve, which is also surrounded with muscular fibres, arranged in rays. The suckers, already described, occupy all the internal sur- face of the eight tentacular arms, which are arranged in two rows having the form very nearly of a semi-spherical capsule. Of these 2 g 450 THE OCEAN WORLD. suckers, each arm of the cuttle-fish carries about two hundred and forty, the total number being nearly a thousand. The mouth we have already described, in Dr. Roget’s words : “ The teeth move vertically, much as the cutting edge of the two blades of a pair of scissors move upon each other, tearing the prey by the assistance of their hooked terminations.” The tongue is covered on its upper part by a thick homy bed, bristling in the centre with a series of recurving teeth, while its edge is armed with three other erect teeth, which are slender and hooked The oesophagus is long and slender. At the abdomen the gullet expands into a sort of frill, to which succeeds a gizzard, with strong, fleshy walls ; and, finally, a very short intestine, which directs itself forward, terminating on the median line of the body. Towards the anteiioi parts is a cavity, of which a few words must be said. It occupies the free space comprised between the exterior surface of the abdomen and the internal face of the mantle ; and here the respi- ratory organs, namely, the branchiae, are lodged. Here, also, are the reproductive and excretory organs. Tne branchiae, which are two in number, are voluminous, but short, tufted, and leaf-like. The branchial cavity can dilate and contract itself alternately. It communicates externally by two openings : the one, fashioned into a cleft, receives, while the other, which is pro- longed into a tube, selves to eject, the water, and becomes a powerful organ of locomotion. The inspiration of the animal is thus made by a cleft in the mantle, and expiration by the tube : the renewal of the respirable liquid acts as a sort of sucking and forcing pump, at the surface of the lamellar branchials. The cuttle-fish, in short, will be at no loss to reply to the question of the Don Diego of Corneille — “ Rodrique, as-tu du coeur ?” for they have three hearts. The two first are placed at the end of the branchiae. With each beat of the pulse the venous blood is brought from all parts of the body, and propelled through each gill or branchiae. Vivified by respiration in the internal tissue of the branchiae, it is carried by the veins into the third heart, situated upon the median line of the body ; and now the regenerated fluid is again distributed throughout the rest of the economy. CEPHALOPODA 451 Not to oppress tlie reader with anatomical details, wo shall just- remark that the gaze of the cuttle-fish is decided and threatening. Its projecting eyes and golden-coloured iris are said to have something of fascination in them. The animal seems able even to economise the power of its glance, being able to cover its eyes from time to time by contracting the skin which surrounds them, and bringing the two translucent eyelids with which it is furnished closer together. The cuttle-fishes are essentially aquatic and marine animals. We find them in every sea in all parts of the world ; but they are most formidable in warm countries. They have a great predilection for the shore. Diming their youth they associate in flocks ; but with age they fly from association, and retire into the clefts and hollows of the rocks. The old cuttle-fish is only found in rugged and rocky places, bristling with naked, pointed rocks, which have been worn by the waves, but generally in places only a few feet below the level of low water. “How often,” says D’Orbigny, “have we not observed the cuttle-fish in his favourite retirement ! There, with one of his arms cramped to the walls of its dwelling, it extends the other towards the animals which pass at its gate, embraces them, and by its power renders • useless all their efforts to disengage themselves.” If we observe a cuttle-fish when it is what may be called walking, either on land or at the bottom of the sea, it will be seen to walk on one side, its head downwards, its mouth touching the ground, the arms extended and grappling some supporting object, and drawing the body forward ; at the same time the arms at the opposite side arc contracted and folded up, so as to assist by a contrary movement. On shore the movement of these animals is very slow. On the other hand, they swim very rapidly, assisted by all their arms, and aided by the water ejected from the locomotive tube, their movement being most frequently backwards, the body first, the six superior arms placed horizontally, the two others brought together above : the first help to sustain them in their horizontal position, the last to guide them, inclining to the right or left as the animal changes its direction. The cuttle-fishes feed on crustaceans, fishes, and also on shelled molluscs — every kind of animal, in fact, which comes within their reach ; so that it is readily taken by means of the flesh of fish or crustaceans, in which a strong hook is concealed. They live for five or six years, 2 g 2 THE OCEAN WORLD. 4;">2 and reproduce by eggs, which are large, and generally found in clusters, known to fishermen under the name of sea-raisins. Like the zoophytes, they possess the property of redintegration, already described, being able to reproduce any arm that may be destroyed. There is another singular peculiarity which the cuttle- fish shares with man. Under the influence of strong emotion the human face becomes pale, or blushes, and in some individuals it is said to become blue. This has always been supposed to be an attribute of humanity ; but the cuttle-fish shares it with our race. Yielding to the impressions . of the moment, the cuttle-fish suddenly changes colour, and, passing through various tints, it only resumes its familiar one when the cause of the change has disappeared. They are, in fact, gifted with great sensibility, which reacts immediately upon their tissues, these being extremely elastic and delicate. Sudden changes of colour are produced— changes which far exceed the same phenomena in man. Under the influence of passion or emotion man is born to blush, but under no sort of excitement does he cover himself with pustules ; this the cuttle-fish does : it not only changes colour, but it covers itself with little warts. “ Observe a poulpe in a pool of water,” says D’Orbigny, “as it walks round its retreat— it is smooth, and of very Pale colour. Attempt to seize it, and it quickly assumes a deeper tint, and its body becomes covered on the instant with warts and hairs | which remain there until its confidence is entirely restored.” The Cephalopods thus constituted — crowned with numerous fleshy arms bearing sucker disks, enveloped in a sac-like mantle, open in front, and sometimes enclosing a rudimentary shell, with a rudimen- tary brain and cartilaginous skeleton, breathing by gills, which are bathed in water passing beneath the mantle, and discharged through a tube are divided by Dr. Leach into two families j namely, Deca- pocla, having two tentacles and movable eyes ; and Ociopoda, without tentacles, and eyes fixed. The Decapoda includes the cuttle-fish, Sepia ; the squids, Soligodx ; and the calmars, deutludse. The Sepiadas have eight arms rising from the crown of the head, armed with four rows of suckers, two long, slender tentacles, with broadly-expanding ends and stalked suckers, eyes moving in then* sockets, body broadly ovate in Sepia ; the body elongate, and a horny, flexible shell in Soligo, and conical in Ommastrephos, a pair of narrow fins bordering the whole length of CEPHALOPODS. 453 the side ; funnel large and short, closing with an internal valve ; shell, or cuttle-hone, a broad, flat, calcareous substance, with horny edge, filled with layers of a spongy substance, supported by pillars. The Oetopoda, without tentacles, have eight long arms, united at the base by a web ; the suckers in two rows, which are sessile , the eyes fixed ; shell, two short stiles enclosed in the mantle ; the body united to the head by a broad neck-hand ; no side- fins ; shell internal and rudi- mentary in the British species ; body oval, warty, and without fins, in Octopus; small and oblong, arms tapering and web- bed, and suckers in a single row, in Eledone (Fig. 313). In his great work, Professor Owen proposes to divide the Cephalopods into two groups, Fig'313' ^e, Octopus vulgaris (Lamarck). which he calls Dibranchiata, characterised by the presence of two branchias, which would bring together all the naked Cephalopods, includ- ing Sepia, Soligo, Octopus, Kassia, and Ommastrephos ; and Tetrabranchiata, having four branchiae, to which the Nautilus , and most of the fos- sil Cephalopods, such as the Ammonites, belong. Most of the first group are represented in the British seas, but the second are altogether absent. The Decapoda are of all sizes. Dr. Grant describes the body, or mantle, of Se~ piola vulgaris, found on Fig' 3U- Octopus macropus (Ilisso). oui coast, as measuring about six lines in length, and as much in breadth, while the head measures four lines in length, and, from the magnitude ot the eyes, must be equal in breadth with the body. In 454 THE OCEAN WORLD. Onychoteutlns, distinguished for its uncinated suckers, they are found of the size ot a man. In Cook’s first voyages, the naturalists to the expedition, “Banks and Solander,” to quote Professor Owen’s account, “ found the dead carcase of a gigantic species of this kind floating in the sea between Cape Horn and the Polynesian Islands, in 30 44 S. lat., and 110° 10' W. long. It was surrounded by aquatic birds, which were feeding on its remains. From the parts of this specimen which are still preserved in the Hunterian Museum, and which have always strongly excited the attention of naturalists, it must have measured at least six feet from the end of the tail to the end of the tentacles.” The Odopoda include the genera Odopns, Eledone, Philoxenis, and Argonauta, which Professor Owen divides into Testacea and Nuda, the first comprising the Argonauta and Bellerophon, the Nuda including the Eledone and Octopus. In the genus Eledone the arms are reunited at their base by a very short membrane, with only a single row of suckers. The two best-known species of this group inhabit the Mediterranean. The one is Eledone moschatus, known in Italy under the name of Muscardmo, from the strong odour of musk which it emits, even after death and desiccation; the other is Eledone cirrliosus, a small species, bluish grey on the back, and whitish under the belly. The habits of Eledone moschatus have been carefully studied by M. Yerany. The able naturalist of Nice preserved many of these animals during a month, in a great aquarium, noting their habits. Fig. 315. Octopus brevisses (D’Orbiguy). Fig. 316. Octopus horridus (D’Orbigny). CEl’HALOPODS. 455 When in a state of tranquillity, the Eledone clung to the sides of the class tank in which it was kept. Its head is then inclined forwards, with the sac hanging behind; the locomotive tube, turned upwards, presents the orifice between the arms. In this state the animal is yellowish in colour, its eyes dilated, its inspirations regular. But if irritated, a remarkable change takes place: its body assumes a fine maroon colour, and it is covered with numerous tubercles ; the eye becomes contracted, a column of water is forcibly ejected fiom the loco- motive tube at the aggressor, and the respiration becomes precipitate, jerky, and irregular. The creature would take a stiong inspiration, and, having collected its force, suddenly throw a jet of water to a distance of more than three feet. This state of passion, which the slightest touch is sufficient to produce, endures for half an hour or more. When it ceases, the animal resumes its form and primitive colours ; but the least shock impressed on the water is sufficient to give it a deeper tint, which passes like a flash of lightning over the skin of this singular proteus. The Eledone sleeps by day as well as by night, attaching itself in its sleep to the walls of its prison, leaving its arms to float around, the two inferior ones extending backwards, and the sac inclining over them ; its eyes are then contracted, and in part covered by the eye- lids. Its respiration is regular and slow, and any ejection of water very rare ; its colour is then of a livid grey, and vinous red below, with whitish spots, while the brown spots have now entirely dis- appeared. While still asleep, it is watchful and attentive to all the dangers which could surprise it. The extremities of the arms floating round its body are ready to announce the approach or contact of any other object. Even the most delicate touch is perceived immediately, and it shrinks from the hand which seeks to approach. Under every circumstance the Eledone exhales a strong odour of musk, which it preserves long after death. When the Eledone swims, which it rarely does unless pressed by some urgent necessity, it carries the sac in advance, the arms floating behind — the six upper ones being on a horizontal line, the two others approaching each other below. Thus arranged, it presents, in conse- quence of its flattened form, a very large resisting surface to the water, its progress being due to the alternate dilatation and contraction of the body, which expels the water through the locomotive tube, and 4o(i THE OCEAN WORLD. ky leaction produces a rapid and jerking movement. Sometimes the arms aid the movement; the eyes of the animal are then much dated, and its colour a clear livid yellow, finely shaded with red and Trnil-, "L™ L l It is a singular fact that the creature notably changes colour under any exertion, so that the animal at rest and in motion are two different beings. When walking under water the tube is directed behind, its arms are spread out, the head is raised, and the body slightly inclined forward ; its mantle is then of a pearly grey, and the spots take the tint of wine-lees. When at rest the shades disappear. The Pinnodopm (Fig. 317), another genera of this family, have the body oblong, with lateral expansions, as represented in the ac- companying figure. In Cirrotheutis the arms are completely united in their whole ex- tent by a thin membrane furnished with cirri, which alternate with certain suckers arranged in one row. Only one species of this genera is known as an inhabitant of northern seas, which is represented in Fig. 3 IS. It is no easy task to separate the real from the fabulous history of the Cephalopods. Aristotle and Pliny have alike assisted, by their mar- vellous relations, to throw that halo of wonder round it which the light ot modern science has not altogether dispelled. Pliny the ancient covered with bright spots. Fig. 317. Pinnoctopus corolliformis (D’Orbigny). Fig. 318. Cirrotlieulis Mulleri (Eschricht). CEPHALOPODS. 457 relates the history of an enormous cuttle-fish which haunted the coast of Spain, and destroyed the fishing-grounds. He adds that this gigantic creature was finally taken, that its body weighed seven hundred pounds, and that its arms were ten yards m length. Its head came by right to Lucullus, to whose gastronomical privileges be all honour. It was so large, says Pliny, that it filled fifteen amphorae, and weighed seven hundred pounds also. Some naturalists of the Renaissance, such as Olaiis Magnus and Denis do Montfort, gave credit — which they are scarcely justified in doing — to the assertions of certain writers of the north ot Europe, who believed seriously in the existence of a sea-monster of prodigious size which haunted the northern seas. This monster has received the name of the Kraken. The Kraken was long the terror ot these seas , it arrested ships in spite of the action of the wind, sails, and oars, often causing them to founder At sea, while the cause ot shipwreck remained unsuspected. Denis de Montfort gives a scientific descrip- tion and representation of this Kraken, which he calls the C olossal Poulpe, in which the creature is made to embrace a three-masted ship in its vast arms. Delighted with the success which his repre- sentation met with, Denis laughed at the credulity of his contempo- raries. “ If my Kraken takes with them,” he said, “ I shall make it extend its arms to both shores of the Straits of Gibraltar.” To another learned friend he said, “ If my entangled ship is accepted, I shall make my Poulpe overthrow a whole fleet.” Among those who admitted the facetious history of the Kraken without a smile, there was at least one holy bishop, who was, more- over, something of a naturalist. Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen, in Norway, in one of his books assures us that a whole regiment of soldiers could easily manoeuvre on the back of the Kraken, which he compares to a floating island. “ Similior insulae quam bestiae,” wrote the good Bishop of Bergen. In the first edition of his “ System of Nature,” Linnaeus himself admits the existence of this colossus of the seas, which he calls Sepia microcosmos. Better informed in the following edition, he erased the Kraken from his catalogue. The statements of Pliny respecting the Colossal Poulpe, like those of Montfort about the Kraken, are evidently fabidous. It is, how- ever, an undisputed fact that there exists in the Mediterranean and the ocean world. 4f>8 o ler seas cuttle-fish— a congenerous animal— of considerable size A calmar has been caught in our own time, near Nice, which weighed upwards of thirty pounds. In the same neighbourhood some fisher- men caught, twenty years ago, an individual of the same genus nearly six feet long, which is preserved in the Museum of Natural History at Montpelier. Peron, the naturalist, met in the Australian seas a cuttle-fish nearly eight feet long. The travellers Quoy and Gaimard picked up m the Atlantic Ocean, near the Equator, the skeleton of a monstrous mollusc, which, according to their calculations, must have weighed two hundred pounds. M. Eung met, in the middle of the ocean, a mollusc with short arms, and of a reddish colour, the body of which, according to this naturalist, was as large as a tun cask. One of the mandibles of this creature, still preserved in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, is larger than a hand. In 1853 a gigantic cephalopod was stranded on the coast of Jut- land. The body of this monster, which was dismembered by the fishermen, furnished many wheelbarrow loads, its pharynx, or back part of the mouth, alone being as large as the head of an infant. Dr. Steenstrup, of Copenhagen, who published a description of this creature under the name of Arcliiteutliis dux, shows a portion of the arm of another cephalopod, which is as large as the thigh-bone of a man. But a well-authenticated fact connected with these gigantic cephalopods is related by Lieutenant Bayer, of the French° cor- vette Alecton, and M. Sabin Berthelot, French Consul at the Canary Islands, by whom the report is made to the Academie des Sciences. The steam-coi vette Alecton was between Teneriffe and Madeira when she fell in with a gigantic calamary, not less— according to the account — than fifteen metres (fifty feet) long, without reckoning its eight for- midable arms, covered with suckers, and about twenty feet in circum- leience at its largest part, the head terminating in many arms of enor- mous size, the other extremity terminating in two fleshy lobes or fins of great size, the weight of the whole being estimated at four thousand pounds ; the flesh was soft, glutinous, and of reddish-brick colour. The commandant, wishing in the interests of science to secure the monster, actually engaged it in battle. Numerous shots were aimed at it, hut the balls traversed its flaccid and glutinous mass without causing it any vital injury. But after one of these attacks the waves were observed to be covered with foam and blood, and, singular thing, a * CKPHALOPODS. 459 strong odour of musk was inhaled by the spectators. .Tliis musk odoui we have already noticed as being peculiar to many of the Cepbalopods. The musket-shots not having produced the desired results, harpoons were employed, but they took no hold on the soft impalpable flesh of the marine monster. When it escaped from the haipoon it dived under the ship, and came up again at the other side. They succeeded at last in getting it to bite at the harpoon, and in passing a lope round the posterior part of the animal. But when they attempted to hoist it out of the water the rope penetrated deeply into the flesh, and separated it into two parts, the head with the arms and tentacles dropping into the sea and making off", while the fins and posterior parts were brought on board : they weighed about forty pounds. The crew were eager to pursue, and would have launched a boat, but the commander refused, fearing that the animal might capsize it. The object was not, in his opinion, one in which he could risk the lives of his crew. Pl. XXI Y. is copied from M. Berthelot’s coloured representation of this scene. “It is probable,” M. Moquin- Tandon remarks, commenting on M. Berthelot's recital, “ that this colossal mollusc was sick or exhausted by some recent struggle with some other monster of the deep, which would account for its having quitted its native rocks in the depths of the ocean. Otherwise it would have been more active in its movements, or it would have obscured the waves with the inky liquid which all the Cephalopods have at command. Judging from its size, it would carry at least a barrel of this black liquid, if it had not been exhausted in some recent struggle.” “ Is this mollusc a calmar r” asks the same writer. “If we might judge from the figure drawn by one of the officers of the Alecton during the struggle, and communicated by M. Berthelot, the animal had terminal fins, like the calmars ; but it has eight equal arms, like the cuttle-fish. Now the calmars have ten, two of them being very long. Was this some intermediate species between the two ? Or must we admit, with MM. Crosse and Fischer, that the animal had lost its more formidable tentacles in some recent combat ?”* * Is it necessary to say that even this account — apparently so well authenticated not to speak of the representation drawn on the spot — should bo taken “ cum ,rranum sulis ?” — Ed. 4(30 the ocean world. Ihe Argonauta or Nautilus. rioatmg gracefully on the surface of the sea, trimming its tiny sail to the breeze just sufficient to ruffle the surface of the waves, behold the evqmsrte hying shallop. The elegant little hark which thus plays with the current is no work of human hands, hut a child of Nature • it is the Argonaut whose tribes, decked in a thousand brilliant shades ot colour, are wanderers of the night in innumerable swarms on the ocean s surface. Tho marine shell which Linnaeus called the Argonaut enjoyed great renown among the ancient Greeks and Eomans. It was the subject Of graceful legends; it had inspired great poets; it occupied the attention of Aristotle, who called it the Nautilus and Nmtim, and of I liny, who called it Pompjlius. Few animals, indeed, have been so celebrated, so anciently known. The Greek and Roman poets saw m it an elegant model of the ship which the skill and audacity of the man constructed who first braved the fury of the waves • in the words of the poet, “ armour- of triple oak and triple brass covered the heart of him who first confided himself in a frail bark to the relentless waves “Uli robur et aes triplex C.iicit pectus erat , qui fragilem truci Commisit pelago raterrt Primus ” Horace, I. Car. iii. 1, 9. To meet the Pompylius was, according to the superstitious Roman, a lav oui able presage. This little oceanic wanderer, in spite of the capricious waves, was a tutelar divinity, who guarded the navigator in his course, and assured him of a happy passage. Listen to the immortal author of the first Natural History of Animals the philo- sophy Aristotle. “ The Nautilus Polyp,” says the learned his- torian, '■ is ol the nature of animals which pass for extraordinary, for it can float on the sea ; it raises itself from the bottom of the water, the shell being reversed and empty, but when it reaches the surface it readjusts it. It has between the arms a species of tissue similar to that which unites the toes of web-footed birds. When there is a little wind, it employs this tissue as a sort ol rudder, letting it fall into the UEPHALOPODS. 461 water with the arms on each side. On the approach ot the least danger it fills its shell with water, and sinks into the sea. Pliny gives it the name of Pompylius, and, after the example of Aristotle, explains how it navigates, by elevating its two first arms, a membrane of extreme tenuity stretching between them, while it rows with the others, using its median arm as a rudder. The Greek poet, Oppian, who lived in the second century of our era, and to whom we are indebted for Poems on Pishing ( Halieutica ) and the Chase ( Cynegetica ), says of it : “ Hiding itself in a concave shell, the Pom- pylius can walk on land, but can also rise to the surface of the wrater, the back of its shell upwards, for fear that it should be filled. The moment it is seen, it turns the shell, and navigates it like a skil- ful seaman: in order to do this, it throws out two of its feet like antennae, between which is a thin membrane, which is extended by the wind like a sail, while two others, which touch the water, guide, as with a rudder, the house, the ship, and the animal. If danger approaches, it folds up its antennae, its sail, and its rudder, and dives, its weight being increased by the water which it causes to enter the shell. As we see a man who is victor in the public games, his head circled by a crown, while vast crowds press around, so the Pompylius have always a crowd of ships following in their track, whose crews no longer dread to cpiit the land. 0 fish justly dear to navigators ! thy presence announces winds soft and friendly : thou bringest the calm, and thou art the sign of it.” Oppian carried his admiration a long way. That the Argonaut is an animated skill' is agreed on all hands ; but, in making it almost a bird — in according to it at once the faculty of gracefully navigating the sea and floating in the atmosphere as an inhabitant of the regions of air — he was passing the limits permissible to poetic license. But the properties of the Nautilus has not alone struck the ima- gination of the Greeks and Romans ; it also attracted the attention of the Chinese, who call it the boat-polyp. Rumphius informs us, that in India the shell fetches a great price (Fig. 319). Women consider it a great, a magnificent ornament. In their solemn fetes, dancers carry one of these shells in the right hand, holding it proudly above their heads. Nor did it require the dithyrambic praises with which the ancients have surrounded it to recommend it to the admi- ration of modern naturalists. Without exaggerating the graceful THE OCEAN WORLD. attributes with which it is gifted, it is at once one of the most and elegant creations of Nature. curious Fig. 319. Shell of Argonauta argo (Linnieus). Its body (Fig. 320) is ovoid in form, and it is furnished with emht tentacles, covered with a double row of suckers. Of these tentades six are narrow and slender, tapering to a point towards the extremity’. while two of them expand toward the extremity in the form of wings or sails. These are all folded up when in a state of repose. The body itself is contained in a thin, white, and fragile univalve shell, which is oval, flattened on the ex- tend*, but rolled up in a spiral in the interior, the last turn of the shell being so large as to give it something of the form of an ele- gantly-shaped shallop. Singularly enough, the body of the animal Fig. 320. The Argonauta argo (Linnasus). C^0eS n°^ Penetrate to the bottom of the shell, nor is it attached to it by any muscular ligament ; nor is the shell moulded exactly upon it, as is the case with most other testaceans. CEPIT A LOPODS. What does all this imply ? Is the Argonaut a parasite ? a fraudu- lent disinheritor of the poor? a vile assassin, who, having surprised and killed the legitimate proprietor of the shell, has installed itself in its place, and in the proper house of its victim? Such crimes aie not without example in the natural history of animals witness the proceedings of the curious hermit crab, whose proceedings we shall glance at in a future chapter. The parasitic character of the Nautilus was long conceded by naturalists ; but recent facts have corrected this opinion. We have collected their shells, of all dimensions and of all ages, inhabited always by the same animal, whose size is always pro- portioned to the volume of the shell. More than that, it is now known that in the egg of the Nautilus the rudiments of the shell exist. M. Chenu tells us, that under the microscope Professor Duvemoy discovered a distinct shell contained in the embryo. Sir Everard Home asserts the contrary ; and no opportunity presented itself for the complete solution of the question, until Poli was placed by the King of Naples in a position to solve it. The piscina of Portici was placed at his disposal. He witnessed the curious mechanism by which the egg is expelled from the uterus, having a shell, and satisfied himself, by following their development day by day, that the shell existed in the embryo, and grew with the animal. He satis- fied himself also that the opinion enunciated by Aristotle, that at no point did the animal adhere to the shell, was perfectly true. Finally, in the curious series of experiments carried on by Madame Power, in the port of Messina, the fragments of the frail hark of the mollusc, which were broken off in taking it, were restored in a few days, having been reproduced. It is, therefore, quite demonstrated that the Nautilus, like other testaceous molluscs, itself secretes and constructs its shell — its diaphanous skiff. The reader, however, must not flatter himself that he can witness with his own eyes from the shore, in our narrow channel, the charming picture of the Nautilus painted by poets and natural historians: they never come near the shore. They are timid and cautious creatures, dwelling almost always in the open sea. They live in families, some hundreds of nliles from the shore ; and it is during the night, or at most in the fading light of sunset, that they assemble together to pursue their gambols on the surface of a tranquil sea. However reluctant we may be to destroy the marvellous fictions of 464 THE OCEAN WORLD. ancients and moderns, we are compelled to declare that there is no truth m the often-repeated statement that the Nautilus uses its pal- mated arms as oars or sails. In order to swim on the surface, it comports itselt as all other Cephalopods do. It uses neither oars nor sails, and the palmate arms only serve to envelop and retain its hold on its’ frail l‘-ig. 321. Argonautu papyracea, as it swims by means of its locomotive tube. shell Its principal apparatus of progression is the locomotive tube with which it is furnished, in common with all Cephalopods, aud which is in the Nautilus very long. Aided by this apparatus, it ejects the water alter it has served the purpose of respiration, and, in doing so, projects itselt against the liquid, as it were. While it advances through the water under this impulse, its pendent arms, elongated and reunited in bundles extend- ing the whole length of the shell (Figs, oil and o22), shows the position of the different parts of the animal when it thus breasts the waves. These arms are also powerful aids when the animal creeps on the ground at the bottom of the sea. TV hen the animal is disturbed it retires completely into its shell. From that moment, the equilibrium being changed, the shell is overturned, and the animal is nearly invisible! It frightened, it entirely submerges itself, and sinks to the bottom. Fig. 322. Argonauta papyracea in its shell. These little beings share with other Cephalopods the strange faculty ot changing colour under the influence of some vivid impression ; but their graceful and delicate organization redeems them from the charge we have brought against the cuttles. The Nautilus can blush, turn pale, and show through its transparent shell its body changing in sudden shades ; but it never exhibits those bristling, unpleasant tubercles, the hideous inheritance ot the larger and coarser Cephalo- pods— the tyrants of the sea. The Nautilus carries its egg in the shell, and the little ones are also CEPHALOPODS. 465 hatched in this floating cradle. Three species are at present known : the species described by Aristotle and Pliny, and the more ancient na- turalists; namely, A. argo, or Nautilus papyracea (Pigs. 319 and 320), which are inhabitants of the Mediterranean as well as the Indian Ocean and the Antilles. The two others, A. tubercula, belonging exclusively to the Indian Ocean, and A. bailie, nt, which is met occasionally in the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean. The poulpes and nautilus both belong to the family of Octopoda, and the class of Acetabuliferous Cephalopods, having, as the name indicates, eight feet, from btcrco, eight, and 7 rofi?, foot ; at the same time the body is entirely fleshy, and without fins. The genera of Cuttles {Sepia) and Calmars ( Lolia ) belong to another family of the same class ; namely, the Decapoda, because they have ten feet and a sort of internal osselet, with fins, &c. The cuttles, Sepia (Fig. 323), have the body fleshy and depressed, continued into a sac, and bordered on all its length on both sides with a wing or narrow fin, the larger short and flat, broader than it is long, with two large eyes, covered by an expansion of the skin, which becomes transparent over a surface equal to the diameter of the iris, and furnished with inferior contractile eyelids. This head is surmounted by ten tentacular arms or feet, eight of which are short and conical, and two long and slender, terminat- mg in a sort of spatula. These arms are all armed with suckers, and are perfectly retractile. They surround a mouth armed with two horny jaws not unlike the beak of a parrot. The skin of the cuttle-fish presents in one vast hollow, occupying all the extent of the back, a great calcareous part, the form and structure of which is quite characteristic of this genus. It is known as the cuttle-bone (Fig. 324). This bone is used for many purposes; among others, it is used in a powdered state as a dentifrice. It is sometimes suspended in the cage with captive birds, that they may whet their beaks on it, and collect carbonate of lime for the formation and repair of their bones. The osselet is oval or oblong, some pro- °2 H 466 THE OCEAN WOULD. Fig.325. Sepia tuber- vided with a slightly salient point. The upper part is surrounded with a horny or cretaceous margin, and presents in the centre a combination of spongy cells. Most of the Cephalopods secrete a blackish, inky fluid, to which some allu- sion has been made, hut the uses of which, in the economy of the animals, is imper- fectly known. The cuttles have consider- able quantities of this liquor, which is contained in a sort of sac or ink-purse, placed low down in the abdomen. When the animal is pursued or threatened with danger it discharges a jet of the fluid, which renders the water thick and muddy, and permits it to escape in the obscurity from its pursuers. It appears that the cuttle-fish avails itself of this stratagem when left accidentally ashore. It is cuiosu (Lamarckj. related of an English officer that, having dressed for dinner, and having some time to spare, he proceeded along the shore on his favourite search for objects of natural history. He reached a hollow rock in which a cuttle-fish had established its quarters ; he soon detected the animal, which looked at him for some time with its great prominent eyes ; in short, they watched each other with fixed attention. This mute contemplation came to a sudden and unexpected termination by the discharge of a voluminous jet of inky fluid, which covered the officer with the black liquid, which was the more unfortunate, since he was in his summer dress of white trousers. The ink of the cuttle-fish is a favourite pigment, used in water- colour painting under the name of sepia. It is truly indestructible; and the hard and black substance found in the sac of fossil species of cuttle-fish when diluted with water produces a brilliant sepia. This property of the inky fluid was well known to the Eomans, who used it in making ink. It was long supposed to be the chief ingredient in China ink ; but a recent traveller, Mr. Seebold, who has visited the manufactory, and investigated the subject, has revealed the true process by which it is prepared. Fig. 324. In- ternal bone of Sepia officinalis, CEPHALOPODS. 467 The cuttle-fish affects the sea shore ; they are along-shore molluscs. The flattened form of their bodies is favourable to a coasting life, by permitting them to rest easily on the bottom. Still they do not remain all the year round upon the coast. The cold in temperate regions, and the opposite reason in warm regions, leads them to with- draw from the shore, to which they only return in the spring. They are rarely seen in the Channel in winter, but with the vernal sun they appear in large shoals. What is the mechanism by which these animals are moved ? When the cuttle-fish wishes to swim rapidly and backwards, they advance in the water by means of the locomotive tube, sending back the ambient liquid. When they wish to approach a prey slowly in order to seize it, they swim by the aid of their fins and arms. In order to swim backwards, they contract the arms provided with tentacles, and spread out horizontally the arms without tentacles. The cuttles are flesh-eaters, and tolerably voracious. They feed themselves upon fishes, molluscs, and crustaceans. They are true aquatic brigands, who kill not to feed themselves, but for the sake of killing ; and Nature, by a just equilibrium, applies to them the lex talionis. They fall victims, in their turn, to the vengeful jaws of the poipoises and dolphins. Such is the terrible harmony of Nature : some must die that others may live. Michelet gives us a glimpse of the manner in which the dolphins dispose of the cuttle-fish, in his “ Livre de la Mer.” “ These lords of the ocean,” he says, “ are so delicate in their tastes that they eat only the head and arms, which are both tender and of easy digestion. They reject the hard parts, and especially the after-part of the body. The coast at Eoyan, for example, is covered with thousands of these mutilated cuttle-fish. The porpoises take most incredible bounds, at first to frighten them, and afterwards to rim them down ; in short, after their feast, they give themselves up to gymnastics.” In the spring the cuttle-fishes deposit their eggs, but without abandoning them. On the contrary, they exhibit a truly maternal care, taking much trouble to attach them to some submarine body, in which position the temperature of the water serves to hatch the eggs. Sepia officinalis, for example, chooses, at the moment of laying a stem of Fucus, a foot of Gorgonia, or some other solid submarine body not less in dimensions than the little finger, and there it firmly 2 h 2 468 THE OCEAN WORLD. attaches its eggs, which are pear-shaped, that is, pointed at one extremity, while a long lani'ere of a gelatinous nature, flat and black in appearance, with which they are provided, surrounds the solid body like a ring. Each female lays and attaches in this manner from twenty to thirty eggs, which are clustered together somewhat like a bunch of fine black grapes (Fig. 326). About a month after this the eggs are hatched. The colours of Sepia officinalis vary considerably ; but in general it may be remarked that the males are ornamented with deeper colours than the females. Transverse bands of a blackish brown turrow their backs, and diminish their breadth. Outside of these bands are small spots of a vivid white: very near the edge there is a white border, accompanied inside with a second edging of a beautiful violet. The median and anterior parts of the body are Fig. 326. Sepia officinalis (Linnseus). spotted here and there ; beneath, a whitish tint with reddish speckles prevails. The cuttle-fishes are found on every shore, and wherever they are found they are eaten, for their flesh is savoury. They are usually fried or boiled. They form an excellent bait for large bottom-fish, such as dog-fish, rays, and congers, which are fond of their flesh. Thirty species are known, and they are chiefly characterised by the arrangement and form of the cupules of the arms. Sepia officinalis is common on the shores of the ocean from Sweden to the Canaries, and in all parts of the Mediterranean. The Calmars were described by Aristotle under the name of Teffia, and by Pliny under that of Loligo, which is still retained as the generic name. Their popular name of Calmar (calamar in old French) is taken from their resemblance to certain species of ink- CEPHALOPODA. 4G9 holders. Oppian, who endowed the argonaut with wings, believed that the calmar also could take to the air, in order to avoid his enemies. Nevertheless, he was much puzzled how to give the form and functions of a bird to a fish. Themistocles, by way of insult to the Eretrians, likened them to calmars, saying they had swords and no hearts. Athenasus, a Greek physician before Galen, dwelt upon the nourishing properties of the flesh of the calmar. Common enough in temperate regions, the calmars abound in the seas of the Ton-id zone ; they are gregarious, and live in numerous shoals, their bands taking every year the same direction, their emi- gration proceeding from temperate to warm regions — nearly the same course as that followed by the herrings and pilchards. The calmars, like the cuttles, propel themselves backwards through the water with great velocity, driving back the water by means of their locomotive tube, moving with such vigour and promptitude that they have been known to throw themselves out of the water, falling on the shore or on the deck of a vessel. They only appear momen- tarily on the shore, and only sojourn there to deposit their eggs, which are gelatinous in substance, about the level of the lowest tides. The body in the calmars is longer than in the cuttle-fish, cylindrical in shape, and terminating in a point, having two lateral fins, which occupy the lower half or third of its body. In the common calmar, Loligo vulgaris (Fig. 327), and the Loligo Fig. 327. Loligo vulgaris, with its feather, or internal bone (Lamarck). Fig. 328. Loligo Gahi (D’Orbigny). 470 THE OCEAN WORLD. Gain (Fig. 328), we have two extreme forms represented, both taken from the magnificent work of MM. D’Orbigny and Ferussac, on the Ceplialopodes acetahulifores. These molluscs are whitish-blue and transparent, covered with spots of bright red. The osselet is lanceolate — that of the male elongated and somewhat resembling a feather, that of the female much broader and more obtuse. Their head is short, furnished with two large projecting eyes ; the mouth is surrounded with ten arms, provided with suckers, two of these being much longer than the others, having peduncles or foot- stalks. The internal bone of the calmar differs much from that of the cuttles , it is thin, horny, transparent, and somewhat resembling a feather, from a portion of which the barbs have been removed. Their food consists chiefly of small fishes and molluscs. With the greater fishes and cetace® they carry on constant war. They are caught and used for various purposes ; along the coast they are eaten ; the fisher- men use them as bait, especially in fishing for cod. Tentactjliferous Cephalopods. In place of bearing simple suckers ( Acetabula ), like the first order of Cephalopods, this group is furnished with true organs of prehension, or tentacles. They differ from the first group chiefly in their more numerous arms, which are quite tentaculiferous, having neither suckers nor capsules, and by having an external shell. The number of living species is extremely limited ; for this group of animals belong pecu- liarly to the earlier ages of our globe, ls gradually becoming extinct, and presents in our days only some very rare species, when we compare them with the prodigious numbers of these beings which animated the seas of the ancient world. In fact, the only living type of the order is the nautilus, which has a singular resemblance in form to the argonaut. The shell of this mollusc is a regular spiral, with contiguous turns, the last turn enclosing all the others. It is divided internally into numerous cells, formed by transverse partitions, concave in front and perforated towards the centre, and forming a kind of funnel, which gives passage to a respiratory siphon. CEPHALOPODS. 471 In the last cell of the shell (Fig. 329) is the animal, covered by its mantle, which covers the walls of the cells. When it contracts itself it is protected by a sort of triangular and fleshy hood. Numerous contractile ten- tacles, re-entering into the sheath, some of them fur- nished with numerous la- mellae, surround the head, which is, besides, scarcely distinguished from the body. The head bears two great projecting eyes, planted upon a peduncle. Like Sepia and Octopus, the mouth of the Nautilidae is armed with mandibles, fashioned like the parrot’s beak ; the branchiae are four in number. The circulating system consists of a ventricle and auricle, and the locomotive tube is protected in its whole length. The shell is secreted by the outer edge of the mantle, while its posterior ex- tremity fashions the walls of the cells, which indicate the successive growth of the individual. The siphon, which traverses all the chambers, receives and protects the ligament, by the aid of which the Cephalopod is retained in the last chamber of the shell. Fig. 330 is the same section, with the last cell empty, and with the perforations through which the siphon passes. The Nautilidae are inha- bitants of the Indian Ocean and the sea round the Mo- lucca Islands. In swimming, their head and tentacles are projected from out of the shell. In walking on rocks they drag themselves along the ground, Fig. 330. Nautilus pompilius (Linna>us), showing the lower cell and the partition giving passage to the the body upwards, the bead waterspout. and tentacles beneath. They betake themselves frequently to miry cavities frequented by fish. It is a much more common occurrence to Fig. 329. Nautilus pompilius (Linnams), showing the in- terior of the lower cell, to which the animal is fixed like a waterspout. 472 the ocean world. find the empty than inhabited shells of the Nautilus at sea. This, probabh , aiises from its exposure to the attacks of crustaceans and other marine carnivora. This seems to be proved by the mangled appearance of the edges in the empty shells thus met with. The Flaming Nautilus, Nautilus pompilius (Fig. 331), is so common on the Nicobar coast that the inhabitants salt and ’ dry its flesh, and store them as provi- sions. Its shell attains about eight inches in its greatest height. It is nearly round, smooth, trans- versely blazed in its posterior part, and entirely white ante- riorly. A very fine nacre is yielded by this mollusc, which is much used in ornamental cabinet - work. The Orientals „ raake drinking-cups, on which Fig. 331. Shell of Nautilus pompilius (LinmeusY ,i they engrave designs and figures, which form graceful objects. Similar vases were formerly shaped in Europe, which found their way into great houses. In our days they are generally consigned to cabinets of curiosities and the shops of dealers in articles of vertii. CHAPTER XYII. CRUSTACEANS. " Multa tamen lsutus tristia pontus habet.”' Ovid. Passing over the vast numbers of beings which inhabit the debatable land — the Annelids, which were for ages confounded with the worms, because of their resemblance in form — a form which might be declared forbidding, but, as Aristotle has well said, Nature, in her domain, knows nothing low, nothing contemptible ; the sea-leeches, whose condi- tion was an impenetrable mystery to Pliny, “ Omnia incerta ratione, et in naturie majestate abdita and the singular cirripedes, one species of which, the barnacle ( Anatifa leevis), was thought by old Gerard, the herbalist, and in his day by many others, to be the egg from which the barnacle goose was produced — passing over these ocean tribes, we reach the Crustaceans— the Insects of the Sea ; but insects of greater size, force, and voracity than any land insect with which we are acquainted. Armed, also, at all points ; for, in place of the coriaceous tunic, they are clothed in calcareous armour, both hard and strong, and bristling with coarse hairs, spiny tubercles — even armed spines. Stone is here substituted for a horny substance ; the structure is in many respects the same, but the Creator has changed the materials. The Crustaceans have nearly all of them claws, formidably hooked and toothed, which they employ as pincers both in offensive and defensive war. They have been compared to the heavily-armed knights of the middle ages — at once audacious and cruel ; barbed in steel from head to foot, with visor and corslet, arm-pieces and thigh- pieces — nothing is wanting to realise its prototype. These marine marauders live on the sea-coast, among the rocks 474 the ocean world. anc near the shore. Some few of them frequent the deep waters, others hide themselves in the sand or under stones, while the common crab ( Garcinus mienas, Leach) loves the shore almost as much as the salt water, and establishes itself accordingly under some moist cliff overhanging the sea, where it can enjoy both. One of the necessary consequences of the condition of these animals, enclosed in a hard shell, is their power of throwing it off. The solidity of their calcareous carapace would effectually prevent their growth, but at certain determinate periods Nature despoils the warrior of his cuirass ; the creature moults, and the calcareous crust falls off, and leaves it with a thin, pale, and delicate tunic. In this state the Crus- tacean is no longer worthy of its name— its skin has become vulner- able as that of the softest mollusc ; but it has the instinct of weakness it letiies into lonely places, and hides its shame in some obscure crevice, until another vestment, more suitable for resistance, and adapted to its increased size, has been restored, and, along with it, its coat-annour and crustacean dignity. I he Crustacean has not, like the more advanced vertebrata, a vertebral column. In its nature it is altogether different from the internal skeleton ; still its functions are the same. The tegumentary skeleton of the Crustacean consists of a great number of distinct pieces, connected together by means of portions of the epidermal covering which have not yet become hardened, in the same way as the bones in the internal skeleton of the vertebrata are connected by cartilages, the ossification of which only takes place in old age. The skeleton, or framework, consists of a series of rings varying in number, the normal number of the body-segments being twenty-one. Each ring is divisible into two arcs — one upper, or dorsal, the other lower, or ventral ; and each arc may present four elementary pieces, two of which are united in the mesial line from the ter gum, or back ; the lower arc is a counterpart of this, while the others form the two side, or epimeral, pieces. Their skeleton, in short, is the stony envelope : the bone is not condensed within the body, but is accumulated on the circumference. The skin, therefore, performs the functions of the skeleton, so that the Crustaceans, as was said by Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, like the molluscs, live inside and not outside the bony column. There exists, then, among the vertebrata, animals with an interior — a true skeleton ; and others with a dermal, or tegumentary skeleton. CRUSTACEANS. 475 The Crustaceans have a dark-grey iron colour, with a dash of steel- blue, like metal weapons forged for combat. Some few ol them are red, or reddish-brown ; others are of an earthy yellow, or of a livid blue. “The integument,” according to Milne Edwards, “consists of a corium, or true skin, and epidermis, with a pigmentary matter, which colours the latter. The corium is a thick, spongy, and vascular mem- brane, connected with the serous substance which lines the parietal walls of the cavities, as the serous membrane lines the internal cavities among the vertebrata.” This pigment is less a membrane than an amorphous matter diffused through the outer layer of the superficial membrane, which changes to red in the greater number of species in alcohol, ether, acids, and water, at 212° Fahr. The calcareous crust of the animal is thick, and in the dorsal region capable of great resistance ; their members are also of remarkable hard- ness ; but in the smaller species the shell is often thin, and of that crystalline transparency which permits of its digestion and circulation being observed. Many species, which are quite microscopic, con- tribute colour to the sea— red, purple, or scarlet : such are Grimothea D’Urvillei and G. gr eg area. Among the sea-spiders, which have no neck ( Cephalotliorcix ), the head gradually disappears in the breast, but the belly remains distinct ; the middle of the body is compressed, the shape narrow and graceful. Among the Crustaceans which have neither neck nor shape, the head, the breast, and the belly form only one mass, often short, squat, athletic, and difficult to take, as Fig. 332. Pisa tctraodon in Pisa tetraodon (Fig. 332), the four-horned spider-crab. Many of these animals have a powerful tail, consisting of a certain 476 THE OCEAN WORLD. number of ciliated paddles, which it uses in swimming to beat the water, and to confuse its enemies. The Crustaceans, so far as they are aquatic, respire by means of brancliise, or gills. In the larger species these branchiae are lamellous, or with filaments, whose supports are traversed by two canals, one of which leads the blood into the general economy, the other directs it towards the heart. These organs are enclosed in the body. In the smallei species the branchiae often appear exteriorly, hanging in the watei like a fungus. Sometimes these are at once swimming and breathing organs ; in other cases the animal has no special organs of respiration. Nearly all the Crustaceans are strong, hardy, and destructive, foiming a hoide of nocturnal brigands — merciless marauders, who recoil from no trap in which they can lie in wait for their prey. I hey fight a l outrance not only with their enemies, but often among themselves, either for a prey or for a female, sometimes for the sake oi the fight. The miserable creatures struggle audaciously with their claws. The carapace generally resists the most formidable blows; but the feet, the tail, and, above all, the antennae, suffer frightful mutilation. Happily for the vanquished, the mutilated members sprout again after a few weeks of repose. This is the reason for the many Crustaceans met with having the talons of very unequal size : the smaller are those lost in battle replaced. Nature has willed that the Crustacean should not long remain an invalid. They soon re- turn cured of their wounds. “We have seen lobsters,” says Moquin- Tandon, “which have in an unfortunate rencounter lost a limb, sick and debilitated, reappear at the end of a few months with a perfect limb, vigorous, and ready for service. 0 Nature, how thou fillest our souls with astonishment and wonder !” On the Spanish coast there is a species of crab, known, singularly enough, by the name of Boccaccio ; it is caught for its claw, which is considered excellent eating. This is cut off, and the mutilated animal is thrown into the sea, to be taken at some future time when the claw has reappeared. Crustaceans are nearly all carnivorous, and eat eagerly all other animals, whether living or dead, fresh or decomposed. Little think they of the quality or condition of their food. It is amusing to witness the address and gravity with which the common crab, when it has seized CRUSTACEANS. 477 an unfortunate mussel, holds the valve open with one claw, while with the other it rapidly detaches the animal, carrying each morsel to the mouth, as one might do with the hand, until the shell is entirely empty. The crab does not kill its prey directly, like the lobster ; it is swallowed also, but with greater appreciation. M. Charles Lespes surprised upon the shore at Royan a shoal of crabs at their repast. This day they seemed to have dined in common, and “ God knows the enjoyment,” as the good Fontaines said. They were in rows, every head turned to the same side, and nearly on end on their eight feet. They seized the small objects on the shore, which were carried to the mouth, each hand in its turn in regular order: when the right hand reached the mouth the left was on the ground. Let us just figure to oneself a company of disciplined soldiers messing together from the same plate ! The Long-homed Corophius (Corophium longicorne), remarkable for its long antennae, knows perfectly well how to cut the byssus by which the mussels suspend themselves, in order that the bivalve may fall on the weeds among them. Other Crustaceans, also great oyster-eaters, have the cunning or instinct to attack the mollusc without exposing themselves to danger. When the bivalve half opens its shell to enjoy the rays of the sun or take food, the evil-disposed Crustacean slips a stone between the valve. This done, it devours the poor inhabitant of the shell at its leisure. The Corophius, respecting whom this question is hazarded, are extremely numerous on the shores of the Atlantic towards the end of summer and autumn. They make constant war upon certain marine worms. Off the coast of La Rochelle they may be seen in myriads beating the muddy bottom with their long antenna) in search of their prey. Sometimes they meet one ot these Nereida or Arenicola many times their own size, when they unite in a body to attack it. In the oyster-beds of La Rochelle they are useful friends to the oyster by destroying these enemies, although they do not hesitate to attack the mollusc when it comes in their way. During the winter the mud of the bouchots gets piled up in unequal heaps, and when the warm season returns, it has become hard and unfit for the cultivation of the mollusc. It is necessary to level and dry these mud-heaps— a process which would be both difficult and costly. Well, the Corophia charge themselves with the task. They plough up annually many square 478 THE OCEAN WORLD. leagues covered with these heaps. They dilute the mud, which is carried out by the ebbing tide, and the surface of the bay is left smooth, as it was in the preceding autumn. We have said that the Crustaceans do not even respect each other ; the larger of the same species often devour the smaller. Bara con- cordia fratrvm ! Mr. Rymer Jones relates that he had on one occasion introduced six crabs ( Platycarcinus pagurus) of different size into an aquarium. One of them, venturing towards the middle of the reservoir, was immediately accosted by another a little larger, which took it with its claws as it might have taken a biscuit, and set about breaking its shell, and so found a way to its flesh. It dug its crooked claws into it with voluptuous enjoyment, appearing to pay no attention to the anger and jealousy of another of its companions, which was still stronger and as cruel, and advanced towards them. But, as Horace says— and he was not the first to say it — “ No one is altogether happy in this lower world “ Nihil est ab omni parte beatum.” Our ferocious Crustacean quietly continued its repast, when its com- panion seized it exactly as it had seized its prey, broke and tore it in the same fashion, penetrating to its middle, and tearing out its entrails in the same savage manner. In the meantime the victim, singularly enough, did not disturb itself for an instant, hut continued to eat the first crab bit by bit, until it was itself entirely torn to pieces by its own executioner — a remarkable instance at once of insensi- bility to pain and of cruel infliction under the lex talionis. To eat and to he eaten seems to he one of the great laws of Nature. Though essentially carnivorous, the Crustaceans sometimes eat marine vegetables. Many even seem to prefer fruit to animal food. Such is the tree-crab of the Polynesian Isles, which feeds almost exclusively on the cocoa-nut. This crab has thick and strong claws ; the others are comparatively slender and weak. At first glance it seems impossible that it could penetrate a thick cocoa-nut surrounded by a thick bed of fibre and protected by its strong shell; but M. Liesk has often seen the operation. The crab begins by tearing off the fibre at the extremity where the fruit is, always choosing the right end. When this is removed, it strikes it -with its great claws until it has made an opening ; then, by the aid of its slender claws, and by turning itself round, it extracts the whole substance of the nut. CRUSTACEANS. 479 The Crustaceans have eyes of two kinds — simple and compound : the first are sessile and immovable, and very convex ; the other borne on a short calcareous stem or peduncle, and formed of a number of small eyes symmetrically agglomerated — the reunion of all the micro- scopic cornea of a composite eye, resembling in shape a cap formed of facets. It is said, for instance, that the eye of the lobster consists of 2500 of these little facets. The simple eyes are myopus, or short-sighted — the compound eyes for more distant hut perfect sight. They appear to have a strong sense of smell. Many of them cannot swim, but walk with more or less facility at the bottom of the water. It is said, for instance, that the cavalier of the Syrian coast, Oxypoda cursor (Fabricius), is named from the rapidity with which it traverses great distances ; but it may be doubted if its pace equals that of a horse. Many systems have been proposed by different writers for the arrangement of the Crustacea. That proposed by Mr. Milne Edwards recommends itself, being founded on anatomical examination and actual experiment made by himself and M. Audouin. He divides them into two great divisions : — I. Those in which the mouth is furnished with a certain number of organs adapted for the prehension or division of food. II. Those in which the mouth is surrounded by ambulatory extremities, the bases of which perform the part of jaws. The first includes the Maxilosa or Mandibulata, again divided into Decapodci, having branchiae attached to the sides of the thorax, and enclosed in special cavities. The Decapoda are divided into : 1. Brachyura, namely, the Crabs. Cancer , Portumnus, Grapsus, (Ecypodes, and Dorypes, belong to this group. 2. Anomoura, including Dromia, Pagurus, Porcellana, and Eippa. 3. Macroura, including the Lobsters, Astacus, Palsemon, the Craw-fish, Palinurus. Stomapoda , with external branchiae, sometimes rudimentary, some- times none. Thoracic extremities prehensile, or for swimming generally, six or eight pairs. This division includes the Mysidae, Phyllosoma, Squilla, &c. The other divisions of Crustaceans we need not dwell upon. They are very obscure, and little known ; some of them fresh-water Crus- taceans, as in the Entomostraca ; others are parasitic on the whale and various species of fish. 480 THE OCEAN WORLD. Crabs and Craw-Fish. Crabs and lobsters may be regarded as the chiefs or lords of the Crustacean tribes. The crabs have very large claws and smooth backs ; the last have small claws and the back covered with spines. Tiberius Caesar had the face of a poor fisherman scratched by the rugged shell of a craw-fish. Lobsters, especially, have an amazing fecundity, and yield an im- mense number of eggs, each female producing from 12,000 to 20,000 in the season. The crab is also very prolific. These eggs are, in the lobster, arranged in packets, which are attached to the lower surface of the tail, to which they are connected by a viscous substance. The manner in which the hen lobster disposes of her burden is curious and interesting. Whether she bends or stands erect she is able to hold it obscurely or expose it to the light. Sometimes, according to Coste, the eggs are left immovable, or simply submerged; at others they are subjected to successive washings by gently agitating the false claw which shelters them from right to left. When first exuded from the ovary the eggs are very small, but they seem to increase during the time they are borne about under the tail, and before they are committed to the sand or water they have attained the size of small shot. The evolution of the germ is in progress during six months. At the moment of exclusion the female extends the tail, im- presses upon the eggs an oscillating motion, in order to destroy the shell and scatter the larvae, delivering herself in two or three days of her entire burden (Coste). “ As the young lie enclosed within the membrane of the egg,” says Couch, “ the claws are folded on each other, and the tail is flexed on them as far as the margin of the shield. The dorsal spine is bent backwards, and lies in contact with the dorsal shield, for the young when it escapes from the egg is quite soft ; but it rapidly hardens and solidifies by the deposition of calcareous matter on what may be called its skin.” As soon as born, the young Crustaceans withdraw from the mother and ascend to the surface of the water, in order to gain the open sea. They swim in a circle ; but this pelagic life is not of long duration ; they quit it after their fourth moult, which takes place between the thirtieth and fortieth day, at which time they lose the transitory organs CRUSTACEANS. 481 of natation which they have hitherto possessed. After this they are no longer able to maintain themselves on the surface, but drop to the bottom. Henceforth they are condemned to remain there, and such walking as they can exercise becomes their habitual mode of progres- sion. As they increase in size they gradually approach the shore, which they had for the moment abandoned, and return to the places inhabited by the parent Crustaceans. The form of the larvae differs so much from that of the adult, that 2 i 482 THE OCEAN WOULD. it would be difficult, except on the clearest evidence, to determine the species from which they proceed. Former naturalists considered the embryo cray-fish ( Palinurus ) to belong to a distinct genera, which they designated Phyllosoma. It is now known, however, that these are the young of the higher forms of Crustaceans undergoing meta- less decided than in the Bracliyura. In the fresh-water cray-fish no change whatever takes place. Dissatisfied with the uncertainty of former experiments, Mr. Couch undertook a series of observations, which are recorded in the proceedings of the Cornwall Polytechnic Society, in which he established the fact that metamorphosis takes place in the following genera : Cancer, Zantho, Pelumnus, Cacernus, rous order it is seen in the Pagurus, Porcellana, and Galathea, and in the Macrouran order in Homarus, Palinurus, Palaemon, and Crangon. The swimming of these creatures is produced by flexions and expansions of the tail, and by repeated beating motions of the claws, the tail acting as a sort of vibratile oar, aided by which they maintain themselves in the water and facilitate their progress. As the shell becomes more solid they get less active, and finally return to the tnttnm to cast their shell and assume a new form. morphosis. In the various forms of Macroura the metamorphosis is Portumnus, Maia, Galathea, Hornarus, and Palinurus. “ Me- demonstrated,” says Dr. Bell, “ in no less than seventeen genera of the Bracliyurous \ [tj Maiadae, Canceridae, 1 Portumnidae, Pinno- Fig. 334. Portumnus variegatus. male. a, external antenna ; b, external jaw-foot ; c, tail or abdomen. tlieridae, and Grap- sidae. In the Anomou- CRUSTACEANS. 483 the second, three to four times the third, and two or three times the fourth year. In the fifth year they attain the adult state. Whence it follows, that the small lobsters served at our tables have changed their calcareous vestment something like twenty-one times, and are now clothed in their twenty-second habit. The crabs are numerous in species and various in size. The long- clawed crab ( Corystes Cassivelaunus) of Pennant and Leach (Fig. 335) is remarkable for its long antennae, which considerably exceed the body. The jaw-feet have their third joint longer than the second terminating in an obtuse point, with a notch on its interior ed^e • eyes wide apart, borne upon large peduncles, which are nearly cvhn- 2 i 2 484 THE OCEAN WORLD. drical and short ; anterior feet large, equal, twice the length of the body, and nearly cylindrical in the males ; in the females (Fig. 336) about the length of the body, and compressed, especially towards the hand-claw. The other feet terminate in an elongated nail or claw, which is straight-pointed and channeled longitudinally: carapace oblong- oval, terminating in a rostrum anteriorly truncated and bordered pos- teriorly ; the regions but slightly indicated, with the exception of the cordian region, the branchial or lateral regions being very much elongated. . Fig. 3;:G. CorystBs Cassivelaunus, female. Latreille gives the name of Corystes, which signifies a warrior armed, to this genus of Crustaceans, from /copn?, a helmet, but it is perfectly inoffensive. Pennant had already conferred the name of Cassivelciumis, the chief of the ancient Britons, for the singular reason, according to Gosse, that the carapace, which is marked by wrinkles, bears, in old males especially, the strongest and most ludicrous resemblance to the face of an ancient man. Pennant’s well-known sympathy with his British ancestry certainly never led him to caricature the grand old British warrior, as Mr. Gosse sur- CRUSTACEANS. 485 mises. On the contrary, he saw in the Crustacean a creature armed at all points, and he named it after the hero of his imagination. In this species the surface of the carapace is somewhat granulous, with two denticles between the eyes, and three sharp points directed forward on each side. The male has only five abdominal pieces, but the vestiges of the separation of the two others may be clearly re- marked upon the outer mediate or third piece, which is the largest of all. The length of the antennas are remarked on by Mr. Couch, in his Cornish Fauna. “These organs,” he says, “are of some use beyoud their common office of feelers ; perhaps, as in some other Crustaceans, they assist in the process of excavation ; and, when soiled by labour, I have seen the crab effect their cleaning by alter- nately bending the joints of their stalks, which stand conveniently angular for the purpose. Each of the long antennas is thus drawn along the brush that fringes the internal face of the other, until both are cleared of every particle that adhered to them.” On the other hand, Mr. Gosse suggests that the office of the antennae is to keep a passage open for ejecting the deteriorated water after it has bathed and aerated the gills. “ I have observed,” he says, “ that, when kept in an aquarium, these crabs are fond of sitting bolt upright, the antennae placed close together, and pointing straight upwards from the head. This is doubtless the attitude in which the animal sits in its burrow, for the tips of the antennae may often be seen just projecting from the sand. When the chosen seat has happened to be so close to the glass side of the tank as to bring the antennae within the range of a pocket lens, I have minutely investigated these organs without dis- turbing the old warrior in his meditation. I saw on each occasion that a strong current of water was continuously pouring up from the points of the antennae. Tracing this to its origin, it became evident that it was produced by the rapid vibration of the foot-jaws drawing in the surrounding water, and pouring it off upwards between the united antennae, as through a tube. Then, on examining these organs, I perceived that the form and arrangement of their bristles did indeed constitute each antennae a semi-tube, so that when the pair were brought face to face the tube was complete.” Among the numerous genera of Brachyurous Crustaceans, the Grapsidae are distinguished by their less regularly quadrilateral form • the body nearly always compressed, and the sternal plastron but little 480 THE OCEAN WORLD. Fig. 337. Pagurus Bernhardus. 1, out of the shell ; a, right jaw-foot ; 6, in the shell. differs from most other Crustaceans in this : in place of haying the body protected by a calcareous armour, more or less thick and solid, it has only a cuirass and head-piece to protect the head and breast ; all the rest of the body is invested in a soft yielding skin ; and this, the vul- nerable part of the hermit crab, is the delicate morsel devoured by the gourmet. Nor is our somewhat evil-disposed Crustacean ignorant of the perfectly weak and defenceless state of its posterior quarters. Prudence or not at all curved backwards ; the front strongly recurved, or, rather, bent downwards; the orbits oval-shaped and of moderate size; the lateral edges of the carapace slightly curving and trenchant; the ocular pedicles large, but short: their insertion beneath the front and the cornea occupies one half of their length. The Hermit or Soldier Crab ( Pagurus Bernhardus , Fabricius, Fig. 337) is, perhaps, the oddest and most curious of Crustaceans. It CRUSTACEANS. 4S7 or instinct makes it seek the shelter of some empty shell, ol a shape and size corresponding to its own. When it fails to find one empty , it does not hesitate to attack some living testacean, which it kills without pity or remorse, and takes possession of its habitation without other form of process. Once master of the shell (Fig. 337), it introduces itself, stern foremost, and installs itself as in an entrenchment, where it is established so firmly that it moves about with it more or less bi'iskly, according to its comparative size. The Pagurians belong to the Anomourous family of Crustaceans, of which there are several genera, and a considerable number of species, the animal economy of which have been ably commented upon by Mr. Broderip. “ Their backs,” he says, “ are towards the arch of the turbinated shell occupied by them, and their well-armed nippers and first two pairs of succeeding feet generally project beyond the mouth of it. The short feet rest upon the polished surface of the columella, and the outer surface of their termination, especially that of the first pair, is in some species most admirably rough-sbod, to give ‘ the soldier ’ a firm footing when he makes his sortie, or to add to the resistance of the crustaceous holders at the end of his abdomen, or tail, when he is attacked, and wishes to withdraw into his castle. On passing the finger downwards over the terminations of these feet, they feel smooth ; but if the finger be passed upwards, the roughness is instantly perceived. The same sort of structure (it is as rough as a file) is to be seen in the smaller caudal holders.” In another species of Pagurus, from the Mauritius, which was nearly a foot in length, he found a great number of transverse rows, armed with acetabula, or suckers ; these were visible without the aid of a glass, which must very much assist the hold of the Pagurus. Birring the feeding and breeding-time, the hermit throws out his head and feet, and especially his great claws, and feels his way with his two antennae, which are long and slender. When he walks he hooks on with his pincers to the nearest body, and draws his shell after him, as the snail does his. But the undefended parts of the body always remain under cover. At low water the hermits spread themselves over the rocky shore, and the spectator thinks he sees a great number of shells which move in all directions, with allurements different from that which belongs to their essentially slow and measured race. If they are touched they stop suddenly, and it is soon 488 THE OCEAN WORLD. discovered that their shell is the dwelling of a crustacean, not a mollusc. The Bernhard lives alone in its little citadel, like the hermit in his cell or the sentinel in his box. Hence the name of hermit and soldier. When our crustacean outgrows its borrowed habitation, it sets out in search of another shell, a little larger, and better suited for its increased size. The hermit often avails itself, as we have said, of empty shells abandoned by their owners ; when the tide retires these seldom fail them, and the hermit may be seen examining, turning, and re-turning, and even trying its new domicile. It glides slowly along on its abdomen, which is large and somewhat distorted, sometimes in one shell, some- times in another, looking defiantly all round it, and returning very quickly to its ancient lodging if the new one does not turn out to be perfectly comfurtable, often trying a great number, as a man might tiy many new clothes before suiting himself. In its successive removals the little sybarite chooses a hermitage more and more spacious, according to its taste or caprice in colour or architecture. The cunning little creature chooses its mansion, now grey or yellow, now red or brown, globular or cylindrical, in the form of a spiral or of a tun, toothed or crenulate, with trenchant edge or pointed ter- minations ; but, as a rule, our crustacean Diogenes houses itself in spirals of considerable length, as in Cerethium, Ihtceinum, or Mur ex. Ihe hermit is very timid ; at the least noise it shrinks into its shell and squats itself, without motion, drawing in its smaller claws and closing the door with its large ones, the latter being often covered with hairs, tubercles, or with teeth. In short, our prudent cenobite clings so closely to the bottom of its retreat, that we might pull it to pieces without getting it out entire ; its tail is transformed into a sort of sucker, by the aid of which it attaches itself firmly to the walls of its habitation. It is at once strong and voracious, eating with much relish the dead fishes and fragments of molluscs and annelids which come in its way. Nor does it hesitate to attack and devour living animals. A\ hen introduced into an aquarium, it has sometimes thrown it into the utmost disorder by its insatiable rapacity. It has been possible sometimes to preserve harmony among many individuals in- habiting the same reservoir ; but this has been owing rather to the impossibility of their attacking each other, in consequence of cunningly-devised barricades, than to their mildness of character or CRUSTACEANS. 489 love of their neighbour. These animals, in short, are very quairel- sonie. Two hermits cannot meet without exhibiting hostile inten- tions ; each extends his long pincers, and seems to try to touch the other, much as a spider does when it seeks to seize a fly on its most vulnerable side, but each, finding the other armed in proof, and per- fectly protected, though eager to fight, usually adopt the better part of valour, and prudently withdraw. They often have true passages of arms, nevertheless, in which claws are spread out, and displayed in the most threatening manner ; the two adversaries tumbling head over heels, and rolling one upon the other, but they get more frightened than hurt. Nevertheless, Mr. Gosse once wit- nessed a struggle which had a more tragic end. A hermit crab met a brother Bernhard pleasantly lodged in a shell much more spacious than his own. He seized it by the head with his powerful claws, tore it from its asylum with the speed of lightning, and took its place not less promptly, leaving the dispossessed unfortunate struggling on the sand in convulsions of agony. “ Our battles,” says Charles Bonnet, “ have rarely such important objects in view : they fight each other for a house.” A pretty little zoophyte, the Cloak Anemone (Adamsia palliata), loves to live with the hermit, and exhibits sympathies almost inexplicable. In aquariums this anemone attaches itself almost always to the shell which serves as the dwelling of the Crustacean ; and it may be looked upon as certain that where the hermit is there will the anemone be found. These two creatures seem to live in perfect and intelligent harmony together, for Mr. Gosse’s observations establish the existence of a cordial and reciprocal affection between them. This learned and intelligent observer describes the proceedings of a hermit which re- quired a newr habitation ; he saw it detach, in the most deliberate but effective manner, its dear companion, the anemone, from the old shell, transport it with every care and precaution, and place it comfortably upon the new shell, and then with its large pincers give to its well- beloved many little taps, as if to fix it there the more quickly. Another species of Bernhardus makes a companion of the mantled anemone. “And we are assured,” says Moquin-Tundon, “ that when the crab dies its inconsolable friend is not long in succumbing also.” “ Is there not here much more than what our modern physiologists call automatic movements, the results of reflex sensorial action ?” says Gosse. “ The more I study the lower animals, the more firmly am 490 the ocean world. I persuaded of the existence in them of psychical faculties, such as consciousness, intelligence, skill, and choice; and that even in those forms in which as yet no nervous centres have been detected.” Lobstebs. In a dietary, as well as commercial sense, the lobster far excels the crab; like the latter, they have an amazing fecundity, each female producing from twelve to twenty thousand eggs in a season ; and wisely is it so arranged, otherwise the consumption would soon exhaust them. In France the size of the marketable lobster is regulated by law, and fixed at twenty centimetres (eight inches) in length ; all under that size are contraband. Every year the inhabitants of Blainville proceed to Chaussey to fish fur lobsters. They are taken in baskets m the form of a truncated cone, the mouth of which is so arranged that the animal can enter, but cannot get out. The numbers caught l ea<: 1 fislierman and his family in a season may be estimated at a thousand or twelve hundred, which realise to the family thirteen or fourteen hundred francs, the season lasting about nine months. Lobsters are collected all round our own coast for the London market. On the Scottish shore they are collected and kept in per- forated chests floating on the water, until they can be taken away to market. From the Sutherland coast alone six to eight thousand lobsters are collected in a season. This process goes on all round the coast, and as far as Norway, whence an enormous supply of the finest lobsters are obtained, for which something like £20,000 per annum is paid, all these contributions being conveyed to the Thames and Mersey in welled vessels. But these old-fashioned svstems are bemg rapidly superseded by the construction of artificial storing ponds, or basins. Of these ponds Mr. Richard Scovell has erected one at Hamble, near Southampton, in which he can store with ease filty thousand lobsters, which will keep in good condition for six weeks. Mr. Scovell’s tank is supplied from the coasts of France, Scotland, and Ireland, where fine lobsters abound. He employs three large and well-appointed smacks, each of which can carry from five thousand to ten thousand. On the coast of Ireland alone, it is said, ten thousand fine lobsters a week might be taken. CRUSTACEANS. 491 The Lobster ( Homarus ) is found in great abundance all round our coast; frequenting the more roclcy shores and clearwater, where it is ol no great depth, about the time of depositing its eggs. Various are the modes in which they are taken: cone-shaped traps made ot wicker- work, and baited with garbage, are perhaps the most successful. These are sunk among the rocks, and marked by buoys. Sometimes nets aie sunk, baited by the same material. In other places a wooden instru- ment, which acts like a pair of tongs, is used lor their capture. Mr. ’Pennant, the naturalist, paid great attention to the lobsters, and their habits are well described in a letter from Mr. Travis, of Scarborough. ‘‘ The larger ones,” he says, e: are in their best season from the middle of October to the beginning of May. Many ot the smaller ones, and some few of the larger individuals, are good all the summer. If they are four and a half inches long from the top of the head to the end of the back shell, they are called sizeable lobsters ; if under four inches, they are esteemed half-size, and two of them are reckoned for one of size. Under four inches they are called pawks, and these are the best summer lobsters. The pincers of one of the lobster’s large claws are furnished with knobs, wrhile the other clawr is always serrated. With the former it keeps firm hold of the stalks of submarine plants; with the latter it cuts and masticates its food very dexterously. The knobbed or thumb claw, as the fisher- men call it, is sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right, side, and it is more dangerous to be seized by the serrated claw than the other. There is little doubt that the lobsters cast their shell annually, but the mode in which it is performed is not satisfactorily explained. It is supposed that the old shell is cast, and that the animal retires to some lurking-place till the new covering acquires consistence to contend with his armour-clad congeners. Others contend that the process is one of absorption, otherwise, if there were a period of moult, it would be shown by their shells. The most probable conjecture is that the shell sloughs off piecemeal, as it does in the cray-fish. The greatest mystery of all, perhaps, is the process by which the lobster withdrawn the fleshy part of its claws from their calcareous covering. Fishermen say the lobster pines before casting its shell, so as to permit of its withdrawing its members from it. Tho hen lobster does not seem to cast her shell the same year in which she deposits her ova, or, as the fishermen say, “ is in berry.” THE OCEAN WORLD. 41)2 When the ova first appears under the tail, they are small and very black, but before they are ready for deposition they are almost as large as ripe elderberries, and of a dark-brown colour. There does not seem to be any parti- cular season for this act, as females are found in berry at all seasons, but more commonly in winter. In this state they are found to be much exhausted, and by no means fit for the table. The generic name Astacus of Fabricius is now confined to the crawfishes, which have a depressed rostrum, one tooth on each side, and the last ring of the thorax movable. The lobsters ( Homarus ) have the eyes spherical, two rings of the thorax being soldered together The Norway Lobsters Fig. 333. Nephrops Norvegicus. (Nejphrops Norvegicus, Fig. 338) have the eyes uniform, and the two last rings of the thorax movable. The last is one of the most beautiful of the larger Macrourans. Its general tint is pale flesh colour, with darker shades in parts, its pubescence light-brown. This is generally considered a northern species, but Mr. Bell states that he has received specimens from the Mediterranean. It is found plentifully on the coast of Norway, on the Scottish coast, and in the Bay of Dublin. It is considered the most delicate of all the Crustaceans. F I S H E S. Before speaking of the habits of the principal kinds ot fishes, it is desirable to glance at their organization, and upon the manner in which they execute their physiological functions. Fishes are intended to live always in water, and this circumstance has impressed its seal upon their organization. Nevertheless, their forms are very varied ; they are generally oblong, compressed laterally. They have no neck, the head being merely a prolongation of the trunk. In the majority of instances, the body is covered wdth scales, generally a thin bony substance developed out of the skin and over- lapping each other, like the tile3 of a roof. Nothing is more remarkable than the variety and brilliancy of colour in fishes ; they present almost every gradation, from golden or silver, and other dazzling colours, mingling with shades of blue, green, red, and black. Fishes are essentially formed for swimming (Fig. 339), and all their members are adapted for this purpose. The anterior members, which correspond with the arms in man and the wings in birds, are attached to each side of the trunk, immediately behind the head, and form the pectoral jins. The posterior members occupy the lower surface of the body, and form the ventral jins. The latter, which are always over the ventral line, may be before, beneath, or behind the former. Fishes possess, besides, fins in odd numbers. The fins which erect themselves on the back are called the back or dorsal jins, those at the end of the tail are the caudal jins ; finally, there is frequently another attached to the lower extremity of the body, which is called the anal jin. 404- THE OCEAN WORLD. Ihese fins arc always nearly of the same structure, consisting gene- rally of a fold of the skin, supported by slender, flexible, cartilaginous or osseous rays, connected by a thin membrane. I* ig. 339. Skeleton of the Common Perch. n, tlie inK‘r-n, axillary bone ; b. the maxillary bone ; d, the sills ; c, the under jaw ; f, the inter-onercuhim • gg, the vertebral column; /< the nrW..rMi tin • v . ». . » ... i»crcumm, un ; n, the caudal fin. .v ^ ,l,c me impi -operculum: , the pectoral tin; t, the ventral tin; k and l, the dorsal tins; m. the anal The muscles, which bind together the vertebral column, are so much developed in fishes as well as others of the superior animals, that they constitute in them alone the principal part of the body. The caudal, dorsal, and anal fins act as outlying oars ; the pectoral and ventral fins assist in progression, at the same time that they help to maintain the equilibrium of the animal and guide and direct its move- ments, which are generally astonishing from their rapidity. An organ, which belongs properly to fishes (Fig. 340), and which is usually considered as their chief aid in swimming, is a large bladder situated within the body, between the dorsal spine and the abdomen. This is usually called the swimming bladder. According to the volume this bladder assumes, the animal can increase or diminish the specific gravity of its body; that is, it can remain in equilibrium I-'ISMES. 405 or ascend or descend in the fcosom of the waters; it is, moreover, remarked that it is very small in those species which swim at the Fig. 341. Anatomy of tlie Carp. br, tlie branchue, or gill openings ; o. the heart ; f, the liver ; vn, swimming bladders ; ci, intestinal canal ; o, the ovarium; u, urethra; a, anus; o’, oviduct. bottom of the water, and Mr. Gosse says there is some reason for considering it to he the first rudimentary form of the air-breathing lung. THE OCEAN WORLD. 496 Immediately behind the head, two large openings are observed in fishes ; these are the gill-openings. Their anterior edge is mobile, and they are raised or lowered to serve the purposes of respiration ; under this species of covercle are the gills, or branchiae. These usually consist of many rows of thin membranous plates, hung on slender arches of bone, placed on each side of the head, usually protected by a bony plate made up of several pieces, called the gill-covers. The breathing is produced by water taken in at the mouth, which passes over the gill-membranes, and is ejected through an orifice at the hind margin of the gill-covers. During the contact of the water with the gills, the blood which circulates in the train of this organ, and which communi- cates to them the red colour by which we recognise them, combines chemically with the oxygen of the air which the water holds in solu- tion when it flows freely at the ordinary temperature in presence of the air. The blood is thus oxygenized, or made arterial. The heart in fishes is placed between the inferior parts of the branchial arch, and consists of a ventricle and an auricle (Fig. 341). It corresponds with the right half of the heart in the Mammifera and birds, for it receives the venous blood from all parts of the body and sends it to the gills. From this organ the blood is delivered into one great artery, which creeps along the vertebral column. The eye in fishes is generally very large — we may even say enormous relative to the size of the head — and without true eye- lids ; the skin usually passes over the ocular globe, and becomes from this point so transparent that the luminary rays traverse it. This light covering is all the eyelid be- longing to fishes. The inte- rior of the eye is covered by the membrane called choroide, the thin external leaf of which, in consequence of the pre- sence of innumerable micro- scopic crystals, presents the appearance of a gold or silver-coloured coating, which gives to the iris that extraordinary brilliancy which Fig. 342. The Fishes' Eye. i, crystallized pupil ; ee', cornea; mm', choroid; h, posterior chambers ; c, optic nerve. FISHER. 407 Fig. 343. Teeth of the Bream. belongs to the fish’s eye. The crystalline is voluminous, spherical, and diaphanous. When the fish is cooked, the crystalline con- stitutes that opaque and hard white substance which often comes under the teeth in eating fish of a certain size. Cuvier suspected, what anglers now know to be true, that those active chasseurs of the deep saw far and very clearly. If fishes have great eyes, they have, on the other hand, very small ears. This organ, it is found, has no exterior opening. It forms a cavity in the interior of the cranium, which is far from presenting the com- plicated structure of the ear in Mammifers and birds. In spite, however, of the imperfect ^ structure, fishes are sensible to the least noise. In consequence, silence is a rigorous law with the fisherman. The dimensions of the mouth and teeth • i i • n l . , Fig- 344. Teeth of the Carp. are very variable in fishes ; these organs are in proportion to their voracity, which in many of these beings is very great. The form and development of the buccal pieces are also very various. Some species are toothless, but in most fishes the teeth are very numerous. They are some- times attached not alone to the two jaws, but also to the palate, to the tongue, and upon the interior of the branchial arch, and even in the back mouth, that is to say, upon the ospharyngeal, which surrounds the mouth of the oesophagus. The form of their teeth is very vari- able both in arrangement and position : some are in the form of an elonnated r.\ , , eumg.ueu fig. 34 6. Teeth of the Gold-fish Dorada. cone, either straight or curved. When small and numerous, they are comparable to the points of the cards used in carding wool or cotton. Sometimes they are so slender and dense as to resemble the piles of velvet, and often, from their very minute size, their presence is more easily ascertained by the finger than the eye. In some members of the Salmonid®, for instance, we 2 k fdM^r Fig. 345. Teeth of the Trout.. 498 THE OCEAN WORLD. find a row of teeth on the bone that forms the middle ridge of the palate, which is called the vornex. On each side of this is another row on the palatine hones, and outside these is a third pair of rows on the npper jaw-bones. Some fishes have flat teeth, with a cutting edge in front of the jaws, like a true incisor ; others have them rounded or oval, adapted to bruise or crash the various substances on which they feed. The oesophagus connected with the mouth is short in fishes ; the stomach and intestines vary in form and dimensions. Digestion is very rapid with these beings. Most of them feed on flesh, but there are a few where the mouth is without teeth, which feed on vegetables. The growth of fishes is slow or very rapid, according to the abun- dance of food ; they can suffer a very long fast, but in that state they become diminutive in size, and finally perish of exhaustion. At certain seasons an irresistible impulse brings the two sexes together. Many species whose ordinary appearance is dull and unsightly now shine in the most brilliant colours. The female soon after lays her eggs, the number of which passes all imagination. Nature seems to have accu- mulated in the body of each female myriads of eggs — a wise provision, which is rendered necessary by the numerous causes of destruction which threaten them in their native element. The eggs, abandoned by the females to the mercy of the waves, are fecundated after being deposited by the melt of the males. Such is a very brief summary of the organization of fishes, which have been briefly described as vertebrate, cold-blooded animals, breathing by means of gills ; living in water, moving through the water by means of their fins, and reproducing their kind by means of eggs, or spawn. And now a few words on their classification. Fishes naturally divide themselves into two series, according to the composition of their internal skeleton. This is usually osseous ; never- theless, a whole group of them constantly retain the cartilaginous or fibro-cartilaginous state. With some this frame presents even less power of resistance, and remains membranous. It is precisely upon this peculiarity of structure that we found the great division of the class of fishes into two great groups of Cartila- ginous and Osseous fishes, the first being again subdivided into three orders : namely, I. Cyclostomata. II. Selachia. III. Sturiona. The second into four orders : I. Plectoynathii. II. Lophobranchii. III. Malacopterygii. IY. Acanthopterygii. CHAPTER XVIII. CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. Cartilaginous fishes are generally animals of considerable size, their structure ranging from ordinary fishes to eels. They are chiefly sea- fishes, only a few species being river-fishes. Naturalists divide them into two orders; namely, those having the gills free on the outer edge (the gilled Chondropterygeans) , and those having these organs fixed on both edges. The first order comprehend three families : I. Cyclostomata, or Eels, Lampreys, &c., in which the mouth forms a sucker; II. Selachians, including Raias and Sharks, in which the mouth is furnished with jaws ; III. Sturonia, or Sturgeons, which have the gills free. I. Cyclostomata. The first are characterised by the singular conformation of the mouth, which is formed for suction. The body is elongated, naked, and viscous, reminding us of serpents in their external form ; they have neither pectoral nor ventral fins ; their vertebra is reduced to simple cartilaginous rings, scarcely perceptible one from the other, traversed by tendons, and covered by a second and more solid series of rings, which surround the soft cartilaginous spine. Their gills, in place of presenting the comb-like appearance of other fislms, have something of the form of a purse. The lampreys may be considered as the type of this family. The Lampreys ( Petromyzon ) are cylindrical, with seven gill- opening on each side of the neck, forming two longitudinal lines; mouth round armed with many teeth. The Sea Lamprey, P. marinus (Fig. 347)’ 2 k 2 500 THE OCEAN WORLD. belongs to the Mediterranean. In the spring it ascends the rivers, where it is sometimes caught in abundance. Full-grown it is about three feet long, marbled brown upon yellow ; the dorsal fins are sepa- rated by long intervals ; its mouth is circular and surrounded by a fleshy lip, furnished with cirri, having a cartilaginous plate for sup- port ; it is provided on its internal surface with many circular rows of strong teeth, some single, the others double. The Lamprey feeds on worms, molluscs, and small fishes ; its mouth is a powerful sucker, by the aid of which it attaches itself to fishes often of great size, and sucks them like a leech. It is taken by hook and line, and speared by a sort of barbed harpoon, like the trident of the mythological Neptune, which is thrown, javelin fashion, at the animal when seen at the bottom of the water ; the flesh is fat and delicate. In the twelfth century one of our kings, Henry I., surfeited himself at Elbeuf by partaking too royally of the Lamprey. The river-lamprey resembles the above in its general conformation, but is much smaller, and differs in the armature of the mouth, having only a single circular row of teeth. It is blackish above, silvery beneath, and is common in the markets of London and Paris, being frequently taken in the Seine. A smaller species, about ten inches in length, never leaves the fresh waters. It resembles the last species in colour, but its two dorsal fins are continuous ; it is found in most European C A UTIL AG INOU S FI SII ES. oOl rivers and brooks. In some of the English rivers they are frequently taken in the eel-pots, weighing two and three pounds. They frequent stony bottoms, where they find small animals on which they teed. In its larva state it was long considered to be a distinct species of Am- mocetta ; it is now, however, ascertained that it only acquiles its perfect form at the end of its second or third year. II. Selaohia. The Selachians include a great number of cartilaginous fishes, vary- ing much in form, including the rays, dog-fish, skate, torpedo, hammer- fish, sharks, and saw-fish ; they have pectoral and ventral fins. On each side of the neck, on the lower surface, are five gill-openings, in form of a slit to each gill. Many of the species have two blow-lioles in the upper part of the head. The order is divided into Raiadae and Squalidae. IiAIAD.E. Of the Raiadae there are several genera, and many species. In Cephaloptera the head is truncated, with large, lateral eyes. In Myliobates it is projecting, the pectoral fins extending like wings. In Tnjgon it is enclosed by the pectorals. In the Skate ( Raia ) the body is rhomboidal, tail without spine, but two small dorsals near the top. In the Torpedo the body is nearly round, the tail short and fleshy, with two dorsals and a caudal fin. The White Ray, Raia batis (Fig. 348), reminds us of the lozenge shape, the point of the muzzle forming the lower angle, the longest ray of each pectoral forming the lateral angles, while the summit of the tail forms the last angle ; the whole surface seems flat, but a swelling is distinguishable towards the head, on the upper surface, which bears, as it were, the contour of the body, properly so called, namely, the three cavities of the head, the throat, and the belly, which occupy the centre of the lozenge, beyond which the pectoral fins extend. These fins, though covered with a thick skin, permit the cartilaginous rays, with their articulations, to be very distinctly seen. The head of the white ray, which terminates in a muzzle slightly pointed, is attached behind to the cavity of the breast. The mouth, placed in the lower part of the head and far from the extremity of the muzzle, is elongated ; its edges are cartilaginous, and furnished with 5 02 THE OCEAN WORLD. uaany rows ot hooked and pointed teeth ; the nostrils are placed in Iront of the mouth. The eyes, which open in the upper part of the head, are half projecting, and protected in part by a continuation of the soft, elastic, and retractile skin, which covers the head. Imme- diately behind the eyes are two blow-holes, which communicate with the interior of the mouth. The animal is able to open and close these holes at pleasure, by means of an extensible membrane, which acts as a sort ot valve. Through these holes it ejects the superabundant water beyond what is necessary tor respiration. In its general colour the animal is ashy grey on its upper surface ; white, with rows of black spots, below. Its tail is long, flexible, and slender, acting at once as a rudder and a weapon of offence or defence. When lying in ambush, nearly buried in mud at the bottom ot the sea, and it has no desire to change its position, a rapid and sudden stroke of this formidable weapon, aimed CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 503 with hooked bones on its upper surface, arrests its victim by wounding or killing it, without disturbing the mud or sea-weed by which it is covered. This species sometimes attains a very considerable size, and their flesh is firm and nourishing ; but the larger specimens rarely approach inhabited shores, even when the female desires to lay hei eggs. These eggs have a very singular shape, differing from almost every other fish, and particularly from those of all other osseous fishes. They aie quadrangular, a little flat, each of the four corners terminating in a small cylindrical cowl — a kind of pocket formed of a strong and transparent membrane. Fig. 349. The Lump-fish (Itaia clnvata). The Lump-fish, R. clavata (Fig. 349), so called in consequence of its armature, inhabits every European sea ; sometimes it attains the length of twelve feet, and, being excellent eating, is much sought after by fishermen. It is frequently seen with the skate in European markets. A ray of great curving spines occupies the back and extends to the end of the tail ; two similar spines are above, and two below the point of the muzzle. Two others are placed before, and three behind the eyes. Each side of the tail is furnished with a row of shorter 504 THE OCEAN WORLD. spines ; the whole surface, in short, bristles with larger or smaller spines, justifying the name of buckler-fish; for these are not given by way of ornament, but defence. The colour of the upper surface is generally brown, with whitish spots. The tail, which exceeds the body in length, presents towards the end two small dorsals, terminating in a caudal fin. Ray-fish of all kinds are inhabitants of the deep sea, but they change according to the seasons. While stormy weather prevails they hide themselves in the depth of the ocean, where they lie in ambush, creeping along the bottom But they do not always live at the bottom. They rise occasionally to the surface far from the shore eagerly chasing other inhabitants of the deep, lashing the water with their formidable tails and fins, springing out of the water, and making it foam again under their gambols. When pursuing their prey the rays deploy their great pectoral fins, which resemble wings, and are aided by a very delicate and mobile tail ; they beat the waters in order to fall unexpectedly upon their prey, as the eagle stoops upon its victim. It may thus be called the king of fishes, as the eagle is the king of birds. The Cramp-fish, lorpedo marmorata (Fig. 350), has considerable analogy with the Raia. Its flattened body forms a roundish disk, beyond which its rays form large pectoral fins ; but the humeral girdle which carries them, carries also, in a great hollow, a most singular organic apparatus, which possesses the property of producing violent electrical CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 505 commotions. This apparatus is placed in the interval between the end of the muzzle and the extremity of the fin, and completes the rounded disk of the body. The mouth is small, the slit ciosswise, the jaws bare ; the teeth in squares of five. The eyes are small ; behind them are two star-like spout-holes. On the lower surface ol the breast are two rows of small transverse slits, openings of the gill pouches, like those of the rays. The tail is thick, short, and conical, carrying part of the ventral, and terminating in a sort of caudal fin. On the back are two small, soft, and adipose fins. The skin is smooth ; its colour varies with the species ; generally it is reddish-brown, with eye-like spots of a deep blue in the centre ; sometimes azure, and sur- rounded by a great brownish circle ; the spots being five or six. These curious fishes are found in the Channel and on the shores of the Mediterranean. The electrical efiects produced on the fisherman who seizes them were noted from early times ; but Redi, the Italian naturalist of the seventeenth century, was the first who studied them scientifically. Having caught and landed one of them with every precaution, “ I had scarcely touched and pressed it with my hand,” says the Italian naturalist, “ than I experienced a tingling sensation, which extended to my arms and shoulders, which was followed by a disagreeable trembling, with a painful and acute sensation in the elbow joint, which made me withdraw my arm immediately.” Reaumur also made some observations upon the Torpedo. “ The benumbing influence,” he says, “ is very different from any similar sensation. All over the arm there is a commotion which it is impos- sible to describe, but which, so far as comparison can be made, re- sembles the sensation produced by striking the tender part of the elbow against a hard substance ” Redi remarks, besides, that the pain and trembling sensation resulting from the touch diminishes as the death of the Torpedo approaches, and that it ceases altogether when the animal dies. In the seventeenth century, the fishermen affirmed that the sensa- tion was even communicated through the line by which it was caught, and even by the water. Redi does not deny this phenomenon, neither does he confirm it. He states that the action of the animal is never more energetic than when it is strongly pressed by the hand, and makes violent efforts to escape. Neither Iiedi nor Rdaumur, however, 506 THE OCEAN WOULD. could explain the cause of the strange phenomenon. It was reserved tor Dr. Walsh, a member of the Boyal Society of London, to demon- strate the fact that the power was electrical in its nature. This he did by numerous experiments, which he made in the Isle of Be. The following are some of his experiments : — He placed a living torpedo upon a clean wet towel; from a plate he suspended two pieces of brass wire by means of silken cord, which served to isolate them. Bound the torpedo were eight persons, stand- ing on isolating substances. One end ot the brass wire was sup- ported by the wet towel, the other end being placed in a basinfull of watei. The first person had a finger of one hand in this basin, and a finger of the other in a second basin, also full of water. The second person placed a finger of one hand in this second basin, and a finger ot the other hand in a third basin. The third person did the same and so on, until a complete chain was established between the eight persons and nine basins. Into the ninth basin the end of the second brass wire was plunged, while Dr. Walsh applied the other end to the back of the torpedo, thus establishing a complete conducting circle. At the moment when the experimenter touched the torpedo, the eight actors in the experiment felt a sudden shock, similar in all respects to that communicated by the shock of a Leyden jar, only less intense. When the torpedo was placed on an isolated supporter, it com- municated to many persons similarly placed from forty to fifty shocks in a minute and a half. Each effort made by the animal, in order to give them, was accompanh d by the depression of its eyes, which were slightly projecting in their natural state, and seemed to be drawn within then orbits, while the other parts of the body remained immovable. If only one of the two organs of the torpedo is touched it happens that, in place of a strong and sudden shock, only a slight sensation is experienced — a numbness, or start, rather than a shock. The same result followed with every experiment tried. The animal was tried with a non-conducting rod, and no shock followed ; glass, or a rod covered with wax, produced no effect ; touched with a metallic wire, a violent shock followed. Melloni, Matteucci, Becquerel, and Breschet have all made the same experiments with the same results — Matteucci having ascertained that the shock produced by the torpedo is com- parable to that given by a voltaic pile of a column of a hundred to a hundred and fifty couples. c A RTI LAG LNO US F 1 SHKS. 507 The organ which produces this curious result is formed like a hall moon ; it is double, and placed on each side of the mouth of the respiratory organs. It consists ol a multitude of small piisms airanged parallel the one to the other and perpendicularly to the surface; twelve hundred and sixty-two ol these prisms have been counted in one of the two organs of a torpedo, three feet in length. Y ithout entering into the anatomical descriptions which have been given by Stannius, Max Schultze, Breschet, and others, we may mention here that all the small parallelopipedes, which enter into their structure, are separated one from the other by walls of cellular tissue, in which are distributed the vessels and nerves. The nervous threads which each apparatus receives are divided into four principal trunks. According to modern authors, the electricity is elaborated in the brain under the influence of the will. It is afterwards transferred by means of the nervous threads into the principal organ, where it serves the purpose of charging the numerous little voltaic piles which constitute the organ of commotion. It is, nevertheless, necessary to receive our comparisons of the apparatus of the torpedo with the voltaic pile of our laboratories with caution. The apparatus resembles a good conducting body, which is capable of being strongly electrified ; it is sufficient to touch one of the surfaces in order to receive the shock. But if the little prisms composing it were charged like our voltaic piles, it would be necessary to touch both their surfaces in order to receive the shock. No real analogy can therefore exist between this natural apparatus and the scientific instrument named after Yolta. It is possible by the aid of heat to restore the extinct or suspended electrical functions ot the torpedo. Retained in a tank of sea- water, a yard in height by a third of that in diameter, and at 22° Centi- grade in temperature, a torpedo preserved its faculties during five or six hours ; another, which remained during ten hours in a very small quantity of sea-water at a temperature of 103 to 11° Cent., and which seemed dead, revived a little when placed in water at 20° Cent., and gave shocks during an hour. If held firmly by the tail and pressed both above and below by a platinum rod to gather the true electricity, the animal contracts itself violently ; but its movements are not always accompanied by electrical dis- charges, which demonstrate that the jets of electrical matter are not 508 THE OCEAN WORLD. tlie result simply of the muscular contractions, but that they are subject to the will ot the animal, and evidently given for resisting its enemies, and benumbing its prey. How wonderful and varied are the resources which Nature grants to her creatures in order to secure their existence ! SQUALID.®. This family approaches more to the Baias than any other fish ; but all the species have a lengthened body, merging into a thick tail, pectorals moderate in size, gill-openings on the sides of the neck, and not beneath the body as in the Baia ; eyes lateral, and the rough- ness of their skin is a protection from their enemies. The family comprehends the Sharks, Dog-fishes, Hammerheads, and Saw-fish. Fig. 351. The Shark (Carcharius vulgaris). lhe sharks are said to attain the length of twenty and even thirty feet , but its size is not its worst attribute. It has received, besides, strength and terrible arms. Ferocious, voracious, impetuous, and un- salable, spread over almost every climate, an inhabitant of every sea, and recently not seldom seen on our own shores, the shark rabidly pursues every fish, which fly at its approach ; and threaten with its wide gullet the unfortunate victims of shipwreck, shutting them out from all hope of safety. The body of the shark is long, and its skin is studded with small tubercles: this skin becomes so hard, and takes so high a polish, that it is employed for various ornamental purposes. Tin's resisting power protects the shark from the bites of every inhabitant of the sea, if there be any daring enough to approach it with that view. CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 509 The hack and sides of the Shark, Carcharius vulgaris (Fig. 351), are of an ashy brown ; beneath it is faded white. The head is flat, and terminates in a muzzle slightly rounded. Its terrible mouth is in the form of a semicircle, and of enormous size; the contoui of the upper jaw of a shark of ten yards length being about two yards wide, and its throat being of a proportionate diameter to this monstrous opening. When the throat of the animal is open we see beyond the lips, which are straight and of the consistence of leather, certain plates of teeth, which are triangular, dentate, and white as ivory. It the shark is an adult it has in the upper as in the lower jaw six rows of these murderous anus, an arsenal ready to tear and rend its victim. These teeth take different motions according to the will of the animal ; and obedient to the muscles round their base, by means of which it can erect or retract its various rows of teeth, it can even erect a portion of any row, while the others remain at rest in their bed. Thus this far-seeing tyrant of the ocean knows how to measure the number and power of the arms necessary to destroy its prey : for the destruction of the weak and defenceless one row of teeth suffices ; for the more formidable adversary it has a whole arsenal at command. The eyes of the shark are small, and nearly round ; the iris of a deep green, the eyeball, shaped in a transversal slit, is bluish ; its scent is very subtle ; its fins are strong and rough. The pectoral fins are triangular, and much larger than the others, extending on each side, and giving powerful aid in swimming. The caudal fin is divided into two very unequal lobes, the upper extending in a sloping direction to twice the length of the other. This tail is possessed of immense power, and is capable of breaking the limb of a robust man by a single stroke. During the hot season the male and female seek each other ; they approach the coast roving in company, forgetting their ferocity for the time. The eggs are hatched at several periods in the ovary, from which the little ones issue two or three at a time. The shark, when scarcely born, becomes the scourge of the sea. He seizes all that come near him. He eats the cuttle-fish, molluscs, and fishes ; among others flounders and cod-fish. But the prey which has the greatest charm for him is man ; the shark loves him dearly, but it is with the affection of the gourmand. It even manifests, according to some authors, a preference for certain races. If we may believ'e 510 1’HE OCEAN WORM). ““:‘T1,e? Whf" SeVeraI VMieties of f«“l comes in it, wav shark s the European to the Asiatic, and both to the negro.’ , w latever may be the colour, he seeks eagerly for human flesh ““TnH, tfenneigI;VOUr!100d Wbere il h°l>es *° *** «'c precioJ moisel. He follows the ship in which his instinct tells him it is (o be found and makes extraordinary eflorts to reach it. He has been known to leap into a boat in order to seize the frightened fishermen • he throws himself upon the ship, cleaving the waves at full speed to’ snap up some unhappy sailor who has shown himself beyond the bulwarks. He follows the course of the slaver, watching for the thTlIl fet?”“ge- ^ t0 “8^ the ^gross’ corpses as they aie thrown into the sea, Commerson relates a significant fact eating on the subject. The corpse of a negro had been suspended iom a yard-arm twenty feet above the level of the sea. A shark was seen to make many efforts to reach the body, and it finally succeeded in seizing it, member by member, undisturbed by the cries of the horror-stricken crew assembled on deck to witness the strange spectacle. In order that an animal so large and heavy should be able to throw itself to this height, the muscles of the tail and posterior parts ot the body must have an astonishing power. The mouth ot the shark being placed in the lower part of the head it becomes necessary to turn itself round in the water before it can’ seize the object which is placed above him. He meets with men bold enough to profit by this conformation, and chase this formidable and ferocious creature. On the African coast the negroes attack the shark m his own element, swimming towards him, and seizing the moment when he turns himself to rip up his belly with a sharp knife. This act ot courage and audacity cannot, however, be said to be shark-fishing. The fishing operation is conducted as follows Choosing a dark night," a hook is prepared by burying it in a piece of lard, and attaching it to a long and solid wire chain : the shark looks askance at this prey, feels it, then leaves it ; he is tempted by withdrawing the bait, when he follows, and swallows it gluttonously. He now tries to sink into the water, but, checked by the chain, he struggles and fights. By-and- by he gets exhausted, and the chain is drawn up in such a manner as to laise the head out of the water. Another cord is now thrown out with a running knot or loop, in which the body of the shark is caught about the oiigin of the tail. Thus bound, the captured shark is soon Plate XXV. — Shark Fishing. ' CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. oJl hoisted on deck, as represented in Pl. XXV. On the quaitei-deck ot the si lip he is put to death, not without great precaution, howevei, foi he is still a formidable foe from his terrible bites and tiom the still dangerous blows of his tail. Moreover, he dies hard, and long resists the most formidable wounds. Captain Basil Hall gives a spirited sketch ot the appearance and capture of one of those dreaded fishes ; a capture in w'hich the whole ship’s company, captain, officers, young gentlemen inclusive, shout in triumphant exultation as the body of the shark flounders in impotent rage on poop of forecastle. “ The sharp, curved, dorsal fin of a huge shark was seen rising about six inches above the water, and cutting the glazed surface of the sea by as fine a line as if a sickle had been drawn along it. ‘ Messenger, run to the cook for a piece of pork,’ cried the captain, taking the command with as much glee as if an enemy’s cruiser had been in sight. ‘ Where’s your hook, quartermaster ?’ ‘ Here, sir, here,’ cried the fellow, feeling the point, and declaring it was as sharp as any lady’s needle, and in the next instant piercing with it a huge junk of pork weighing four or five pounds. The hook, which is as large as one’s little finger, has a curvature about as large as a man’s hand when half closed, and is six or eight inches in length, while a for- midable line, furnished with three or four feet of chain attached to the end of the mizen topsail haulyard, is now cast into the ship’s wake. “ Sometimes the very instant the bait is cast over the stern, the shark flies at it with such eagerness that he actually springs partially out of the water. This, however, is rare. On these occasions he gorges the bait, the hook, and a foot or two of the chain, without any mastication, and darts off with the treacherous prize with such pro- digious velocity that it makes the rope crack again as soon as the coil is drawn out. Much dexterity is required in the hand which holds the line at this moment. A bungler is apt to be too precipitate, and jerk away the hook before it has got far enough into the shark’s maw. The secret of the sport is to let the monster gulp down the whole bait, and then to give the line a violent pull, by which the barbed point buries itself in the coat of the stomach. When the hook is first fixed, it spins out like the log line of a ship going twelve knots. THE OCEAN WORLD. 012 I ho suddenness of the jerk with which the poor devil is brought up often turns him quite over. No sailor, however, thinks of hauling a shark on board merely by the rope fastened to the hook. To pre- vent the line breaking, the hook snapping, or the jaw being tom away, a running bowline is adopted. This noose is slipped down the rope and passed over the monster’s head, and is made to join at the point of junction of the tail with the body : and now the first part of the fun is held to be completed. The vanquished enemy is easily drawn up over the taffrail, and flung on deck, to the delight of the crew.” The flesh of the shark is leathery, of bad taste, and difficult to digest. Nevertheless, the negroes of Guinea feed upon it, but not until it has been made tender and eatable by long preservation. In many parts of the Mediterranean coast small sharks are taken from their mother’s belly and eaten. The under parts of adult sharks is also eaten by the fishermen after the bad parts have been removed. In Norway and Iceland this part of the animal is dried in the air dining the most part of the twelve months. The Icelanders also use the fat of the animal ; the liver of one of them, according to Pontoppi- dan, will furnish two tons and a half of oil. We have thus, with the care it deserves, painted the portrait of the shark. The original is by no means beautiful ; but, frightful as it may be, our description would be incomplete if we did not add that divine honours have been granted to this monster of the waters. Man worships force : he knows the hand which crushes, the teeth which rend. He respects the master or the king who strikes, and he venerates the shark. The inhabitants of several parts of the African coast worship the shark : they call it their joujou, and consider its stomach the road to heaven. Three or four times in the year they celebrate the festival of the shark, which is done in this wise : — They all move in their boats to the middle of the river, where they invoke, with the strangest ceremonies, the protection of the great shark. They offer to him poultry and goats in order to satisfy his sacred appetite. But this is nothing : an infant is every vear sacri- ficed to the monster, which has been reared for the purpose from its birth; it is feted and nourished for the sacrifice from its birth to the age of ten. On the day of the fete it is bound to a post on a sandy point at low water ; as the tide rises, the child may utter cries of CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 513 horror, but it is abandoned to the waves, and the sharks arrive. The mother is not far off; perhaps she weeps, but she dries her tears and thinks that her child has entered heaven through this honible gate. The Dog-fish, Acanthias vulgaris (Fig. 352), which sometimes attains tire length of between three and four feet, is exceedingly voracious. It feeds upon other fish, of which it destroys great quan- tities ; it does not hesitate to attack the fishermen, and especially bathers in the sea. It places itself in ambush, like the Kaias, in order to attack its prey. The flesh of the dog-fish is hard, smells of musk, and is rarely eaten ; but the skin becomes an article of com • Fig. 352. The Dog-fish (Acanthias vulgaris). merce, and is known as shagrin, being, like the skin of the shark, used for making spectacle-cases and for other ornamental purposes, for which its green colour and high polish recommend it. There is a smaller species than the preceding, which haunts rocky shores, where it lies in wait tor its prey. Its spots are larger and more scattered, and its ventral fins are nearly square. It feeds on molluscs, crustaceans, and small fishes. The Hammerhead, Zygsena malleus (Fig. 353), is chiefly distin- guished by the singular conformation of its head, which is flattened horizontally, truncate in front, and the sides prolonged transversely giving it the appearance of the head of a hammer. The eyes of this 2 L 514 THE OCEAN WORLD. fish are placed at the extremity of the lateral prolongations of the head : they are grey, projecting, and the iris is gold-coloured. When the animal is irritated, the colours of the iris become like flame, to the horror of the fishermen who behold them. Beneath the head and near to the junction of the trunk is the mouth, which is semicircular, and furnished on each jaw with three' oi four lows of large teeth pointed and barbed on two sides. The most common species in our seas is long and slender in the body, which is grey, the head blackish. It usually attains the length of eleven or twelve feet, weighing occasionally nearly five hundred lig. o5J. The Hammerhead (Zygtena nmlk-Uf). pounds. Its boldness and voracity, and craving for blood, are more remarkable than its size. If the hammerhead has not the strength of the shark, it surpasses it in fury ; few fishes are better known to sailors in consequence of its striking conformation. Its voracity often brings it round ships even in roadsteads, and near the coast. Its visits impress themselves on the memory of the sailor, and he loves to relate his hairbreadth escape from the meeting. The saw-fish is distinguished from all other known fishes by the formidable arm which it carries in its head. This weapon is a pro- longation of the muzzle, which, in place of being rounded off or CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 515 reduced to a point, forms a long, strong, straight, sword-like termina- tion, flat on both sides, but on the two edges it is furnished with numerous strong teeth of considerable length, which are prolongations of the hard, bony substance which forms the muzzle — forming, in short, a sword-blade deeply toothed on each edge. Tlius armed, the saw, or sword-fish, as it is sometimes called, the length of which is from twelve to fifteen feet, fearlessly attacks the most formidable inhabitants of the sea. With its threatening weapon, sometimes two yards in length, it dares to measure its strength with the whale. All fishermen who visit the northern seas assert that the meeting of these ocean potentates is always followed by a combat of the most singular kind, in which the activity of the sword-fish is a match for the formidable strength of the whale. Occasionally it dashes itself with such force against the sides of a ship, that its sword is broken in the timber. In the Museum of Natural History of Paris, the blade of a sword-fish may be seen which was thus implanted in the side of a whale. III. Sturiona. In the second division of cartilaginous fishes, or sturgeons, the gills are free, as in the ordinary fishes. In the sturgeon the gill-openings are a single, very wide orifice, with an operculum, but without radiating membrane. 1 hey are fishes of great size, living in the sea, but ascending the larger rivers in the spawning season. Our space only permits us to notice the Chimaera and Sturgeon. The naturalists Clusius and Aldrovandus compared the fish, to which they gave the name of Chimsera arctica, to the chimmra, a monster of mythological antiquity, which is represented with the body of a goat, the head of a lion, the tail of a dragon, and a gaping throat which vomited flames. The strange form of this fish, the manner in which it moves, the different parts of its muzzle, its mode of showing its teeth, its ape-like contortions and grimaces, its long tail, which acts with such rapidity,— reminding one not a little of a reptile,— are well calcu- lated to strike the imagination. At a later period mediaeval naturalists were contented to see in it a fish with a lion’s head, and as the lion was then regarded as the king of animals, so the chimaera became the Herring king. 2 l 2 Jlb THE OCEAN WORLD. The king of the herrings (Fig. 354) is from five to six feet in length, of a general silvery colour, spotted with brown. It inhabits the North Sea, living on molluscs and crustaceans ; occasionally, as if to justify the title which has been given it, levying heavy contributions upon the herrings. Another species, C. antardicci, is found in the southern hemisphere, which greatly resembles, in its conformation and habits, the northern species. In both the end ot the muzzle terminates in a cartilaginous appendage, which projects forward, curving afterwards over the mouth. This extension assimilates to a crest. Fig. 354. The Arctic chiruaera. The Sturgeons (Acipenser) are among the largest fishes known. On this account, as well as from their exterior conformation, they approach the Squalidse. Their muscles, however, are less firmly knit, their flesh more delicate, and their muscular strength consequently infinitely smaller. Neither is their mouth armed with so many rows of teeth. Moreover, they are less voracious, and their habits altogether less ferocious. The sturgeons are sea-fishes which periodically ascend the larger rivers. A great many species are known in Europe. They abound in the Black Sea and Sea of Azof, but they are chiefly known as fre- CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 517 quenting the Volga and the Danube. The enormous consumption of caviare in Russia leads to a deadly pursuit ot the common sturgeon in all the great European rivers, and this species is in a fair way of dis- appearing altogether. The Common Sturgeon, Aci/penser sturio (Fig. 355), abounds in the North Sea and the Mediterranean, and occasionally it appears in the Thames, the Rhine, the Seine, the Loire, and the Gironde. It is usually about two yards to seven feet long, but has been known to attain the length of ten or twelve feet. Its general colour is yellow Fig. 355. The Common Sturgeon (Aclpenser sturio). with a white belly. It is rendered remarkable by the number and form of the osseous plates or scales, which cover the body like so many bucklers. Upon the back and belly are no less than twelve to fifteen of these rough bony plates, relieved by projections, which are pointed in the young, and soften down with age. On each side is a row of thirty to thirty-five of these triangular plates, separated from each other by considerable intervals. The head is broad at the base, gradually con- tracting towards the point, and terminating in a conical muzzle. The mouth is large and considerably behind the extremity of the muzzle, and its jaws, in place of teeth, are furnished with cartilages. Between 518 THE OCEAN WORLD. the mouth and the muzzle are four slender and very elastic barbs, or wattles, like so many little worms. It is pretended that these wattles attract small fishes to the jaws of the animal, while it conceals itself among the roots of aquatic plants. In the sea the sturgeon feeds on herrings, mackerel, cod-fish, and other fishes of moderate size. In the rivers it attacks the salmon which ascend them about the same time. Mingling with them, how- ever, it seems a giant. It deposits its eggs in great quantity, which are gathered and made into caviare. Its flesh is delicate, and in countries where they are caught in quantities it is dried and preserved. The rivers which enter the Black and Caspian seas contain, besides the common sturgeon, many other species of the same genus, the flesh of which is even more delicate and recherche than the common sturgeon. Among the ancients this fish was held in unusual esteem. In Borne, in the time of the emperors, we read of sturgeons borne in triumph to the sound of instruments, and laid upon tables fastidiously covered and decorated with flowers. The Great Sturgeon, which sometimes exceeds a thousand pounds, is only found in the rivers which flow into the Caspian and Black seas. The "V olga, the Bon, and the Danube produce the largest species. A\e are indebted to the Russian naturalist Pallas for the informa- tion we possess respecting the mode of taking the sturgeon in the \ olga and other Asiatic rivers. Stakes are placed across the river, leaving just sufficient space between each pile to permit the animal to pass. Towards the centre this dike forms an angle opposed to the current, and, consequently, opposed to the fish which ascend the river towards the summit of this angle. At this point there is an opening which leads into a kind of enclosure, consisting of fillets towards the end of winter, and of osier-hurdles during summer. The fishermen establish themselves upon a sort of scaffold placed over the opening. When the fish is engaged in the reservoir, the men upon the scaffold drop a gate, which prevents his return to the sea. The movable bottom of the chamber is now raised, and the fishes easily taken, as represented in Pl. XXYI. The fishermen are informed during the day of the approach of the sturgeons to the great enclosure by the movement they communicate to cords suspended to small floating substances in the water. During the night the sturgeons enter the enclosure, agitating by their move- / Plate XXVI. — Sturgeon Fishing on the Volga. CARTILAGINOUS FI SH ES. f.l!) ments other cords arranged round the hurdles. The agitation com- municated to the cord is sufficient to shut the gates behind ; they are thus imprisoned by the dropping of the gate, which in falling sounds a bell to wake the watching fisherman on the scaffold, should he bo asleep. The sturgeon-fisheries of the Volga are thus admirably organ- ized. Ganelin describes with some minuteness the sturgeon-fishing, during the winter, in the caverns and hollows of the river-banks near Astrakhan, in the estuary of the Volga. A great number of fisher- men are assembled there with their boats. The flotilla approaches the retreats to which the fishes have betaken themselves, the nets are skilfully arranged all round them, and all at once the whole mass of fishermen join in a great cry, at which the frightened fishes rush from their concealment and throw themselves into the nets spread for them. The size of the fish, the nourishing properties of its flesh, its healthy and agreeable taste, and the immense quantity of eggs produced, have a wonderful power in exciting the commerce and industry of the in- habitants of these countries. In order to give some idea of the abun- dance of the eggs of the sturgeon, it is stated that the weight of two ovaries equalled nearly a third of the weight of the whole animal ; in other words, these ovaries weighed nearly eight hundred pounds in a female whose weight was two thousand and eight hundred pounds. It is with these eggs chiefly, but not altogether, that caviare is pre- pared, and the article is more or less relished according to the state of the eggs. The display of caviare, as exhibited at the Universal Expo- sition of Paris during the year 1867, will remain to those who have visited it one of the most lasting recollections. CHAPTER XIX. OSSEI, OR BONY FISHES. Under this denomination is comprehended many of the fishes which are most familiar to us. They are characterised, as we have said else- where, as a group of animals having a solid skeleton. They are divided into six orders ; founded, however, it is necessary to add, on characteristics of little organic importance, and the names bestowed upon them are of a most barbarous description. These names are, I. Pledognathi, namely, fishes in which the upper jaw is attached to the cranium, from 7rX.e/cTo<>, interlaced, and yvados, jaw. Afterwards those in which the upper jaw is movable, and the gills arranged in circles, like rounded hoops. These are, II. the Lopho- branchii, from Ao<£o?, crested, or aigrette, f3 pay^ia, gill. In the other orders the gills are arranged in a comb-like form. These are divided into two great groups. In the first, the rays of the fins are soft, except occasionally the first of dorsal or pectoral fins. These are, III. the Malacopterygians, from paXa/cos, soft, and TTTepvyiov, fins — the third group of osseous fishes. In a later group the fish have bony rays to the anterior dorsal fins, some osseous rays, and the anal fin and generally one of the ventral fins. These are, IV. the Acantliopterygians , from a/cavOa, spiny, and Trrepvyiov, finned, which form the last group of bony fishes. I. Plectognathi. From their organization the fishes of this order establish the passage from cartilaginous to the osseous fishes. Their skeleton, which remains 522 THE OCEAN WORLD. for some ^me m°re or less soft, becomes finally hard. The chief cha- racteristic of the order is that the maxillary is firmly attached to the side of the intermaxillary bone which forms the jaw, and the arch of the palate is united to the skull in such a manner as to be motionless. The operculum and rays of the gills are hidden under a thick skin', which leaves externally only a small branchial slit. These fishes have no true ventral fin, and have only vestiges of side fins. This order comprehends two natural families characterised by the aimature of their jaws. They are the Gymnodonta and the Sdero- dermatci. Fig. 356. The Globe-fish (Orthagorh-cus), and Sun-fish (Tetraodon). In the family of Gymnodonta the jaws have no apparent teeth, but they are furnished with a species of beak in ivory, which repre- sents them. The Sun-fish, Tetraodon (Fig. 356), belong to the family. The Globe-fish are so named from their large head and bony salient jaws, which are each divided in front by a sort of vertical slit in two portions, which simulate two teeth. These four portions of bony jaw,, which project beyond the lips, somewhat resemble the hard and dentate jaws of the turtle. Their anterior part is sometimes prolonged, like the OSSEOUS FISHES. mandibles of the beak of the parrot. They are perfectly arranged to crush the shells of the molluscs, as well as the resisting envelope of the crustaceans on which they feed. The skin of these fishes biistles with small slightly projecting spines, the number ot which compensale for their brevity, which repel their enemies, and even wound the hand that would grasp them. They enjoy, besides, a singular faculty ; they can inflate the lower part of their body, and give it an extension so considerable that it becomes like an inflated ball, in which the real shape of the animal is lost. This result is obtained by the introduction of an immense quantity of air into the stomach when it wishes to ascend to the surface. The species of globe-fish are numerous. Some of them are common in the Nile, where they are frequently left ashore during the annual inundations. The Globe-fish ( Ortliagoriscus mola), in the upper part of the en- graving, is easily distinguished from the Tdraodons by its compressed spineless body ; being very round in its vertical contour, it has been compared to a disk, and more poetically to the moon — whence its popular names — to the great circular surface of which the dazzling silvery white disk bears some resemblance. But it is especially during the night that it justifies the name given to it. Then it shines brightly, from its own phosphorescent light, at a little distance beneath the sur- face. On very dark nights, the globe-fish is sometimes seen swimming in the soft light which emanates from its body, the rays rendered undulating by the rippling of the water which it traverses, so as to resemble the trembling light of the moon half-veiled in misty vapours. When many of these fishes rove about together, mingling their silvery trains, the scene suggests the idea of dancing stars. The moon-fish is common in the Mediterranean, and sometimes reaches the markets of Paris. It is about thirty inches in length, and its weight is con- siderable. Its flesh is fat and viscous, and by no means pleasant to eat. The Diodons (Fig. 357) only differ from the globe-fish in the form of their bony jaws, each forming only one piece. They seem to have two teeth, whence their name from 8k, two, oSou?, teeth. They differ also in their spines, which are much larger than those of the globe-fish. These fishes may be said to be the hedgehogs and porcupines of the sea. Like the globe-fish, they can erect their spines and inflate their bodies. 524 THE OCEAN WORT, I). i?.ThXaye.nUmerons 111 sPecies Diodon pilosus, represented in 1 Jg- d.)7, being typical of the others. Fig. 357. Diodon pilosus. Hie Sclerodermes are distinguished by their conical or pyramidal muzzle, terminating in a little mouth armed with true teeth ; their Fig. 368. The File-fish (Balistes). skin is generally stiff and covered with hard scales. The File-fish, Balistes and Coffres, are selected for notice. The File-fish (Fig. 358) OSSEOUS FISHES. 525 have the body compressed ; the jaws are furnished with eight teeth, arranged in a single row on each jaw, and covered with true lips ; the eyes are nearly level with the skin ; the mouth is small, and the body enveloped in very hard scales, which are connected in groups and distributed into compartments more or less regular, and strongly con- nected by means of a thick skin. The animal is thus protected by a sort of cuirass and casque very difficult to penetrate. With the exception of one species, the Balistes are inhabitants of Tropical seas. They are generally brilliantly coloured ; they herd to- gether in great numbers, and in their gambols produce curious com- binations of brilliant colouring in the Equatorial seas. Their flesh is Fig. 359. The Coffre, or Ostracion. held in slight estimation, and at certain periods of the year is even said to be dangerous. The Coffres, or Ostracions (Fig. 359), are without scales, but covered with regular osseous compartments, which are so jointed the one to the other that the body is, as it were, enclosed in a kind of box or long coffer, which only reveals the external organs of locomotion — namely, the fins and a portion of tail. In some the body is triangular, in others quadrangular, with or without spines. These singular fishes are found in the Indian Ocean and in the American seas. They are of moderate size, and of little value as food for man. THE OCEAN WOULD. 526 IT. Lophobranchii. The Lophobranchii comprehend a few types, hut are numerous in species. Here the gills are divided into small round tufts, and arranged in pairs along the branchial arches ; a structure quite peculiar, of which we have no examples in any other fishes. These gills are en- closed under a large cover, or operculum, attached on all sides by a membiane, which leaves only a small hole for the escape of water which has served the purposes of respiration. These little cuirassed fishes consist of two genera, Syngnatlius and Hippocampus. The Syngnathes, or pipe-fishes, possess a very curious Fig 360. The Trumpet Pipe-fish (Syngnathus). organic peculiarity. Their bodies are long, slender, and slightly tapering, covered with plates set lengthwise, without ventrals; the skin, in swelling, forms under the belly or under the tail, according to the species, a pouch into which the eggs glide to be hatched, and which is afterwards a shelter for the young. Most of the species are strangers to European seas, hut some few are found in the Channel. The Trumpet Pipe-fish (Fig. 360) has the head small, the muzzle long, nearly cylindrical, slightly raised at the end, and terminating in a very small mouth without teeth. The animal is about twenty inches long ; its skin is of a yellowish colour varied with brown. It lives in OSSEOUS FISHES. 527 the Atlantic and Mediterranean, where it is largely nsed by the fisher- men in baiting their hooks. The Sea-horse ( Hippocampus ) is a small creature about the size of the engraving (Fig. 361) ; its head has a singular resemblance to that of the horse. The rings which constitute the integument of the body and tail have a close resemblance to the rings of some caterpillars. This curious combination of forms originated the name, Hippocampus, from i7T7ro9, horse, and ku/jutto 9, fish, adopted in very ancient times to designate this creature. It is found in the Atlantic, round the coast I’ i-. 301 . 1 li».» Sea-horse (Ilippoc .nipus). of Spain, the south of France, in the Mediterranean, and in the Indian Ocean. Mr. Lukis, who raised two females in captivity, describes their habits as follows : — “ When they swim,” he says, “ they preserve a vertical position, but their tail seems on the alert to seize whatever it meets with in the water, clasping the stem of the rushes. Once fixed, the animal seems to watch attentively all the surrounding objects, and darts on any prey presenting itself with great dexterity. When one of them approaches the other, they interlace their two tails’, and it is only after a struggle that they can separate again, attaching themselves by the lower part of the chin to some rash in order to THE OCEAN WORLD. 528 release themselves. They have recourse to the same manoeuvre when they wish to raise the body, or when they wish to wind their tail to some new object. Their two eyes seem to move independently of each other, like those of the chameleon. The iris is bright and edged with blue.” The sea-horses have the pectoral fins so formed as easily to sustain the body, not only in the water, but even in the air ; they are, in fact, winged fishes, and probably originated the famous winged courser of mythology, after which they are sometimes named. They rarely exceed four inches in length; the body is covered with triangular scales, commonly of a bluish colour. They live on worms, fishes’ eggs, and fragments of organic substances which they find in the far land at the bottom of the sea. III. Malacqpterygii. 1 he principal character of the fishes of this order is that the raj s of the fins are soft, except sometimes the first ray of the dorsal or pectorals. They inhabit either sea or fresh water, and include fishes of the utmost importance as human food, such as the herring, the cod. the salmon, carp, pike, and many others. Modern naturalists, following C uvier, subdivide them into three orders : — 1. Ago da, without ventrals ; 2. Sub-branchiati, ventrals under the pectorals; 3. Abdominales, having ventrals behind the pectorals. 1. APODA. A single family composes this order, which comprehends great numbers both in genera and species ; they are anguilliform or snake- like, elongated in form, the skin thick and soft, and have no ventral fins. In this order are included the Ammodytes, Gymnotes, Mureenas , and Anguilla , or eels. The Ammodytes have the body elongated and serpent-like, having a continuous fin extending along the greater part of the back, with another at the opposite side, and a third or forked fin at the end of the tail. The muzzle is also long ; the lower jaw longer than the upper. A. lancea (Fig. 362) buries itself in the sand ; hence it is called the sand-eel ; it hollows out a burrow for itself in tbe sand with its muzzle to the depth of fifteen or twenty inches, where it hunts out OSSEOUS FISHES. 529 worms on which it feeds, while it shelters itself from the jaws of many voracious fishes, which eagerly pursue it for its delicate flesh. In appearance the Ammodytes lancea is silvery blue, brighter on the lower parts than on the upper, the radiating fins on the abdomen being alternately white and bluish in colour. Fig. 362. Thb Lance (A. lnncea).' The Grymnotes are long, nearly cylindrical, and also serpent-like, the tail being long in comparison to the other parts of the body. Beneath the tail is a long swimming fin, the only locomotive organ, Fig. 363. The Gymnotus Electricus, or Electrical Eel. and it is this nakedness of the hack which confers its designation of 7 u/iFo?, naked, vmt o 30 the ocean world. able, from its singular physical properties, is the Electrical Eel, Gym- n°tus electricus (Fig. 363). These properties enable the gymnotus to arrest suddenly the pursuit of an enemy, or the flight of its prey, to suspend on the instant every movement of its victim, and subdue it by an invisible power. Even the fishermen themselves are suddenly struck and rendered torpid at the moment of seizing it, while nothing external betrays the mysterious power possessed by the animal. The electrical properties of the gymnotus were reported for the first time by V an Berkal. The astronomer Richer, who had been sent to Cayenne in 1671 by the Academy of Sciences of Paris, on the Geodesic Survey, first made known the singular properties of the American fish. “ 1 was much astonished,” says this author, “ to see a fish some three or four feet in length, and resembling an eel, deprive of all motion for a quarter of an hour the arm and neighbouring parts which touched it. I was not only an ocular witness of the effect pro- duced by its touch ; but I have myself felt it, on touching one of these fishes still living, though wounded by a hook, by means of which some Indians had drawn it from the water. They could not tell what it was called ; but they assured me that it struck other fishes with its tail in order to stupefy them and devour them afterwards, which is very probable when we consider the effect of its touch upon a man.” The observations of Richer made little impression at the time on the savants of Paris, and matters remained in this state for seventy yeais, when the tiaveller Condamine spoke m Ins “ Voyage en Amerique of a fish which produced the effects described by Richer. In 1750 a physician named Ingram furnished some new views respecting this fish, which he thought was surrounded by an electric atmosphere. In 1755 another physician, the Dutch Dr. Gramuud, writes : “ The effect produced by this fish corresponds exactly with that produced by the Leyden jar, with this difference, that we see no tinsel on its body, however strong the blow it gives ; for if the fish is large, those who touch it are struck down, and feel the blow on their whole body.” Many experiments followed these ; but we are indebted to Alexander von Humboldt for the first precise account of this very curious fish. The celebrated naturalist read to the Institute of France an important memoir upon the electrical eel from Bonpland’s observations, the sub- stance of which we shall give here. CGymuotuaJ on the Orinoco. OSSEOUS FISHES. 531 In traversing the Lianas of the province of Caracas, in order to embark at San Fernando de Apure on his voyage up the Orinoco, M. Bonpland stopped at Calahozo. The object of this sojourn was to investigate the history of the gymnotus, great numbers of which are found in the neighbourhood. After three days’ residence in Calabozo some Indians conducted them to the Cano de Bera, a muddy and stagnant basin, but surrounded by rich vegetation, in which Clusia ■rosea, Hymencea courbaril, some grand Indian figs, and some magni- ficent flowering odoriferous mimosas, were pre-eminent. They were much surprised when informed that it would be necessary to take thirty half-wild horses from the neighbouring Savannahs in order to fish for the gymnotus. The idea of this fishing, called in the language of the country embarbascar con caballos (intoxicating by means of horses), is very odd. The word barbasco indicates the roots of the Lacquinia, or any other poisonous plant, by contact of which a body of water acquires the property of killing, or, at least, of intoxicating or stupefying, the fishes. These come to the surface when they have been poisoned in this manner. The horses chasing them here and there in a marsh has, it seems, the same effect upon the alarmed fishes. While our hosts were explaining to us this strange mode of fishing, the troop horses and mules had arrived, and the Indians had made a sort of battue, pressing the horses on all sides, and forcing them into the marsh. The Indians, armed with long canes and harpoons, placed themselves round the basin, some of them mounting the trees, whose branches hung over the water, and by their cries, and still more by their canes, preventing the horses from landing again. The eels, stunned by the noise, defended themselves by repeated discharges of their batteries. For a long time it seemed as if they would be victorious over the horses. Some of the mules especially, being almost stifled by the fre- quency and force of the shock, disappeared under the water, and some of the horses, in spite of the watchfulness of the Indians, regained the bank, where, overcome by the shocks they had undergone, they stretched themselves at their whole length. The picture presented was now indescribable. Groups of Indians surrounded the basin ; the horses with bristling mane, terror and grief in their eyes, trying to escape from the storm which had surprised them ; the eels, yellow and livid, looking like great aquatic serpents swimming on the surface of 2 m 2 532 THE OCEAN WORLD. the water, and chasing their enemies, were objects at once appalling and picturesque. In less than five minutes two horses were drowned. An eel, more than five feet long, glided under one horse, discharged its apparatus through its whole extent, attacking at once the heart, the viscera, and the plexus of the nerves of the animal, probably benumbing and finally drowning it. hen the struggle had endured a quarter of an hour, the mules and hoi ses appeared less frightened, the manes became more erect, the eyes expressed less terror, the eels shunned in place of attacking them; at the same time approaching the bank, when they were easily taken by thi owing little harpoons at them attached to long cords, the harpoon, sometimes hooking two at a time, being landed by means of the long cord. They were drawn ashore without being able to communicate any shock. Having landed the eels, they were transported to little pools dug in the soil, and filled with fresh water ; but such is the terror they inspire, that none of the people of the country would release them from the harpoon a task which the travellers had to perform them- selves, and receive the first shock, which was not slight — the most energetic surpassing in force that communicated by a Leyden jar, completely charged. The gymnotus surpasses in size and strength all the other electric fishes. Humboldt saw them five feet three inches long. They vary in colour according to age, and the nature of the muddy water in which they live. Beneath, the head is of a fine yellow colour mixed with red ; the mouth is large, and furnished with small teeth arranged in many rows. The gymnotus makes its shock felt in any part of its body which is touched, but the excitement is greater when touched under the belly, and in the pectoral fin. The gymnotus gives the most frightful shocks without the least muscular movement in the fins, in the head, or any other part of the body. The shock, indeed, depends upon the will of the animal, and in this respect differs from a Leyden jar, which is discharged by communicating with two opposite poles. It happens sometimes that a gymnotus, seriously wounded, only gives a very weak shock, but if, thinking it exhausted, it is touched fearlessly and at once, its discharge is terrible. Indeed, the phenomena depends so much upon the will of the animal, that, according to Yon Humboldt, if it is touched by two metallic rods, the shock is communicated some- Plate XXVIII.— Natives Fishing for Halibut on the Greenland Coast OSSEOUS FISHES. 533 times by one, sometimes by the other wand, though their extremities are close together. The experiments already related in connection with the torpedo were repeated here. If wo place ourselves upon an isolated support, and take hold of a metallic rod, a shock is received; but no shock is received, on the other hand, if the fish is touched with a glass-rod, or one covered with wax. Humboldt and Bonpland repeated this experiment many times, with decisive results. The electric organ has been carefully described by these observers. The organs extend from under the tail, occupying nearly one-half of the thickness. It is divided into four longitudinal bundles of muscles, the upper ones large, the two smaller below, and against the base of the anal fin. Each bundle consists of many parallel membranous plates, placed closely together and very nearly horizontal. These plates abut in one part on the skin, in another, on the mean vertical plane of the fish. They are united to each other by an infinity of smaller plates, placed either vertically or transversely. The smaller prismatic and trans- versal canal, intercepted by these two orders of plates, are filled with gelatinous matter. All this organic apparatus receives many nerves, and presents, in many respects, an arrangement nearly analogous to that of the torpedos. The Sea-Eels (. Mursena Helena ) are serpent-like fishes, of cylin- drical form and delicate proportions, but strong, flexible, and active, swimming in waving, undulating movements in the water, just as a serpent creeps on dry land. The muraenas have no pectoral fin ; the dorsal and anal fin are reunited in the tail fin. A bronchial opening is observable on each side of the body. The sea-eels are numerous in species. Mursena Helena (Fig. 364), which is an inhabitant of the Mediterranean, has only a single row of teeth upon each jaw. It attains the length of forty to fifty inches. It loves to bask in the hollows of rocks, approaching the coast in spring-time. It feeds on crabs and small fishes, seeking eagerly for polypes. The voracity of these fishes is such that when other food fails they begin to nibble at each other’s tails. The sea-eels are caught with rod and line, or by lines and ground- bait, but their instinct is such that they often escape. When they have swallowed a hook they often cut the line with their teeth or they turn upon it and try, by winding it round some object, to strain 534 TIIE OCEAN WOULD. or break it. When caught in a net, they quickly choose some mesh through which their body can glide. Those who have studied the classics will remember the passionate love with which the Boman gourmet regarded these fishes. In the days of the Empire enormous sums were expended in keeping up the ponds which enclosed them, and the fish themselves were multiplied to such an extent that Caesar, on the occasion of one of his triumphs, dis- tributed six thousand among his friends. Licinius Crassus was cele- brated among wealthy Bomans for the splendour of his eel-ponds. They obeyed his voice, he said, and when he called them, they darted towards him in order to he fed by his hands. The same Licinius Crassus, and Quintus Hortensius, another wealthy Boman patrician, Fig. 361. The Sea-Eel (Murtena Helena). wept the loss of their murasnas on one occasion, when they all died in their ponds from some disease. This, however, was only a matter of taste, passion, or fashion ; sometimes, however, accompanied by cruelty, and gross corruption. It was thought among the Bomans that muramas fed with human flesh were the most delicately-flavoured. A rich freedman, named Pollion, who must not, however, be confounded with the orator of the name, had the cruelty to order such of his slaves as he thought deserving of death, and sometimes even those who had done nothing to excite his anger, to be thrown to them. On one occa- sion, when he entertained the Emperor Augustus, a poor slave who attended had the misfortune to break a precious vase ; Pollion im- mediately ordered him to be thrown to the eels. But the indignant H OSSEOUS FISHES. 535 emperor gave the slave his freedom, and, in order to manifest his in- dignation with Pollion, he ordered his attendants to break every vase of value which the freedman had collected in his mansion. In the present day sea-eels are little esteemed in a gastronomic point of view. Nevertheless they are still sought for on the coast of Italy, and the fishermen avoid with great care the bites of their acrid teeth. The Eels ( Anguilla ) have pectoral fins, under which are the gill- openings on each side ; the dorsal and anal tins extending up to the tail, mingling with this lust, which terminates in a point at the extre- Fig. 365. The Common Conger (Anguilla Conger). mity. The eels are divided into two groups : 1 . The Eels (Anguilla), properly so called; and, 2. The Congers. The first inhabit most European rivers, except in the spawning season, when, according to some naturalists, they betake themselves to the sea. During°the greatei part of their existence, therefore, they have no connection with the ocean. The Conger, on the other hand, are fishes of great size, which inhabit the seas of warm countries, as well as those of Northern Europe. The type of this family is the Common Conger, Anguilla Conger (Fig. 365), which differs from the true eels chiefly in the dorsal fins, which commence very near to the pectorals ; and also in their 536 THE OCEAN WORLD. upper jaw being longer than their under one. They attain the thick- ness of a man’s leg, and are sometimes two yards in length. The conger-eel is frequently found in salt marshes, hut its flesh°is held in little esteem. 2. SUB-B RAN CHI ATI . The fishes of this order are characterised hy vertical fins being attached under the pectorals, and immediately suspended to the shoulder bone. Exclusively marine fishes, they inhabit every region of the globe. The order comprehends three families : — I. Discobo- lidse ; II. Pleuronedidie, or flat fishes ; III. the Gadidie. 1. DISCOBOLlDvE. The family ot Discobolidie consists of a small number of species characterised by their ventral fins being discoform, as in the sea-snails Fig. 366. The Sea-Snail (Liparis). (Liparis), in which the lengthened mucous body is without scales, but with one long dorsal fin ; the pectoral and ventrals forming one disk, as in Fig. 366, or the Stickers (Lepidog aster), where the pectorals and ventrals form two disks. In the Lump-fish, Cyclopteris (Fig. 367), the disk formed by the ventrals forms a sort of sucker, by which the fish attaches itself to the rocks ; while the Ediineis is remarkable for the disk-like sucker with which it is provided. The Ediineis remora is an inhabitant of the Mediterranean. It is furnished with a flat disk, which covers its head, as represented in OSSEOUS FISHES. 537 Fig. 368, which is formed of a number of transverse and movable cartilaginous plates. Aided by this organ, it attaches itself firmly Fig 3C8. Echincis retnora. to rocks, and even to ships and larger fishes, such as the Dog-fish 538 THE OCEAN WOULD. Accmthius ), which it meets with in its wanderings. Its adhesion to those objects is so strong that the strength of a man fails to separate them. It sometimes attaches itself to the belly of the shark, and makes long voyages on this monstrous locomotive animal, and that without fatigue or danger, for its enemies are kept at a distance by the formidable monster which carries it. II. PLEURONECTHUE. The Flat-fishes (Pleuronectidm) have the body flat and greatly compressed, but in a direction different from that of the Raias and other analogous beings. In the case of the llaia the body is flattened horizontally, while in the Pleuronectidas they are compressed laterally, ffhe head of fishes of this order is not symmetrical ; the two eyes are placed on the same side ; the two sides of the mouth are unequal. To these peculiarities of structure we shall return when we come to observe the several types more clearly. In inaction, as in motion, the flat-fishes are always turned upon their side, and the side turned towards the bottom of the sea is that which has no eye. This habit of swimming on their side is that to which they owe their name of 7 rXevpa, side, and ve^ro?, swimmers. iheii chief organ of natation is the caudal fin, but they are distin- guished from all other fishes by the manner in which they use this oar. When turned upon their side this organ is not horizontal, but vertical, and strikes the water vertically up and down. They advance through the water but very slowly, compared to the motion of other fishes. They ascend or descend in the water with greater promptitude, but they cannot turn to the right or left with the same facility as other fishes. This property of rising or sinking in the water with facility is the more useful to them inasmuch as the greater part of their existence is passed at the greatest depths, where they draw themselves along the sands at the bottom of the sea, and often hide themselves from their enemies. Among the Pleuvonectidx , , soles, turbot, flounders, and plaice may be noted. Soles ( Solea ) have the body oblong, the side opposite to the edges generally furnished with shaggy, soft hairs ; the muzzles round, nearly always in advance of the mouth, which is twisted to the left side, and furnished with teeth on one side only, while the eyes are on the OSSEOUS FISHES. 531) ri"ht side. The dorsal fin commences about the mouth, and extends up to the caudal or terminal fin. The Common Sole, Solea vulgaris (Fig. 369), is plentiful in the Channel, along the Atlantic coasts, and especially in the Mediterranean. It 13 biown on the light, and whitish on the opposite side. Its pectoral fins are spotted black ; the scales rugged and denticulate ; its size seems to vary according to the coast it frequents. Off the mouth of the Seine soles are sometimes Fig. 369. The Common Sole (Solea vulgaris). taken eighteen and twenty inches in length. There are several modes of taking them, but for commercial purposes it is taken by the trawl- net. When the ground-hook is employed it is baited with fragments of small fish. Every one knows the delicate flavour of the flesh of the sole. According to Lacepede, its flesh may be kept many days, not only without corruption, but it acquires even a finer taste. The Turbot, Rhombus maximus (Fig. 370), resembles in its general form a lozenge, whence its name of rhombus. Its under jaw is more advanced than the upper jaw, and is furnished witli many rows of 540 THE OCEAN WORLD. small teeth. Its fins are yellow, with brownish spots. The left side is marbled brown and yellow; the right side, which is the inferior, white with brownish spots and points. The true turbot is the special delight of the epicure, and fabulous sums are said to have been given at different times by rich persons in order to secure a fine turbot. The fish used to be taken largely on our own coasts, but now we have to rely upon more distant fishing-grounds for a large portion of our supply— large quantities coming from Holland. The turbot spawns Fig. 370. The Turbot (Rhombus maximus). dining the autumn, and is in fine condition during spring and early summer. Mr. Yarrell says that it spawns in spring. Hr. Bertram doubts this, although he is not quite sure of it, inasmuch as “ there will, no doubt, be individuals of the turbot kind, as there are of all other kinds of fish, that will spawn all the year round.” The turbot abounds on our west coast, round Torbay, and off the mouth of the Seine and the Somme, from whence comes most of the fish con- sumed in London and Paris. The flounders, plaice, and halibut form an important section of the Pleuronectidse. OSSEOUS FISHES. 541 The Flounders and Plaice ( Platessa ) inhabit the northern seas of Europe. They have their eyes placed on the right side ; the dorsal as well as the anal fin extending from over the eyes to the caudal, both stretching out to a point towards the centre, giving a rhombic form to the fish. In Platessa the jaws are furnished with a single row of obtuse teeth. The Common Plaice, P. vulgaris (Fig. 371), attains the length of ten or twelve inches ; it is brown above, spotted with red or orange. On the eye-side of the head are some osseous tubercles. The body, which is somewhat lozenge-shaped, is smooth. Fig. 371. The Common Plaice (Platessa vulgaris). The Flounders ( P. Jlessus ) are fresh-water fishes of small size, abundant in the Thames and many other rivers ; they are only second in importance to the soles and turbot among the Pleuronectidae ■ the numbers of brill, flounders, dab, and plaice required being close upon a hundred million for the supply of London alone. The usual mode of capturing flat-fish is by means of a trawl-net, but many varieties of these may be caught with a hand-line. “ A day’s sea -fishing,” says Dr. Bertram, in his “ Harvest of the Sea,” “ will be chequered by many little adventures. There are various minor monsters of the deep that will vary the monotony of the day by occasionally devouring the bait. A tadpole fish, better known as the sea-devil, or angler, may be hooked ; or a visit from a hammer-headed shark, or 542 THE OCEAN WOULD. a pile-fish, will add greatly to the excitement; and if the ‘dogs’ should be at all plentiful, it is a chance if a single fish be got out of the sea in its integrity. So voracious are these Squalid®, that I have often enough pulled a mere skeleton into the boat, instead of a plump cod of ten or twelve pounds weight.” The Dab, P. limanda (Fig. 372), is very common in the markets of Paris, where it is held in great esteem. It takes its name from the hard and dentate scales on its body. The Platessa have the jaws furnished with a single row of obtuse teeth ; the dorsal fin only extends in front to a line with the eye, leaving an interval between it and the caudal. The form of the body is rhomboi- dal, as in the turbot, and the eyes are usually on the right side. The flounder, Fig. 372. The Oub (Watessu limanda). the plaice, and the dab, are all examples of this group of fishes. The Halibut, Hippoglossus vulgaris (Fig. 373), is a large fish, inhabiting the seas of Northern Europe and Greenland, where it is occasionally caught, measuring seven feet, and weighing from three to four hundred pounds. A fish of this species was brought to Edinburgh market in April, 1828, measuring seven feet and a half in length and three feet broad, weighing three hundred and twenty pounds. The body of the halibut is more elongated than that of the plaice or flounder, the jaws and pharyngeans being armed with strong and pointed teeth. Great quantities of this fish are caught on the Greenland and Norway coasts, and other northern regions. According to Lacepede, OSSEOUS FISHES. the natives fish for this with an implement which they call gang- naed. It is composed of a hempen cord five or six hundred yards in length, to which are attached some thirty smaller cords, each furnished with a barbed hook at its extremity. The larger cord is attached to floating planks, which act as trimmers, indicating the place of this formidable engine of destruction. The Greenlanders usually replace the hempen cords by thongs of whalebone or narrow bands of sharks’ skin. At the end of twenty Fig. 373. The Ilulibut (Hlppoglussus vulgaris). hours these lines are drawn home, and it is not at all unusual to find five or six large -halibut caught on the hooks. Pl. XXVIII. represents the native mode of fishing for halibut in the Greenland Seas. Another mode of capturing this and other flat-fish is to spear them on their sandy beds. “ No rule can be laid down,” says Dr. Bertram, “ for tllis “ethod of fishing. It is carried on successfully by means of a common pitchfork, but some gentlemen go the length of fine spears made for the purpose, very long, and with very sharp prongs. Others 544 THE OCEAN WORLD. again, use a three-pronged farmyard graip, which has been known to do as much real work as more elaborate single points contrived for the purpose. The simplest directions I can give is just to spear every fish they see.” M. Figuier adds, as a caution, that before attacking these fishes, body to body, it is necessary to wait till they are somewhat exhausted, otherwise they might overturn both bark and fisherman. The Greenlanders cut the animal up, and salt the pieces ■ then expose them to the air, in order to dry them prepai'atory to a long voyage. In its flesh state the halibut is not very delicate, although it is fre- quently taken for such by those not conversant with the qualities of fish. We may add that, notwithstanding its great size, the halibut has deadly enemies in the dolphins, as well as in the birds which prey upon fishes on the shore. It is itself a voracious fish, devouring crabs, cod-fish, and even the Raiadse, not even sparing its own species ; they attack each other, nibbling at the tail or fins. hi. gamm. The Gadidas embrace the whole of the Linnasan genus Gadus. They are found mostly in the seas of cold or temperate regions in . both hemispheres, and are the objects of pursuit for which the great fisheries of Europe and America are established. They are known by the position of the ventral fin under the throat, and by the pointed character of those fins. The body is long and slightly compressed ; the head well proportioned. Their fins are soft, and their scales are small and soft. The jaws and front of the os vomer have unequal pointed teeth of moderate size, and disposed in several rows. The gill-covers are large, and consist of seven rays. Most of the species have the dorsal fin, and contain two others besides — a fin behind the vent, and a distant caudal fin. The stomach is large, and the intestine long. The air-bladder large and strong, and in some cases notched on the margin. The flesh of most of the species yields white, healthy, and agreeable food, easily separable into flakes when cooked, and easy of digestion. The family includes the several genera: — Morkhua, to which belongs the Common Cod-fish, M. callarias; the Haddock, M. seglefinus. — The Merlaxgus, or Whiting. M. vulgaris, and Ml albus ; the Coal-fish, M. carbonarus ; and the Pollack, M. pollachius. — The Merlucius, or Hakes.— The Lota, or Ling, L. molva. — ■ : OSSEOUS FJSIIFS. 54 5 Moxella, or Rock Ling, and Silver Gade, M. argenteola ; and other genera of less importance. The head of the Cod ( Morrhua callarias) is compressed ; the eyes placed on the side, close to each other, and veiled by a transparent mem- brane, a conformation which, according to Lacepede, enables the animal to swim on the surface of the water in northern regions in the midst of mountains of ice and under hanks covered with snow, without being dazzled by the brilliant light; hut this opinion is unsupported by any other naturalist of note. Fig. 374. The Cod-fish (Mnrrhim callarins). The jaws of the cod-fish are unequal, and among the rows of teeth with which it is armed many are mobile, and can he hidden in their cavities or raised, according to the will of the animal. The dorsal fins, three in number, are in clusters, as in Fig. 374 ; anal fins are two ; pectoral fins narrow, and terminating in a point ; caudal fin slightly forked. Its colour is of an ashy grey, spotted with yellow on the hack ; white and sometimes reddish beneath. The cod-fish is provided with a vast stomach, and is very voracious, feeding on fishes, crabs, and molluscs. It is so gluttonous and indis- criminating, that it will even swallow pieces of wood and other similar objects. This is essentially a sea-fish : it is never seen in fresh-water 2 N 546 THE OCEAN WORLD. t 7 rrS’ reTmammg during the gl'eater Part of the year in the lepths o t the sea. Its habitual sojourn is in the portion of the Northern Ocean lying between the fortieth and sixty-sixth degrees of latitude In the vast range thus frequented by the cod, two large spaces are pointed out which it seems to prefer. The first extends to the coast of Greenland, and the other is limited by Iceland, Norway, the Danish coast, Germany, Holland, and the east and north coast of Great Britain and the Orkney Isles, comprehending the Doggerbank, Yell- bank, and Cromer coast, together with salt-water lakes and arms of the sea, such as the Gairloch, Portsoy, and the Moray Firth, which indent the west coast of Scotland, and attract considerable shoals of cod-fish. ie second range, less generally known, but more celebrated among sailors includes the coast of New England, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and above all, the island of Newfoundland, on the south coast of which is the famous sand-bank called the Great Bank, having a ength of nearly two hundred leagues, with a breadth of sixty-rivo over which flows from ten to fifty fathoms, of water. Here the cod-fish swarm, for here they meet shoals of herrings and other animals on which they feed. Such is, according to Lacepede, the geographical distribution of the cod-fish. The English, French, Dutch, and Americans give themselves up to the cod-fishery on the bank of Newfoundland with inconceivable ardour. This island was discovered and visited by the Norwegians in the tenth and eleventh centuries, long before the discovery of America • but it was only in 1497, after the discoveries of Columbus, that the navigator, John Cabot, having visited these regions, gave it the name by which it has since been known, and called attention to the swarms of cod-fish which inhabited the surrounding sea. Immediately after the English and some other nations hastened to reap these fruitful fields of living matter. In 1578, France sent a hundred and fifty ships to the great bank, Spain a hundred and twenty-five, Portugal fifty, and England forty. During the first half of the eighteenth century, England and her colonies, with the French, cultivated the cod-fishery. Fiom 1823 to 1831 Trance sent three hundred and forty-one ships, with seven thousand six hundred and eighty-five men, which carried into port over fifty million pounds of fish, an average of about six millions annually. Two thousand English ships of various sizes, OSSEOUS FISHES. 547 manned by thirty thousand seamen, are now employed in this im- portant branch of industry. On the coast of .Norway, from the frontiers of Russia to Cape Lindesnaes, the cod-fishery is an important branch of trade, in which a maritime population of twenty thousand fishermen are employed, with five thousand boats. The cod is taken either by net or line. The net is chiefly employed at Newfoundland. The net used is rectangular, and furnished with lead at the lower edge, and cork buoys on the upper edge. One of the extremities is fixed on the coast ; tbe other is carried seaward, following a curve taken by the boats, and the fish are attracted by drawing upon both extremities of the net ; and by one stroke many boat-loads are sometimes taken. The modern cod-smack is clipper-built, with large wells for carrying the fish alive, its cost being about £1500. The crew usually consists of ten to twelve men and boys, including the captain. The line is 'also used for taking cod and haddocks. “ Each man,’’ says Bertram, “ has a line of fifty fathoms in length, and attached to each of these lines are a hundred ‘ snoods,’ with hooks already baited with mussels, pieces of herring, or whiting. Each line is laid £ clear,’ in a shallow basket, and so arranged as to run freely as the boat shoots ahead. The fifty-fathom line with a hundred hooks is in Scotland called a ‘ taes.’ If there are eight men in a boat, the length of the line wall be four hundred fathoms, with eight hundred hooks, the lines being tied to each other before setting. On arriving at the fishing-ground, the fishermen heave overboard a cork buoy, with a flagstaff about six feet in height attached to it. This buoy is kept stationary by a line, called the ‘ pow end,’ reaching to the bottom of the water, where it is held by a stone or a grapnel fastened to the lower end. To the ‘ pow end’ is also fastened the fishing line, which is then paid out as fast as the boat sails, which may be from four to five knots an hour. Should the wind be unfavourable for the direction in which the crew wish to set the line, they use the oars. When the line or ‘ taes’ is all out, the end is dropped and the boat returns to the buoy. The £ pow ’ line is hauled up with the anchor and fishing line attached to it. The fishermen then haul in the line, with the fish attached to it. Eight hundred fish might be taken, and often have been, by eight men in a few hours by this operation ; but many fishermen say now, that they 2 n 2 548 the ocean world. consider themselves fortunate when they get a fish on every fifth hook on an eight-lined ‘ taes ’-line.” Hungry cod-fish will seize almost any kind of bait, and this is used either fresh or salted. The fresh bait is furnished by the herring, whiting, and capelan, a little fish which in the spring descends from the North Sea in shoals, pursued .by the cod-fish. In the terror caused by the innumerable bands of their enemies, the capelans spread themselves in all the seas round Newfoundland in masses so thick that the waves throw them ashore, and they accumulate occasionally in heaps upon the sandy beach. The principal fishery for capelan intended for bait takes place on the coast of Newfoundland. The inhabitants of these regions carry them booty to the fishermen, who make Saint-Pierre their, rendezvous, with whom they find ready purchasers. The schooners, with a fair provision of bait, leaving Saint-Pierre and other ports, take a north-easterly direction towards the great bank, and, having chosen their fishing-ground, cast anchor in fifty or sixty fathoms, and forthwith the crews give their sole attention to the lines ] some of them watch the lines, which are raised every instant, the captured fish removed, and the hooks re-baited ; others subject the captured fishes to a first preparation for preserving them ; they are opened, the entrails removed, and the fish split in two, and piled one on the other, and covered with salt. This labour goes on as long as the fishing lasts. The sailor is on deck night and day, covered with oil and blood, and surrounded with all sorts of offal and fish-like smells. Put this alone is insufficient. Pouts, manned by crews of two or three sailors, are continually moving about, attending to the more distant lines or “ taes,” which radiate round the ship in all directions. One portion of the cod caught is despatched to Europe in a fresh state, without other preparation than the salting which they receive on the deck of the schooner. Put much the greater portion are carried on shore and subjected to further preparation. Saint-Pierre and Miquelon Islands, which are granted to the French fishermen on condition that no fortifications are erected on them, is resorted to for the purpose by the French fleet; St. John’s, the capital, by the English. The Comte de Gobineau gives an animated picture of the whole process of curing the cod-fish in the “ Tourdu Monde for 1863.” “The French houses which pursue this branch of trade,” he says, OSSEOUS FISHES. 549 « belong principally to the Ports of Granville and St. Breuc ; and the crews of their ships consist of two very distinct elements ; the smaller portion, being specially raised among the fishermen properly so called, they form the aristocracy on board ; to these are added a larger number of mere labourers, who are landed on the arrival of the vessel at her port. Their functions are limited to receiving the fish from the boats, opening it, washing off the glutinous matter in the chauffant, putting the liver apart, and laying out the split fish between the layers of salt ; finally, subjecting it to the different phases of the drying process on the strand. “ Tire chauffant is a shed raised upon piles, standing one half in the water and one half on shore ; it is constructed of planks and posts, through which the air is suffered to circulate freely, but covered in with some of the ship’s sails. Here the process of separating the intestines from the body of the fish, and the salting process, are carried on, in the midst of an atmosphere charged with all manner of disgusting smells, for the labourer is by no means delicate, and never thinks of removing the disgusting impurities which he is creating. There he stands, knife in hand, tearing and cutting out intestines and separating vertebrae, his only care being to avoid cutting himself, which is the chief danger he runs, in the midst of odours sufficient to produce suffocation. “ Connected with the platform on which this rough operation is per- formed is a cauldron, sunk in the earth, to receive the oil pressed out of the liver. This cauldron is surmounted by a roof some nine feet in height, in the form of an inverted cone. Here the oil which flows from the open way above is suffered to ferment, after which it is drawn off into casks. “ The drying sheds, formerly of wood, are now constructed of stone, and in places well exposed to the sun, and especially to the wind, artificial or otherwise. The sun, it is said, does not dry, but scorches ; the wind, on the other hand, marvellously fulfills the purpose, and in order to avoid the one and court the other, an apparatus has been in- vented, consisting of long movable branches, which can be inclined so as to bring the wind directly upon the row of cod, in connection with the sun’s rays, which are, indeed, not very formidable in this foggy region.” The cod-fish thus dried at Newfoundland are forwarded for con- sumption to all parts of the world ; but only a small part of the 550 the ocean world. products of the fishery are thus prepared. More than half the pro- duce of the French fleet are sent to France merely salted, by ships which carry salt, bringing hack fish in return to Bochelle, Bordeaux, and Cette, where the process of curing is completed. In our home fisheries, to abbreviate slightly Dr. Bertram’s account, the greater part of the cod taken are eaten fresh, hut considerable quantities of the cod and ling taken on the coast are sent to market cured. The process pursued is very simple : they are brought on shore quite fresh and are at once split from head to tail, and by copious washings’ thoroughly cleansed from all particles of blood ; a piece of the back- bone is cut away ; they are drained, and afterwards laid down in long vats, where they are covered with salt, and kept under heavy weights. By and-by the fish are taken out of the vats ; they are once more drained, and carefully brushed, to remove any impurity, and bleached bv being spread out singly on the sandy beach, or on the rocks; when thoroughly bleached, they are collected into heaps technically called steeples, and when the bloom, or whitish appearance, comes out on the fish, they are ready for the market. The cod is one of our best-known fishes, and was at one time much more plentiful and cheap. It is a deep-water fish, found in all northern seas, and in the Atlantic, but never in the Mediterranean. It is extremely voracious, greedily eating up the smaller denizens of the ocean. It grows to a large size, and is very prolific, as most fishes are. A cod-roe has been found more than once to be half the gross weight of the fish, and specimens of the female cod have been caught with upwards of eight millions of eggs. The fish spawn in mid- wintei . but here our information ceases ; when it becomes reproductive is unknown. Dr. Bertram thinks that it is at least three years old before it is endowed with breeding power. The growth of the cod is supposed to he very slow ; Dr. Bertram quotes the authority of a rather learned fisherman of Buckie, who had seen a cod which had got enclosed in a large rock pool, and he found that it did not grow at a greater rate than eight to twelve ounces per annum, though it had abundance of food. On our own coast two modes of fishing are in common use : one by deep sea lines, on each of which hooks are fastened at distances twelve feet apart by means of short lines six feet long, called on the Cornish coast “ snoods.’ Buoys, ropes, or grapnels, are fixed to each end of the OSS LOO US FISH US. 55 1 Ion0, line, to keep them from entanglement with each other. I he hooks are baited with capelan, launce, or whelks, and the lines are shot across the tide about the time of slack water, in from forty to fifty fathoms, and are hauled in for examination after six hours. An improvement has been introduced upon this mode ol fishing by Mr. Cobb. He fixes a small piece of cork about twelve inches above the hook, which suspends the bait, and exhibits it more clearly to the fish by the motion of the wave. The fishermen, when not engaged in hauling, shooting, or baiting the long lines, fish with hand-lines, holding one in each hand, each armed with two hooks, kept apart by a strong piece of wire. A heavy weight attached to the lower end of each line keeps it steady near the ground, where the fish principally feed. Enormous quantities of cod, haddock, whiting, and coal-fish, with pollack, hake, ling, and torsk, are taken in this way all round our coast. Of cod-fish alone four hundred to five hundred and fifty have been taken in ten hours by one man, and eight men have taken eighty score of cod in one day, fishing off the Doggerbank in five and twenty fathoms water. Latterly the Norfolk and Lincoln, and even the Essex, coasts, have yielded a large supply of fish, which are caught as described, and are stowed in well-boats, in which they are carried to Gravesend, whence they are transhipped into market-boats, and sent up to Billingsgate by each evening tide; the store-boats not being allowed to come up higher, as the fresh wrater would kill the fish. The Haddock (Morrhua wglejinus ) is common in our markets ; it is much smaller than the cod, but in other respects not unlike it. 1 1 frequents the same localities, and is caught with long lines baited with pieces of herring and sand-larvae. On the north-east coast of Scotland the haddock, cured over a juniper fire, is one of the principal adjuncts to the celebrated Scottish breakfast. The Whiting, Merlangus vulgaris (Fig. 375), by some amateurs con- sidered the most delicate of all the Gadidas, is plentiful all round our coast. It spawns in March, and the eggs are quickly hatched. It prefers a sandy shore, and is usually found some miles from the coast. It is a small fish, rarely exceeding twelve inches, and seldom reaching two pounds in weight. The whiting is long in the body, clothed with very small, thin, and round scales ; its dorsal fins are, like the cod, three in number ; it is without barbcllary appendage ; its upper jaw 552 THE OCEAN WORLD. projects over the lower ; it is of a silvery white, sometimes relieved by an olive tint, which is contrasted upon the back by the blackish tint which distinguishes the pectoral and caudal tins, and by a black spot which some individuals have at the junction of the pectorals with the body. Fig. 375. The Whiting (Merlangus vulgaris). The whiting inhabits the seas which wash the whole European coast, often approaching the shore in shoals, which are taken annually in great numbers. 3. abdominaj.es. The fishes belonging to this order have the ventral fins under the abdomen placed behind, and not attached to the bones of the shoulder. It is much the most numerous and important of the great division of the Malacopterygeans. It includes most of our fresh -water fishes, a great number of marine species, and many like the salmon, which betake themselves to the rivers in the spawning season to deposit their ova. We shall limit our remarks to the species which are essentially marine, such as the 8 'almoniclee, the Clupeadw, and a few others. OSSEOUS FISHES. 553 SALM0NI1WK. The fishes of this family are graceful in shape, and have the body clothed hi scales ; they have two dorsals, the first with soft rays, fol- lowed by a second, which is smaller, formed without rays, and adipose — that is, formed simply of a skin filled with tatty matter, unsupported by osseous rays. They inhabit the seas of temperate and northern regions; ascending the rivers at certain seasons, and, in some in- stances, living exclusively in the great rivers and watercourses. They are found even in the most elevated mountain brooks. The grayling or shad, guiniad, sprat, trout, and the salmon, the type of the family, belong to the group. The genus Salmo includes three species, namely, Sahiio salor, S. croix, and S. trutta, the trout. Of these, S. salor (Fig 376) has the Fig. 376. Adult Salmon. body long, the muzzle roundish, but more so in the male than in the female, the upper jaw provided with a fossette, into which the point of the lower jaw penetrates ; the back is a slaty blue, the sides and lower part of the hotly of a silvery diaphanous white, with great black spots scattered round the upper part of the head, round the upper edge of the 5;3G THE OCEAN WORLD. the fish betake themselves in bands to the sea. The sea feeding being favourable, and the fish strong enough for the salt water, a rapid growth is the consequence. Arrived at the spot where the tide stops! they stop a few days in the brackish water, as if to accustom them- selves to the new element. After that they disappear, spreading! themselves over the wide world of the ocean. At the end of two months of a life mysterious and so far unknown, these fishes reappear : in the rivers, returning to their native pools; but how changed! Quantum mutatil The smolt, which has lived in the river two or three years, and only attained the length of six or eight inches, returns! at the end of a two months’ sojourn in the sea, weighing three to four pounds. It is now a grilse. After depositing their eggs the grilse remain some time in the fiesh water, when they again go to the sea. This second sojourn, of about two months, is sufficient to send it back weighing from six to j twelve pounds. It is now an adult salmon. Each new visit to the sea brings the salmon back increased in size in proportion to the ■ duration of the voyage. In the month of March, 1845, the Duke of Athole took a salmon in the Tay after it had deposited its eggs ; he marked it by attaching a metal label to it. It weighed ten pounds. The same individual with its metal label was again fished up after five weeks and three days’ absence. It now weighed twenty-one pounds, having in the meantime travelled forty miles down the river to the sea. In most circumstances, according to Mr. Blanchard, to whom we are indebted for much information relative to the development and migration of these fishes, salmon of various ages, which have neverthe- less sojourned in the sea as grilse, adult salmon, and others inter- mediate between them, whose first sojourn at sea has extended to eight or ten months, ascend the rivers together in an order no less varied, the older individuals heading the column, the youngest bringing up the rear. When the period for depositing their eggs approaches, a male and female pair off, as it were ; seeming to choose, by a common accord, the place intended to receive the egg. Here both male and female employ themselves in hollowing out a nest in the strand, some eight or nine inches deep, wherein the female deposits her eggs, which the male ' fertilizes by shedding a milky fluid over them, sheltering the eggs afterwards by a covering of sand. OSSEOUS FISHES. OO i The salmon only ascends the rivers to spawn. They eagerly return afterwards to salt water. When enjoying themselves in the water they swim slowly, floating near the surface ; but in pursuit of any object, or if threatened with danger, they dart out of the water with extraordinary promptitude. The tail is, in fact, a true oar moved by powerful muscles ; a waterfall, or lofty cataract, is to the salmon no serious obstacle when it is impelled to ascend to its breeding-place. Curving its vertebral column, it forms itself into a sort of elastic spring ; the arc of which, being suddenly unbent, strikes the water with great force with the tail, and in the rebound it leaps to the height of four or five yards, clearing waterfalls of considerable height. If it falls with- out accomplishing its object, it repeats the manoeuvre until it is at last successful. It is especially when the leader of the band makes a successful leap that the others, ac- quiring new spirit from its example, throw themselves upwards until their emulation is rewarded by success. Some of the British waterfalls are celebrated for their salmon leaps. Wales, Scotland, and Ireland have each their celebrated leaps ; in Pembrokeshire, Argyleshire, and at Ballyshannon, in county Donegal, and at Leixlip. The cataract of Leixlip is upwards of twenty feet high, and the country people make a holiday in order to see the salmon clear its height. These acrobat fishes frequently fall before they finally succeed, and it is not un- usual for the people to place osier baskets to trap them in their fall. At the cataract ol Kilmorack, in Inverness-shire (Fig. 379), the inhabitants living near the river have a practice of fixing branches of trees on the edge of the rocks. By means of these branches they contrive to catch the fishes which have failed in their leap ; it is even asserted that sportsmen have been known to kill them Fig. 379. Salmon Leap at, Kilmorack. THE OCEAN WORLD. 558 on the wing, as it were, in their leap. But the exploit, attributed to Lord Lovat by Dr. Franklin, is perhaps the nearest approach to the fabulous which we have met with. Having remarked that great numbers of salmon failed in their efforts to surmount the Falls of Kilmorack, and that they generally fell on the bank at the toot of the fall, Lord Lovat conceived the idea of placing a furnace and a frying-pan on a point of rock overhanging the river. After their unsuccessful effort some of the unhappy salmon would fall accidentally into the frying-pan. The noble lord could thus boast that the resources of his country were so abundant that, on placing a furnace and frying-pan on the banks of their rivers, the salmon would leap into it of then- own accord, without troubling the sportsman to catch them. It is more probable, however, that Lord Lovat knew that the time to enjoy salmon in perfection is to cook it when fresh from the water, and before the richer parts of the fish have ceased to curd. e have seen how rapidly the young salmon increase in size in the sea. We can only conjecture what is the nature of their food at this stage of their existence : we are better informed as to their manner of living in fresh water. During their first stage they live chiefly on insects, and the spawn of small fishes ; from the time when they attain a certain size — that is, from the grilse to the adult state — • they devour a multitude of these small" fishes themselves. The British rivers in which the salmon abound are the Severn, the Wye, the Tweed, the Tay, the Don, and the Dee, with many of their tributaries, and in Ireland, the Shannon. Besides these, many of the watercourses of lesser note adjoining the coast have been renowned for their salmon fisheries. Some of the Scottish rivers, especially, are famous for the size and quality as well as numbers of salmon. In days not very distant from ours, farm servants made it a condition of their hiring that salmon should not be served to them more than ; three days in the week. These times are changed. In the districts in which this condition was the most stringently insisted on, the riverains derive a princely revenue from this source alone. The Tay ' fisheries yield a revenue of seventeen thousand pounds per annum. The Spey, for its length the richest in Scotland, produces twelve thousand pounds per annum. The river is only a hundred and OSSEOUS FISHES. 559 twenty miles from its source to the sea, and its picturesque banks are celebrated in a local ballad which says, not very harmoniously, that “ Dipple, Dundnrcus, Dandaleith, and Dulocq, Are the bonniest haughs of the run of the Spey” ; but there’s “ no standing water in the Spey !” The river drains thirteen hundred miles of mountains, many of whose bases are more than a thousand feet above the level of the sea. The Tweed, whicli has been “ poached ” and plundered, by its proprietors using unfair implements until there was scarcely a fish in its upper waters, is slowly recovering under legislative enactments, and its rental is now seven thousand five hundred pounds. Salmon abounds in the Loire and its affluents, but is much more rare in the Seine and Marne. They enter the Rhine and the Elbe, and most of the great rivers of the north of Europe. In France they were formerly found in the rivers of Brittany, and in the Gironde. They are now very rare in these rivers. The coast of Picardy is well furnished, but they are rare in Upper and Lower Normandy. In Norway, especially in the district of Drontheim, the salmon fishery is conducted on a large scale on the sea-shore as well as in the interior waters. The Baltic is rich in salmon. Con- siderable fisheries are carried on in the waters of the G ulf of Finland and Bothnia, as well as in the waters of Swedish Laponia. The mode3 of procedure in salmon fishery are very various. Lines, bow-nets, hooks, and tridents, or spears, are employed, but especially nets namely the hoop-net or tremail, a net which is thrown quite across a uvei , it is made with thickish string, and is about a hundred fathoms in length by eighteen inches in height, the meshes being from four to five inches square. KSOCIDJE. This family includes the Pike, which, being a fresh-water fish, need not now occupy our attention ; it includes also the singular genus Stomias, and the Flying-fish, Exoccetus. The Stomias have a body much elongated, the muzzle being very short, the mouth very deeply cleft, the opercula reduced to small membranous laminae. ; the maxillarius fixed to the cheek ; the inter- THE OCEAN WORLD. ;ifiO maxillary palatine and maxillary bones are rather sparingly furnished with teeth, and those are long and hooked. Similar teeth are observ- able on the tongue. The ventral fins are placed far back, and the dorsal fin is placed opposite the anal fin, on the hinder extremity of the body. Only two species of this genus are known: the one of the Mediter- ranean, Stomici bea (Fig. 380), the other of the Atlantic Ocean, 8. Fig. 380. Siomia bea. barbatus, so called from the long barbula on the chin. Both species are black in colour, with numerous small silvery spots on the ab- domen. The body of S. bea is thin, compressed, covered with little thin scales of blackish blue, much spotted on the hack and abdomen, a little brighter on the sides— the head, in some respects, recalling that of a serpent. Flying is so much associated in our minds with the usual denizens of the air, that the idea of flying-fishes seems to be a contradiction. Nevertheless, some fishes possess that power, the fins being transformed into wings, which they are enabled to raise for a few seconds. These wings, however, are neither long nor powerful, for it rather acts the part of a parachute than wings. The distinguishing character of the Exocoetus, or flying-fish, are the pectoral fins, nearly the length of the body, the head flattened above and on the sides, the lower part of the OSSEOUS FISHES. 501 body furnished with a longitudinal series of carinated scales on each side, the dorsal fin placed above the anal, the eyes large, and the jaws furnished with small pointed teeth. The Flying-fishes (Fig. 381) in their own element are harassed by attacks of other inhabitants of the ocean, and when under the excite- ment of fear they take to the air, they are equally exposed to the attacks of aquatic birds, especially the various species of gulls. We Fig. 381. The Flying-fish (E. ex i liens). have said that, in their leap from the water, their fins sustain them rather as parachutes than wings, with which they beat the air. Mr. Bennett’s description is pretty clear on this point. “ I have never,” he says, “ been able to see any percussion of the pectoral fins during flight ; and the greatest length of time I have seen this volatile fish on the fly has been thirty seconds by the watch, and the longest flight, mentioned by Captain Basil Hall, has been two hundred yards, but he thinks that subsequent observation has extended the space. 2 o r><; 2 THE OCEAN WORLD. The usual height of their flight, as seen above the surface of thj wa ei, is from two to three feet, hut I have known them come on board at the height of fourteen feet and upwards. And they have been well ascertained to come into the chains of a line-of-battle ship, which is considered to he upwards of twenty feet. But it must not he sup- posed that they have the power of raising themselves into the ah- after having left their native element ; for on watching them I have often seen them fall much below the elevation at which they first rose from the water ; nor have I ever in any instance seen them rise from the height to which they first sprang, for I conceive the elevation they take depends on the power of the first spring.” The most common species is E. volitans. Its brilliant colouring would seem designed to point it out to its enemies, against whom it is totally defenceless. A dazzling silvery splendour pervades its surface. The summit of its head, its back, and its sides, are of azure blue; this blue becomes spotted upon the dorsal fiu, the pectoral fin, and the tail. This fish is the common prey of the more voracious fishes, such as the shark and the sea-birds ; its enemies abound in the air and water. If it succeeds in escaping the Charybdis of the water, the chances are in favour of its coming to grief in the Scylla of the atmosphere if it escapes the jaws of the shark, it will probably tall to the share ot the sea-gull. The dolphin is also a formidable enemy to the much-persecuted flying-fish. Captain Basil Hall gives a very animated description of their mode of attack.* He was in a prize, a low Spanish schooner, rising not above two feet and a half out of the water. “ Two or three dolphins had ranged past the ship in all their beauty. The ship in her progress through the water had put up a shoal of these little things (flying-fish), which took their flight to windward. A large dolphin which had been keeping company -with us abreast of the weather gangway at the depth of two or three fathoms, and as usual glistening most beautifully in the sun, no sooner detected our poor dear friends take wing than he turned his head towards them, darted to the surface, and leaped from the water with a velocity little short, as it seemed to us, of a cannon-ball. But though the impetus with which he shot himself into the air gave him an initial velocity greatly exceeding that of the flying-fish, the start : which his fated prey had got enabled them to keep ahead of him for a * “ Lieutenant and Commander," by Captain Basil Hall. Bell & Daldy, London. OSSEOUS FISHES. 5(13 t considerable time. The length of the dolphin’s first spring could not be less than ten yards, and after he fell we could see him gliding like , lightning through the water for a moment, when he again rose, and ■ shot upwards with considerably greater velocity than at first, and of course to a still greater distance. In this manner the merciless ■ pursuer seemed to stride along the sea with fearful rapidity, ■while his | brilliant coat sparkled and flashed in the sun quite splendidly. As he t fell headlong in the water at the end of each leap, a series of circles were sent far over the surface, for the breeze, just enough to keep • the royals and topgallant studding-sails extended, was hardly felt as yet below. “ The group of wretched flying-fishes, thus hotly pursued, at length dropped into the sea ; but we were rejoiced to observe that they merely touched the top of the swell, and instantly set off again in a fresh and even more vigorous flight. It was particularly interesting to observe that the direction they took now was quite different from the one in which they had set out, implying but too obviously that they had detected their fierce enemy, who was following them with giant steps along the waves and was gaining rapidly upon them. His pace, indeed, was two or three times as swift as theirs, poor little things ! and the greedy dolphin was fully as quick-sighted ; for when- ever they varied tbeir flight in the smallest degree, he lost not the tenth part of a second in shaping his course so as to cut off the chase ; while they, in a manner really not unlike that of the hare, doubled more than once upon the pursuer. But it was soon plainly to be seen that the strength and confidence of the flying-fish were fast ebbing; their flights became shorter and shorter, and their course more fluttering and uncertain, while the leaps of the dolphin seemed to' grow more vigorous at each bound. Eventually this skilful sea- sportsman seemed to arrange his springs so as to fall just under the very spot on which the exhausted flying-fish were about to drop. This catastrophe took place at too great a distance for us to see from the deck what happened ; but on oiu’ mounting high on the rigging, we may be said to have been in at the death ; for then we could discover that the unfortunate little creatures, one after another, either popped right into the dolphin’s jaws as they lighted on the water, or were snapped up instantly after.” Unhappy Exocoetus ! Nature has cruelly expiated the double 2 o 2 564 THE OCEAN WORLD privilege she has granted thee ; she has taken with both hands what she has awarded with one ! THE CLUPEAD2E, Of which the herring is the graceful, useful, and well-known type, and to which also the pilchard, the shad, and the anchovy belong. The Clupea have the body longish and compressed, especially at the belly, where it comes to an edge; it is clothed with large scales, forming towards the belly a saw-like edge, which is very thin and eari'y Fig. 382. The Herring (Clupea harengus). removed. One dorsal fin without spinous rays, and one ventral, both placed near the middle of the body, are its locomotive characteristics. The Herring, Clupea harengus (Fig. 382), is too well known to require description ; its appearance is magnificent ; but we shall only remark here that its back, which in the fish after death is of an indigo bluish colour, is green during life ; the other parts vary considerably in their colours and markings, sometimes representing written characters, which ignorant fishermen have considered to be words of mystery. Id November, 1587, two herrings were taken on the coast of Norway, on the bodies of which were markings resembling Gothic printed OSSEOUS FISHES. 565 characters. These herrings had the signal honour of being presented to the King of Norway, Frederick II. This superstitious prince turned pale at sight of this supposed prodigy. On the back ot these innocent inhabitants of the deep he saw certain cabalistic characters, which he thought announced his death and that of his queen. Learned men were consulted. Their science, as reported, enabled them to read . distinctly words expressing the sentiment, “ Very soon you will cease to fish herrings, as well as other people.” Other savants were assem- bled who gave another explanation ; but in 1588 the king died, and the people were firmly convinced that the two herrings were celestial messengers charged to announce to the Norwegian people the ap- proaching end of the monarch. This fish abounds throughout the entire Northern Ocean in im- mense shoals, which are found in the bays of Greenland, Lapland, and round the whole coast of the British islands. Great shoals of them occupy the Gulfs of Sweden, of Norway, and of Denmark, the Baltic and the Zuyder Zee, in the Channel, and along the coast of France up to the Loire, beyond which they never appear to be found. The herrings are gregarious fishes, and live in great shoals closely packed together ; shoals to be counted not by thousands, but by millions and thousands of millions, in every shore and bay. It was the favourite theory, not very long ago, that herrings emigrated to and from the arctic regions. It was asserted, by the supporters of this theory, that in the inaccessible seas of high northern latitudes herrings existed in overwhelming numbers, an open sea within the arctic circle affording a safe and bounteous feeding-ground. At the proper season vast bodies gathered themselves together into one great army, -which, in numbers exceeding the powers of imagination, departed for more southern regions. This great Ileer, or army, was subdivided, by some instinct, as they reached the different shores, led, according to the ideas of fishermen, by herrings of more than ordinary size and sagacity, one division taking the west side of Britain, while another took the east side, the result being an adequate and well divided supply of herrings, which penetrated every bay and arm of the sea round our coast, from Wick to Yarmouth. Closer observation, however, shows that this theory has no existence in fact. Lacepede denies that those periodical journeyings take place. Valenciennes also rejects them. It is true that the herrings have disappeared in certain neighbourhoods 564 THE OCEAN WOULD, privilege she has granted thee ; she has taken with both hands what she has awarded with one ! 0 THE CLUPEAM, Of which the herring is the graceful, useful, and well-known type, and to which also the pilchard, the shad, and the anchovy belong. The Clupea have the body longish and compressed, especially at the belly, where it comes to an edge; it is clothed with large scales, forming towards the belly a saw-like edge, which is very thin and easily Fig. 382. The Herring (Clupea harengus). removed. One dorsal fin without spinous rays, and one ventral, both placed near the middle of the body, are its locomotive characteristics, * The Herring, Clupea harengus (Fig. 382), is too well known to require description ; its appearance is magnificent ; but we shall only remark here that its back, which in the fish after death is of an indigo bluish colour, is green during life ; the other parts vary considerably in their colours and markings, sometimes representing written characters, which ignorant fishermen have considered to be words of mystery. Id November, 1587, two herrings were taken on the coast of Norway, on the bodies of which were markings resembling Gothic printed OSSEOUS FISHES. 565 i characters. These herrings had the signal honour of being presented to the King of Norway, Frederick II. This superstitious prince turned pale at sight of this supposed prodigy. On the back ot these innocent inhabitants of the deep he saw certain cabalistic characters, which he thought announced his death and that of his queen. Learned men were consulted. Their science, as reported, enabled them to read i distinctly words expressing the sentiment, “ Very soon you will cease ! to fish herrings, as well as other people.” Other savants were assem- bled who gave another explanation ; but in 1588 the king died, and t the people were firmly convinced that the two herrings were celestial messengers charged to announce to the Norwegian people the ap- proaching end of the monarch. This fish abounds throughout the entire Northern Ocean in im- mense shoals, which are found in the bays of Greenland, Lapland, and round the whole coast of the British islands. Great shoals of them i occupy the Gulfs of Sweden, of Norway, and of Denmark, the Baltic and the Zuyder Zee, in the Channel, and along the coast of France up to the Loire, beyond which they never appear to be found. The herrings are gregarious fishes, and live in great shoals closely packed together ; shoals to be counted not by thousands, but by millions and thousands of millions, in every shore and bay. It was the favourite theory, not very long ago, that herrings emigrated to and from the arctic regions. It was asserted, by the supporters of this theory, that in the inaccessible seas of high northern latitudes herrings existed in overwhelming numbers, an open sea within the arctic circle affording a safe and bounteous feeding-ground. At the proper season vast bodies gathered themselves together into one great army, which, in numbers exceeding the powers of imagination, departed for more southern regions. This great Heer, or army, was subdivided, by some instinct, as they reached the different shores, led, according to the ideas of fishermen, by herrings of more than ordinary size and sagacity, one division taking the west side of Britain, while another took the east side, the result being an adequate and well divided supply of herrings, which penetrated every bay and arm of the sea round our coast, from Wick to Yarmouth. Closer observation, however, shows that this theory has no existence in fact. Lacepede denies that those periodical journeyings take place. Valenciennes also rejects them. It is true that the herrings have disappeared in certain neighbourhoods 566 THIS OCEAN WOULD. m which they were formerly very plentiful ; hut it is also certain that, m many of the fishing stations, fish are taken all the year round! Moreover, the discovery that the herring of America is a distinct species from that ol Europe, and that they do not even spawn in the same waters, is fatal to the theory. In short, there is a total absence of proof of their pretended migrations to high northern latitudes, and recent discoveries all tend to show that the herring is native to the shores on which it is taken. “It has been demonstrated,” says Dr. Bertram, “that the herring is really a native of our immediate seas, and can he caught all the year round on the coast of the three kingdoms. The fishing begins at the island of Lewis, in the Hebrides, in the month of May, and goes on as the year advances, till in July it is being prosecuted off the coast of Caithness; while in autumn and winter we find large supplies of herrings at Yarmouth ; there is a winter fishery in the Firth of Forth. Moieover, this fish is found in the south long before it ought to be there, according to the emigration theory. It has been deduced, from a consideration of the annual takes of many years, that the herring exists in distinct races, which arrive at maturity month after month. It is well known that the herrings taken at Wick in July are quite different fiom those caught at Dunbar m August and September ; indeed I would go further, and say that even at Wick each month has its changing shoal, and that as one race appears for capture another disappears, having fulfilled its mission. It is certain that the herrings of these different seasons vary considerably in size and appearance; localities are marked by distinctive features. Thus the well known Loch Fyne herring is essentially different from that of the Firth of Forth ; and those differ again, in many particulars, from those caught off Yarmouth. In fact, the herring never ventures far from the shore where it is taken ; and its condition, when it is caught, is just an index of the feeding it has enjoyed in its particular locality. The superiority of flavour of the herring taken in our great land-locked salt-water lochs is undoubted. Whether or not resulting from the depth and body of water, from more plentiful marine vegetation, or from the greater variety of land food likely to be washed into these inland seas, has not yet been determined, but it is certain that the herrings of our western sea-lochs are infinitely superior to those captured in the more open sea.” “ Moreover,” he adds, “ it is now OSSEOUS FISHES. 5(J7 known, from the inquiries of the late Mr. Mitchell and other authorities on the geographical distribution of the herring, that the fish has never been noticed as being at all abundant in the arctic regions. The herring feeds on small crustaceans, fishes just hatched, and even on the fry of its own species. On the other hand, its enemies aie the most formidable inhabitants of the ocean ; the whales destioy them by thousands, but man, above all, carries on a war which threatens to be one of extermination. In fact, the herring-fishery has been to certain nations the great cause of their prosperity. It was the founda- tion of Dutch independence. Silk manufacture, coffee, tea, spices, which are productive of great commercial movements, address themselves only to the wants of luxury or fashion. The produce of the herring-fishery, on the contrary, is one of necessity to the people ; and Holland would have languished and quickly disappeared, with its fictitious territory, if the sea had not added to its commercial industry this inexhaustible mine of wealth. That vast field it has worked with persevering ardour. Struggling for an existence, it has conquered. Every year numerous vessels leave the coast of Holland for this precious marine harvest. The herring-fishery is, for the Dutch people, the most important of maritime expeditions. It is with them known as the “ great fishery. Whaling is known as the “ small fishery.” The great fishery is a golden mine to Holland ; it is, besides, a very ancient occupation with ourselves. We find it flourishing in the twelfth century ; for, in 1195, according to the historians, the city of Dunwich, in the county of Suffolk, was obliged to furnish the king with twenty-four thousand herrings. We also find mention made of the herring-fishery in a chronicle of the Monastery of Evesham in the year 709. Towards the year 1030 the French sent vessels into the North Sea from Dieppe for this fishing, nearly a century before the Dutch made the attempt ; but as early as the thirteenth century that enterprising people employed two thousand boats in this industry. The Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians also threw themselves into this trade at an early period. The French, Danes, and Swedes furnish at the present time only sufficient for home consumption. The monopoly of foreign trade belongs to the English, Dutch, and Norwegians. “ The quantity of herrings gathered every year by our neighbours beyond the Channel,” says Moquin-Tandon, “is truly enormous. In Yar- mouth alone four hundred ships, of from forty to sixty tons, are 568 THE OCEAN WORLD. equipped, the largest being manned by twelve men. The revenue i derived from this fleet is about seven hundred thousand pounds. In ' 1857 three of these fishing-boats, belonging to the same proprietors, 1 carried home three millions seven hundred and sixty-two thousand 1 fishes.” Since the beginning of this century the Scottish fishermen have emulated the zeal of the English. In a paper communicated to the British Association m 1854, Mr. Cleghorn, who has paid great atten- \ tion to the subject, states “ that there are nine hundred and twenty ' Wick boats engaged in the fishing, and that the produce was ninety- five thousand six hundred and eighty barrels ” in one week alone, this being, however, a falling oil of sixty-one thousand barrels from the previous year. The cause of this immense falling off was ascribed to a storm which had swept along the coast at the height of the season ; but Mi. Cleghorn was inclined to ascribe it mainly to over-fishing, which had gradually diminished the number of herrings captured. The boats employed by the French and Dutch in the herring- fishery are about sixty tons burden. They generally depart for the Orkney and Shetland isles. They afterwards betake themselves to the German Ocean, and fish the Channel in November and December, lhese boats carry up to sixteen hands, according to their size. Arrived at their fishing-ground, they cast their nets, as seen in Pi, XXIX. The lines of the Dutch fishermen are five hundred feet in length, composed of fifty or sixty different nets. The upper parts of these nets are supported by empty barrels or cork-buoys, the lower edge being weighted with lead or stones, which are kept at a convenient depth by shortening or lengthening the cords by which the buoys are attached. The size of the mesh of the nets is such that the herrings of a certain size are caught in it by the gills and pectoral fins. If the first mesh is too large to hold them they pass through, and get caught by the next or succeeding mesh, which is smaller. The herring-fishery is regulated by Act of Parliament, and the legal mode of capture is by means of what is called a drift-net. The drift-net is made of fine twine, marked with squares of an inch each to allow for the escape of the young fish. The nets are measured by the barrel bulk, a net measuring fifty feet long by thirty-two deep, and each holding half a barrel. The drift is composed of many separate nets fastened together by means of a back Plnfn VYTY Tho T-Tprrincr Vialiorr OSSEOUS FISHES. 569 rope, and each separate net of the series is marked off by a bladder or empty cask. The process is that described by Dr. Bertram in an article published in the “ Cornhill Magazine.” The writer had made his arrangement for a night at the herring-fishery under the auspices of Francis Sinclair, a very gallant-looking fellow, who sails his own boat from Wick, and takes his own venture. Bounding over the waves with a good capful of wind, they had left the shore and beetling cliffs far behind them; they reached their fishing- ground, where they tacked up and down, eagerly watching for the oily phosphorescent gleam which is indicative of herrings. “ At last, after a lengthened cruise,” he says, “ our commander, who had been silent for half an hour, jumped up and called to action. ‘ Up, men, and at them !’ was the order of the night. The preparations for shooting the nets at once began by lowering sail. Surrounding us on all sides was to he seen a moving world of boats; many with sails down, their nets floating in the water, and their crews at rest. Others were still flitting uneasily about, their skippers, like our own, anxious to shoot in the right place. By-and-by we were ready ; the sucker goes splash into the water ; the ‘ dog,’ a large inflated bladder to mark the far end of the train, is heaved overboard, and the nets, breadth after breadth, follow as fast as the men can pay them out, till the immense train is all in the water, forming a perforated wall a mile long, and many feet in depth ; the ‘ dog ’ and the marking bladder floating and dipping in long zigzag lines, reminding one of the imaginary coils of the great sea serpent. After three hours of quietude beneath a beautiful sky, the stars — ‘ The eternal prbs that beautify the night ’ — began to pale their fires, and, the grey dawn appearing, indicated that it was time to take stock. We found that the boat had floated quietly with the tide till we were a long distance from the harbour. The skipper had a presentiment that there were fish in his net ; and the bobbing down of a few of the bladders made it almost a certainty, and he resolved to examine the drifts. By means of the swing rope the boat was hauled up to the nets. ‘ Hurrah !’ exclaimed Murdoch of Skye; ‘there’s a lot of fish, skipper, and no mistake.’ Murdoch’s news was true ; our nets were silvery with herrings — so laden, in fact, that it took a long time to haul them in. It was a beautiful sight to 570 THE OCEAN WORLD. see the shimmering fish as they came up like a sheet of silver from the water, each uttering a weak death-chirp as it was flung into the bottom of the boat. Formerly the fish were left in the meshes of the net till the boat arrived in the harbour ; but now, as the net is hauled on board, they are at once shaken out. As our silvery treasured showers into the boat we roughly guess our capture at fifty cranes— a capital night’s work.” But there is a reverse to this medal. Wick Bay is not always rippled by the land-breeze as on this occasion. “ The herring fleet has been more than once overtaken by a fierce storm, where valuable lives have been lost, and thousands of pounds worth of netting and boats destroyed, and the gladdening sights of the herring-fishery have been changed to wailing and sorrow.” The Yarmouth boats are decked vessels of from fifty to eighty tons, with attendant boats, costing about one thousand pounds, and having stowage for about fifty lasts ; nominally, ten thousand, but, counted , fishei wise, thirteen thousand, herrings, besides provision for a five or six days’ voyage. Leaving a hand or two in charge of the vessel, the majority of the crew are out in the smaller boats fishing. The Dutch herring-fishery is usually pursued during the night j When the nets are in the water the boat is left, as we have seen in Dr. Bertram’s excursion, to drift in the meantime. Each boat is furnished with a lantern, which serves the double purpose of attract- ing the shoals of fish, and preventing collisions with other boats.;; The herring-fishery is extremely capricious in its results ; one or two boats have been known to carry into port the whole takings of a night. ; ; Valenciennes witnessed the capture of a hundred and ten thousand herrings in less than two hours. The nets are hauled in whenb moderately charged with fish by the crew ; but it is often necessary to have recourse to the capstan in the process. Some of the hands are! stationed to detach the fish from the nets ; others detach the nets from the buoys ; while others again fold up and stow away the nets for future use. On the coast of Norway the electric telegraph is applied to the . herring-fishery, being employed to announce to the inhabitants of the fishing towns the approach of the shoals of fish. In the fiords of Norway, where the produce of the herring-fishery is the principal means of excitement to nearly the entire population, it often happened OSSEOUS FISHES. 571 that the fish made its appearance at the most unexpected times, and on some parts of the coast the shoals could only be met by one or two boats. Before the boats from the bays and fiords could take part in the fishery the herrings had deposited their spawn, and returned to the open sea. To prevent these disappointments, often repeated with great loss to the fishermen, the Norwegian government established, in 1857, a sub- marine electric cable, along the coast frequented by the herrings, of a hundred miles, with stations on shore at intervals conveniently placed for communicating with the villages inhabited by the fishermen. As soon as a shoal of herrings is known to be in the offing, and they can always be perceived at a considerable distance by the wave they raise, a telegraph is despatched along the coast, which makes known in each village the approach to the bay in which the herrings have established themselves. This important branch of industry has ' only assumed its real character since the fourteenth century, and its sudden and prodigious extension is due to the discovery of a simple Dutch fisherman, George Benkel, who died in 1397. To this man Holland owes much of its wealth. He discovered, in short, the art of curing the herring so as to preserve it for an indefinite time. From that moment the herring- fishery assumed an unexpected importance, and became the source of much wealth to Holland and its industrious and enterprising people. Two hundred years after his death the Emperor Charles V. solemnly ate a herring on Benkel’s tomb ; it was a small homage paid to the memory of the creator of a new industry which had enriched his native land. The Shad ( Alosa ), which have the body round and more plump than the herring, are still more distinguishable by the arrangement of their teeth. More than twenty species of this genus are known, varying considerably in size. They inhabit the seas which wash the coasts of Europe, Africa, India, and America. One type is the Common Shad, Alosa communis (Fig. 383), which is found in the Channel, the North Sea, and all round our coast. It is of a silvery tint generally, greenish on the back, with one or two black spots behind the gills. The shad approaches the mouths of rivers and great estuaries, and habitually ascends them in the spring for the purpose of depositing its ova, and is found at this season in the Rhine, the Seine, the Garonne, the Volga, the Elbe, and many of our own rivers. In some of the Irish 572 THE OCEAN WOULD. rivers the masses of shad taken in the seine-net have been so great that no amount of exertion has been sufficient to land them. It sometimes attains a very considerable size, weighing as much as from oui to six pounds. The shad taken at sea are less delicate in their flesh than those caught in fresh water. The habits of the shad are very imperfectly known. Two species are found on the British coast, namely, the Twaite Shad of Yarrell ( Alosa jinta), which is about fourteen inches in length, brownish green on the back, inclining to blue m certain lights, the rest of the body silvery white, with five Fig. 383. The Shad (Alosa communis). or six dusky spots on each side arranged longitudinally. The jaws are furnished with distinct teeth ; the tail deeply forked. The second species, the Common or Allise Shad ( C . communis ), is considerably larger, sometimes attaining twelve and even fifteen inches in length, having only one spot on each side of the body near the head ; the jaws without teeth, the scales small in proportion. This species is plentiful in the Severn, but rare in the Thames. The shad is found in the Severn and Thames in considerable quantities about the second week in July. They reach the fresh water about May, deposit their spawn, and return to salt water in July. Their scales are large. The Sprat ( C sprains) has been the subject of a great controversy OSSEOUS FISHES. 573 like the parr — one party contending that it is the young ot the herring; another, that it is a distinct species. Pennant, Yarrell, and many eminent naturalists adopt the first view : its specific characters, according to Pennant, being “ greater depth of body than the young herring, gill-covers not veined ; teetb of the lower jaw so small as to be scarcely visible to the touch ; tbe dorsal fin placed far back, and the sharp edge of the abdomen more acutely serrated than in tbe herring. Like the herring, they inhabit the deep water during the summer, following the shoal to the sea-shore in autumn. The sprat-fishing commences in November and continues during the winter months, when they are caught in such numbers that in some localities they have been used as manure. In support of the individuality of the sprat, the serrated belly and relative position of the fins are dwelt upon, together with the instance detailed by Mr. Mitchell, the Belgian consul at Leith, who exhibited a pair of sprats, having the roe and milt fully developed. On the other hand, the abundance of the sprat has been adduced as a reason for its being the young herring. In addition to this, anatomists declare their anatomy shows no difference but size. “ As to the serrated belly,” says Bertram, “ we may look on that as we do on the back of a child’s frock, namely, as a provision for growth.” If this is so, Dr. Bertram supplies material at once for thought and legislation. “ The slaughter of sprats,” he says, “ is as decided a case of killing the goose with the golden eggs as the grilse slaughter- carried on in our salmon rivers.” The Pilchard, Clupea pilchardus (Fig. 384), sometimes called the gipsy herring, visits our coasts all the year round. It was at one time thought, as the herring was, to be migratory, but, like that fish, it is now found to be a native of our own seas, and a constant inhabitant of our shores. It has been known to spawn in May, but the usual time is October, and authorities like Mr. Couch think it breeds only once a year. Its visit to shallow water causes immense excitement ; persons watch night and day from the lofty cliffs along the Cornwall coast, and the watchers (locally called “huers”) signal the boats at sea beneath them the moment they see indications of the approach of a shoal. Mr. Wilkie Collins gives an animated picture of the “ huer “A stranger in Cornwall, taking his first walk along the cliffs in August, could not advance far without witnessing what would strike THE OCEAN WORLD, 574 him as a very singular and even alarming phenomenon. He would see a man standing on the extreme edge of a precipice just over the sea, gesticulating in a very remarkable manner, with a bush in his hand, waving it to the right and to the left, brandishing it over his head, sweeping it past his feet ; in short, acting the part apparently of a maniac of the most dangerous description. It would add considerably to the stranger’s surprise if he were told that the insane individual before him was paid for flourishing the bush at the rate of a guinea a w eek. And if he advanced a little, so as to obtain a nearer view of the madman, and observed a well-manned boat below turning carefully to the right and left, as the bush turned, his mystification would Fig. 384. The Pilchard (Clupea pilchardus). probably be complete, and his ideas as to the sanity of the inhabitants would be expressed with grievous doubt. “ But a few words of explanation would make him alter his opinion. ] He would learn that the man was an important agent in the pilchard- j fishery of Cornwall, that he had just discovered a shoal swimming . towards the land, and that the men in the boats were guided by his i gesticulations alone in their arrangements for securing the fish on which so many depend for a livelihood.” The pilchard, which is the sardine of commerce, where its place is j not usurped by the sprat, is taken chiefly in the Channel, on the coasts I of Brittany and Cornwall, and in the Mediterranean, and on the coast i of Sardinia, whence its commercial name. In Brittany floating-nets are ’ employed. The fishing is conducted in boats, each carrying five men ; 1 OSSEOUS FISHES. 575 thousands of these boats may sometimes be seen engaged at the same time three or four leagues from the coast, the nets being only drawn when they are fully charged, when the lish are arranged bed upon bed in osier baskets, each boat returning habitually to port when it has secured twenty-five thousand fishes. The fishery extends over five or six months, the produce being about six hundred millions ot sardines. The Basque fishermen employ a net in the form of a sack, with rings at each corner. On the coast of Cornwall, as we have hinted, it is one of the staple industries, and pursued systematically. Where they come from, and whither they go, seems alike unknown. All that is certain is, that they are met with in shoals swimming past the Scilly Islands as early as July. In August the inshore fishing begins, and they appear on various parts of the coast as far north as Devonshire and the south coast of Ireland up to October and November ; no doubt those which have escaped the innumerable nets spread for them. “ The first sight from the cliffs of a shoal of pilchards,” says Mr. Collins, in the work already quoted, “ is not a little interesting. They produce on the sea the appearance of the shadow of a dark cloud, which approaches until you can see the fish leaping and playing on the surface by hundreds at a time, all huddled close together, and so near the shore that they can be caught in fifty or sixty feet of water. Indeed, when the shoals are of considerable magnitude, the fish behind have been known literally to force the fish in front up to the beach, so that they could be taken in baskets, or even with the hand. “ With the discovery of the first shoal, the active duties of the look- out, or huer, on the oliffs begin. Each fishing village places one or more of these men on the watch all round the coast. He is, therefore, not only paid his guinea a week while he is on the watch, but a per- centage on the produce of all the fish taken under his auspices. He is placed at his post, where he can command an uninterrupted view of the sea some days before the pilchards are expected. “ The principal boat used is, at least, of fifteen tors burden, and carries a large net called the ‘ seine,’ which measures a hundred and ninety fathoms in length, and costs a hundred and twenty pounds sometimes more. It is simply one long strip from eleven to thirteen fathoms in breadth, composed of very small meshes, and furnished all along its length with cork at one edge and lead at the other. The 576 THE OCEAN WORLD. men. who cast this net are called ‘ shooters,’ and receive eleven shillings and sixpence a week, and one basket of fish out of every : haul. “ As soon as the ‘ huer ’ discerns a shoal he waves his hush. The signal is conveyed to the beach by men and boys watching near him. The £ seine ’-boat, accompanied by another, to assist in casting the net, is rowed out to where he can see it ; then there is a pause and hush of expectation. Meanwhile the devoted pilchards press on — a compact mass of thousands on thousands of fish — swimming to meet their doom. All eyes are fixed on the ‘ huer he stands watchful 1 and still, until the shoal is thoroughly embayed in water which he j knows to be within the depth of the £ seine.’ Then, as the fish begin to pause in their progress and gradually crowd closer and closer to- ] gether, he gives the signal, and the £ seine ’ is cast or ‘ shot ’ over- board. ££ The grand object is now to enclose the entire shoal. The leads ] sink one side of the net perpendicularly to the bottom, the corks buoy 1 the other to the surface of the water. When it has been taken all ] round the shoal, the two extremities are made fast, and the fishes are ] imprisoned within an oblong barrier of netting. The art is how to let as few of the pilchards escape as possible while the process is being \ completed. "Whenever the ‘ huer’ observes that they are startled, and separating at any particular point, he waves his bush, and thither the boat is steered, and there the net is shot at once ; the fish are thus j headed and thwarted in every direction with extraordinary address J and skill. This labour completed, the silence of intense expectation ‘ that has hitherto prevailed is broken — there is -a shout of joy on all sides — the shoal is secured. “ The £ seine ’ is now regarded as a great reservoir of fish. It may remain in the water a week or more ; to secure it against being moved from its position, in case a gale should come on, it is warped by two or three ropes to points of land in the cliff, and is at the same time contracted in circuit by its opposite ends being brought together and passed lightly over its breadth for several feet. While these* ! operations are being performed, another boat, another set of men, and another net, are approaching the scene of action. “The new net is called the ‘tuck;’ it is smaller than the f seine inside which it is to he let down for the purpose of bringing the fish' OSSEOUS FISHES. 577 close to the surface. The men who manage this net are called ‘ regu- lar sewers.’ The boat is first of all rowed inside the seine-net, and laid close to the seine-boat, which remains stationary outside. To its ;bows one rope at the end of the tuck-net is fastened, lhe tuck-boat now slowly makes the inner circle of the seine, the smaller net being dropped overboard, and attached to the seine at intervals as she goes. To prevent the fish from getting between the two nets during the operation, they are frightened into the middle of the enclosure by beating the water with oars, and stones fastened to ropes. When the 1 tuck ’ has at length travelled round the whole circle of the £ seine,’ and is securely fastened to the seine-boat at the end as it was at the beginning, everything is prepared for the great event of the day — hauling the fish to the surface. “ Now all is excitement on sea and shore ; every little boat in the I place puts off, crammed with idle spectators ; boys shout, dogs bark, and the shrill voices of the former are joined by the deep voices of the ‘ seiners.’ There they stand, six or eight stalwart, sun-burnt fellows, ranged in a row in the seine-boat, hauling with all their might at the ‘ tuck ’-net, and roaring out the nautical ‘ Yo, heave ho !’ in chorus. Higher and higher rises the net ; louder and louder shout the boys and the idlers ; the ‘ huer,’ so calm and collected hitherto, loses his self-possession, and waves his cap triumphantly. £ Hooray ! hooray ! Yoy — hoy, hoy ! Pull away, boys ! Up she comes ! Here they are !’ The water boils and eddies ; the £ tuck ’-net rises to the surface ; one teeming, convulsed mass of shining, glancing, silvery scales ; one compact mass of thousands of fish, each one of which is madly striving to escape, appears in an instant. Boats as large as barges now pull up, in hot haste, all round the nets, baskets are produced by dozens, the fish are dipped up in them, and shot out, like coals out of a sack, into the boats. Presently the men are ankle-deep in pilchards ; they jump upon the benches, and work on till the boats can hold no more. They are almost gunwale under before they leave for the shore.” In the process of curing, the scene becomes doubly picturesque, but this is shore-work, with which our space forbids us to deal. ££ Some idea of the almost incalculable multitude of pilchards caught on the Cornwall shores,” says Mr. Collins, ££ may be gathered from the following data : At the small fishing cove of Trereen six hundred hogsheads were taken in little more than a week, during August, 2 p 578 THE OCEAN WORLD. 1850. Allowing two thousand four hundred fish only to each hogs-J head (three thousand would he the highest calculation), we have a result of one million four hundred and forty pilchards caught by the inhabitants of one little village alone, on the Cornish coast, at the commencement of the season’s fishing.” The Anchovy ( Engraulis ) is chiefly taken in the Mediterranean, ] and is much sought after for its delicate flavour when salted and cured. It is a small, slender fish, about four to four and a half inches ' in length ; head pointed, mouth very wide, gill-openings large, al> I domen smooth ; when living, it is greenish on the back, silvery beneath , after death it changes to a bluish black. The fishery which gives the most abundant results takes place on the shores of the Mediterranean, principally on the coast of Sicily, the isles of Elba, Corsica, Antibes, Frejus, Saint-Tropez, and Cannes. They are also j taken on the Dalmatian coast, and in the neighbourhood of llagusa. The anchovy is only fit for food after being preserved and salted, j The process of curing commences by throwing it into a strong brine ; then, the head and entrails being removed, they are arranged in rows ] in barrels or boxes of tin, in alternate layers of salt and fish ; finally, 1 after some days of exposure, they are hermetically closed and despatched I to market. Those prepared on the Provencal coast were formerly carried to the fair of Beaucaire, whence they found their way all over ; France, and to many parts of Europe. Now, the anchovies cured at Marseilles, aud other Provencal ports, are sent direct to the various markets of Europe. The Acanthopterygeans Include the Perch family, which is altogether a fresh-water fish, and, however interesting in itself, foreign to our present purpose. It includes also the cat-fish, which is also known as the la r, and more commonly the wolf-fish, in Bas-Languedoc and Provence. It is common in the Mediterranean, and in many of the great rivers which empty themselves into it. The Cat-fish (Fig. 385) has the appearance of an elongated perch : its colour, in the adult state, is of a uniform silvery hue, marked with brown and yellow spots in the young. The Weevers ( Trachinus ), forming another division of this family, ] are characterised by their very compressed head and the strong spines of OSSEOUS FISHES. the operculum. They are elongated in shape, with short muzzles ; they have a habit of burying themselves in the sand, and are formidable sm m mm Fig. S85. The Cat-flsli. to fishermen, from the dangerous wounds they inflict with their spines. TracJiinus communis (Fig. 381 j) is widely diffused in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Fig. 386. The Wecver-fish (i'ruchinus communis). The genus Uranoscopus, so named from the position of their 2 p 2 580 THE OCEAN WOULD. eyes, which are directed towards the sky, from ovpavos, the heavens, and atcoirew, I regard. From this peculiar arrangement, they can only see above them. They are closely connected with the cat-fish. branoscopus vulgaris (Fig. 387) belongs to the Mediterranean, and is remarkable for its thick cubical head and erect spiny dorsal fins. The Mullets {Mullus) have the body thick and oblong, the profile of the head approaching the vertical line ; scales large, two dorsal fins, widely separated— the rays of the first spinous, of the second, flexible ; two cirri at the lower jaw. Two species are known, both inhabitants of our west and south-west coasts : the lied or Striped Fig. 387. Uranoscopus vulgaris. Surmullet ( Mullus surmulus ), and the Red Mullet (ill barbatus). The first is a fine bright vermilion red, with three dominating yellow lines; the throat, breast, ventral, and lower surface of the tail are white, slightly tinged with rose; the fins have their rays more or less red, the iris of the eyes a pale gold colour, just touched with red ; the head bears two barbels. This beautiful fish is plentiful in the Mediterranean and sometimes in the Channel, common in the gulfs of Gascony, and is frequently served on the table at Bordeaux and Bayonne, where it is known as the barbel ; its flesh is a little flaky, of an agreeable flavour, but less esteemed than the red mullet. The Red Mullet ( Mullus barbatus ) is clothed in brilliant colours of OSSEOUS FISHES. 581 bright red, mingling with silvery tints upon the side and belly ; it presents line indistinct reflections, but none ol the yellow lines which occur in the preceding species. It is to its brilliant colouring that the red mullet owes much of its celebrity. When we add that its flesh is white, firm, and agreeable to the taste, the estimation in which it was held by the ancients is sufficiently explained. With the Homans the mullet was an object of luxury on which they expended fabulous sums ; they cultivated the fish in their fish-ponds not only as a delicacy of the table, but for the beauty of form and colour. This fierce love of beauty, however, too often approached to cruelty. Seneca and Pliny both give us to understand that the rich patricians of Home gave themselves the barbarous pleasure of seeing the mullet expire under their eyes, in order to witness the various shades of purple, violet, and blue which succeed each other — from cinnabar red to the palest white, as the animal gradually loses its strength, and expires by a slow and cruel death. The great rival of Cicero, the advocate Iiortensius, who attracted crowds of people to the Forum by his eloquent and elegant discourses, had an inordinate passion for this kind of enjoyment. These little inhabitants of the waters were ltd by a small canal which was carried under the festive table, and his great enjoyment was to witness the agonies of the unhappy fish just taken from its native element and carried to the table, palpitating with its dying convulsions, as it perished beneath his eyes, he in the meanwhile enjoying a sumptuous banquet. The possession of these poor creatures had, in short, become the rage, a furious passion, and their price soon became excessive. A fish of three pounds produced a considerable sum to the fortunate fisherman, while one of four and a half pounds was simply ruinous, says Martial. Asinius Gelius purchased one for eight thousand sesterces (upwards of sixty pounds). Under Caligula, according to Suetonius, three mullets cost thirty thou- sand sesterces (about two hundred and forty pounds). Although it is no longer the object of ferocious enjoyment, on the one hand, or pro- digal expenditure on the other, it is still much sought after, both for its beauty of form and excellent table qualities. It is found in many seas, but particularly in the Mediterranean, where it is taken all round the coast, usually in muddy bottoms ; it is fished for both by line and net. The Gurnards (Trigla) are remarkable for the singular manner in 582 THE OCEAN WORLD. which, the head is mailed and cuirassed ; the operculum and sboulder- bones are armed with spines, having trenchant blades, which give them a disagreeable, even a hideous, physiognomy, and has procured them various names, such as sea-frog, sea-scorpion, sea-devil, and sundry other equally significant names. With this forbidding appear- ance, however, the gurnards are among the most resplendent inhabit- ants of the sea. Nothing can exceed the beauty of their markings ; but the brilliancy with which Nature has gifted them is their misfor- Fig. 388. The Eed Gurnard (Trigla pini). tune ; it betrays them to their enemies, which are found in the air as well as in the water, and without then- prodigious fecundity this species would long since have disappeared. Twelve species of Trigla are known. In the British seas the com- monest species is the Grey Gurnard (Trigla gurnardus), a silvery- grey fish, more or less clouded with brown and speckled with black. A rare species with us, but very common in the Mediterranean, is the Bed Gurnard, Trigla pini (Fig. 388). It is of a fine bright rose-red colour, Plate XXX —Agony of a Red Mullet at the Feast of Hortenstus. M|bhM| OSSEOUS FISHES. paler beneath and more vivid about the fins, of which there are two distinct dorsal and one ventral. Beneath the pectorals are three detached rays ; both jaws and front of the lower palate are armed with fine velvety teeth. The Perlon, or Sapharine Gurnard (T. hirundo), is a large and handsome fish, remarkable lor the lively green and blue hues of the inner surface of its large pectoral fins. The Flying Gurnard ( Dactylopterus volitans ) somewhat resembles the Triglas, but differs in having the fin-rays of the pectorals con- nected by membranes, by which it is enabled to support itself some time in the air, like the flying-fish; the pectorals, when extended, Fig. 339. The Flying Gurnard (Dactylopterus volitans). forming a sort of parachute (Fig. 389), which sustains it when it leaps out of the water. Several species are known. All nature seems to conspire against these singular creatures, while they have been gifted with the double power of swimming and flying. The flying-fish only escapes from the Bonitas, and other voracious fishes which pursue it on the bosom of the sea, to expose itself to the attacks of the inhabitants of the air. A crowd of sea-fowls, such as frigate-birds, the albatross, and the gulls, carry on a bloody war with them when they venture on flight. War thus pursues the unhappy fish whatever element it betakes itself to. Nevertheless it passes from one element to the other, with an energy which frequently defeats 584 the ocean would. the attacks of its enemies. When it leaps from the sea to the height Of five or six feet, it sustains itself for several hundred feet, changing its direction. In its flight it may he compared to that of the flying dragon ; the popular name given to it is said to he derived from the grunting noise they make on being taken out of the water. Labyrinthiform Piiaryngeans. In the fishes of this order the superior pharyngeal bones are divided into numerous and irregular little leaflets, which intersect the cellules situated under the operculum, which again serve to retain a certain quantity of water. This water preserves the gills, however, when the animal is dry, which permits them to live on shore, where they frequently contrive to creep over great distances in search of water, ike genus Anabas, from dvapatvco, to ascend, possess this pecu- liarity of organization in a remarkable degree ; it enables them to leave the rivers and marshes and little watercourses of Borneo and Java, and other islands of the Indian Archipelago, and creep through the herbage or along the ground by means of the inflexions of their bodies, the dentation of their opercules, of their spines and fins. This fact, although only recently known to modern naturalists, was well known to the ancients, and has been recorded by Theophrastus. The family of the Scomberoides is the most important group in the j older, comprehending some of the fishes most useful to man, from their 1 size, the excellence of their flesh, and their abundance. The Tunny ( Tliynnus , Cuv.), the Mackerel (Scomber scombrus), and the Bonita ( Thynnus jpelamys ), have yielded, from the remotest antiquity, immense ] lesources as human food, both in the fresh and preserved state. The tunny, while resembling the mackerel in many respects in its j geneial foirn, is rounder, and attains a much larger size, being some- times found eight and nine feet in length, and weighing three to four hundred pounds. The upper part of the body is a bluish-black; the belly is grey, with silvery spots. These fishes sometimes present themselves in the Atlantic, but in the Mediterranean they are very abundant. At some periods of the year they approach the coast in innumerable shoals, and in numerous serried ranks, forming a vast battalion, which conceals itself under the waves, ' and only betrays OSSEOUS FISHES, 585 itself on the exterior by the motion of the sea, caused by such vast numbers travelling rapidly through the water. In many localities the shoals of tunnies show themselves in the spring, pursuing their way towards the east, and in the autumn we find them pursuing an oppo- site direction. We see the same thing on the coast ot Provence. Upon the coast of La Ciotat a first fishing takes place from the months of March to July, and a second again from July to October. Bnt at other points of the coast they arrive at the same time Irom very different directions. Besides, finally, it is only in winter that they are found. The tunny-fishing gees back to the remotest antiquity. The Phoenicians, the first navigators known, carried it on on the coast of Spain. In our days the fishing is carried on with great activity on the coasts of Provence, of Sardinia, and Sicily. The fishing is carried on by the tunny-net, and in Provence it is fished with a net in the enclosure called the madrague. The tunny-net consists of a combination of nets, which is quickly cast into the sea in order to head the tunnies at the moment of their passage. When the sentinels, posted for the purpose, as in the pil- chard-fishery, have signaled the approach of a shoal of tunnies and its direction, by the indications of a flag which points to the spot occupied by the finny tribe, the fishing:boats are immediately directed to the designated spot, and ranged in curved lines, forming with the light floating net a half circular enclosure, turned towards the shore, the interior of which is called the garden. The tunnies thus enclosed in this garden, between the coast and the net, become agitated with terror. As they advance towards the shore they press upon the enclosure, or rather a new interior enclosure is formed with other nets held in reserve. In this second enclosure an opening is left, through which the tunnies have to pass. In continuing thus to diminish the space by successive enclosures, each occupies a smaller diameter, in which the fish are enclosed in about a fathom and a half of water. At this moment a species of seine-net is thrown into the garden. This net is hauled into shallow water by force of arms, and the small tunnies are taken by the hand, the larger by hooks. The boats are charged with them, and they are carried ashore. A single day’s fishing will sometimes produce as many as sixteen thousand tunnies, each from twenty to five and twenty pounds weight. 586 THE OCEAN WOULD. When the park, in place of being established for a single fishery is a permanent construction in the sea, it is called, in Provence a mac i ague. The madrague is a vast enclosure. The netting which orms the partitions of its chambers are sustained by buoys of°cork on ie surface, and kept down by heavy stones and other weights on the lower edge, and maintained in this position by cords, one extremity of which is attached to the net, and the other is moored to an anchor The madrague is intended to arrest the shoals of tunnies at the moment when they abandon the shore in order to return to the open sea. For this purpose a long alley or run is established between the sea-shore and the park or madrague. The tunnies follow this alley and after passing from chamber to chamber, betake themselves at last to the body of the park. n order to force them into the madrague they are pressed towards ' the shore by means of a long net, which is extended in their rear ? attached to two boats, each of which sustain one of the upper angles of the net. When the fishes come to the last compartment, °the fishermen raise a horizontal net, which makes a sort of plate of this compartment, m which the fishes are gradually raised to the surface of the water. This operation occupies the whole night. In the morning the tunnies are collected in a very narrow space, 1 and at varying distances from the shore ; and now the carnage com- mences. The unhappy creatures are struck with long poles, boat- ■ hooks, and other weapons. The tunny-fishing presents a very sad spectacle at this its last stage ; fine large fish perish under the blows ot a multitude of fishermen, who pursue their bloody task with most dramatic effect. The sight of the poor creatures, some of them wounded : and half dead, tiying in vain to struggle with their ferocious assailants, j is veiy painful to endure. The sea, red with blood, long preserves | traces of this frightful carnage, of which an illustration is attempted 1 in Pl. XXXI. I The flesh of the tunny is much esteemed, being firm and wholesome. J It is called the salmon of Provence. “ For our part,” says M. Figuier, “ we put it far above the salmon. Nothing is comparable to the fresh tunny thrown into a hot frying-pan, and sprinkled with vinegar and salt. When properly cooked, nothing can be more firm or savoury. In short, nothing ot the kind can rival, or even be compared, with the tunny, as we find it at Marseilles and Cette.” riatc XXXI.— Flaking for Tunny at AluUriguc, on the Cooat of Provence. OSSEOUS FISHES. 587 The tunny is greatly celebrated among the Greeks and other inhabitants on the shores of the Mediterranean, of the Propontus, and the Black Sea. The Homans attached great value to certain parts ol this fish, as the head and the lower part of the belly. The neigh- bouring parts were in little esteem with them. They cut them into pieces and preserved them in vases filled with salt. They are now preserved with oil and salt after being cooked ; this preparation is in great request at Cette, Montpellier, and Marseilles. With a pot of marine tunny, salted in the vinegar of Lunel, a household is pretty well prepared for any event. The Mackerel (Scomber scombrus ) is too well known to require de- scription. Who has not admired these fishes, with their steel-blue Fig. 300. The Mackerel (Scomber scombrus), back, and changing iridescent sides of gold and purple and green, relieved by fine waving lines of deeper black, as they appear on the market-stalls, or as they are emptied in the early morning from the fishing-boat ? The head is blue above, with black markings, the rest of the body being raised with iridescent shades of gold and purple. There are two species of mackerel — that of the Atlantic and of the Channel, which has no swimming-bladder, Scomber scombrus (Fig. 390), and the mackerel of the Mediterranean, Scomber coleas, which has the swimming-bladder, and which is a very rare fish in our seas. The mackerel is common to all European seas : being the Veirat of the Bay of Languedoc ; the Aurion of Provence ; the Bretal in some parts of Brittany ; the Macarello of the modern Homans ; the Scombro of the Venetians ; the Lacesto of the Neapolitans ; the Cavallo of the ,)bb THE OCEAN WORLD. Spaniards; the well-known Mackerel of our own shores, and the Malril of the Swedes; it is found on the coast of North’ America, and as far south as the Canary Islands. It is a wandering, unsettled fish, supposed to be migratory, but individuals are always found on our coast. They are supposed to remain during the winter in the North Sea, and afterwards on the coast of Scotland and Ireland in January and February, on their way to the Atlantic. There their gieat army is divided into two : one branch passes along the Spanish'.; and Portuguese coasts, while the other enters the Channel. In May they appear on the coasts ol England and France. In June they reach Holland. In July one portion of them returns to the Baltic! while another skirts the coast of Norway on its way to winter quarters. Lacepede estimated that this migration, which is so regular, and its stages so rigorously indicated, was irreconcilable with a great number of very precise observations ; and he arrived at the conclusion that the mackerel passes the winter at the bottom of the sea, more or less remote from the coast, which they again approach in the spring. At the commencement of the fine season they advance towards the shore which best agreed with them, showing themselves often on the surface, like the tunny, traversing the sea in courses more or less direct or sinuous, but never following the periodical circle which has been so ingeniously traced out for them. Mr. Milne Edwards also remarks that, if these legions of fishes ascended from the Polar seas, they ought to visit the Orkneys before they appeared in the Channel, and enter the Mediterranean later in the season ; but he is assured that they appear at the Orkneys late in the season. It appears, in short, that there are different varieties which haunt the several neighbourhoods in which they abound. The largest mackerel are taken at the entrance of the Channel, but they are considered less delicate than the smaller fishes. The shoals of mackerel, it appears, never enter the Gulf of Gascony, but they abound along the shores of Brittany up to the North Sea. It is about the month of April that they begin to be met with, but they are still small and without milt or roe. In the months of June and July the fish is in its most perfect state. Towards the end of September and October mackerel of the same year’s birth are taken ; finally, in November and December, the fishermen still fish them, and send them to market, but this is an irregularity, and the fishermen of — — OSSEOUS PISHES. 589 Lowestoft and Yarmouth take their great harvest in May and June. In the Firth of Forth, and on the north coast of Scotland, at a few weeks later. As mackerel are very voracious, they greedily devour all sorts of bait, but they are chiefly taken by the drift-net. The drift-net is twenty feet deep and a hundred and twenty feet long, well buoyed at the upper edge, but without weights at the bottom, lhe meshes, made ol fine twine tanned to a reddish colour for preservation, are calculated to admit the head of the fish and catch it by the gills, so as to prevent its withdrawal. A fleet of mackerel-boats dragging these laige nets, which are extended vertically in the sea, or float between the two tides, are well represented in Pl. XXXII. The flesh of the mackerel is fat and melting. Among the ancients a liquid was extracted from this fat called garum, which was considered a very nourishing preparation. The price of this liquid was very high , in modern measures it was valued at about sixteen shillings the pint. It was acrid, half putrefied, and very nauseous, but it had the property of rousing the appetite and stimulating the digestive organs. Garum played the part of a condiment at a period when the exciting array of Indian spices were unknown. Seneca charges it, as we do pepper and other hot spices taken in excess, with destroying the stomach and health of gourmands. This garum is spoken of by the traveller Pierre Belon, writing in the sixteenth century, as being held in great estimation at Constantinople in his time. Kondelet, the author of a very remarkable book published in 1554, who ate garum at the table of William Pellicier, Bishop of Maguelonne, thought he could trace the liquid not to the mackerel, but to one of the Sparo'ides (Spams smarts ) . The mackerel possesses phosphorescent properties which cause it to shine in the dark, especially after death, when decomposition has commenced, for it is of an oily consistence. The mackerel is not only voracious, but, in spite of their small size, they have the hardihood to attack fishes much larger and much stronger than themselves. It is even said that they love human flesh. According to the naturalist bishop, Pontoppidan, who lived in the sixteenth century, a sailor belonging to a vessel which had cast anchor in one of the Norwegian ports, when bathing one day in the sea, was assailed by a shoal of mackerel. His companions came to his relief ; 590 THE OCEAN WORLD. the eager band were repulsed with great difficulty, but not till it was too late : the unfortunate sailor was so exhausted that he died a few hours after. By a fair enough retaliation Nature has surrounded the mackerel with numerous enemies ; the larger inhabitants of the ocean eagerly devour them. Certain fishes, in appearance very weak, such as the muraena, fight them with great advantage. Closely connected with the mackerel and other Scombridse, we have the Bonita of the Tropics. This is a fish of considerable size, Fig. 391. The Sword-fish (Xiphias gladius). celebrated by its pursuit in great shoals of the flying-fish, of which we have already spoken. The Bonita (Thynnus ■pelamys) is not unlike the mackerel in shape, but less compressed, and upwards of twenty-five to thirty inches long. It is occasionally found on our coast, but only as an accidental visitor, for its true home is the Tropics. It is a beautiful fish of a fine blue colour. The Sword-fish, Xiphias gladius (Fig. 391), so called from the upper jaw being elongated into a formidable spear or sword, was known to the ancients, and has borne the name which recalls its salient characteristic from very early times. In short, it is recog- Plate XXXil. — Pishing for Mackerel off the Cornwall Coast. OSSEOUS FISHES. 591 inised at a glance from its organic structure, and from tlie resemblance of its prolonged horizontal and trenchant muzzle to the blade ol a ■sword. With the ancients it was Hn/ua?, and Gladius ; with the ’ moderns it is the sword-tish, the Dart, the Specs spada, and l Espadon i epee. This fish attains a great size, being found in the Mediterranean ; and Atlantic, in company with the tunny, from five to six feet in length. Its body is lengthy, and covered with minute scales, the ; sword forming three-tenths of its length. On the back it bears a single long dorsal fin ; the tail is keeled, the lower jaw is sharp, the mouth toothless, the upper part of the fish bluish-black, merging into silver beneath. It seems to- have a natural desire to exercise towards and against all the arm with which Nature has furnished it ; it darts ■with the utmost fury upon the most formidable moving bodies; it attacks the whale; and there are numerous and well authenti- cated instances of ships being perforated by the jaw of this powerful creature. In 1725, some carpenters having occasion to examine the bottom of a ship, which had just returned from the Tropical seas, found the lance of a sword-fish buried deep in the timbers of the ship. They declared that, to drive a pointed bolt of iron of the same size and form to the same depth, would require eight or nine blows of a hammer weighing thirty pounds. From the position of the weapon it was evident that the fish had followed the ship while under full sail; it bad penei rated through the metal sheathing, and three inches and a half beyond, into the solid frame. The sword-fish has obstinate combats with the saw-fish, and even the shark, and it is supposed that when he attacks the bottom of a vessel he takes that sombre mass for the body of an enemy. But this terrible jouster, this Paladin of the abyss, often becomes himself the prey of a most contemptible enemy. A miserable little parasite, the Pennatula jilesa, penetrates its flesh, and almost drives it mad with pain. The flesh of the young sword-fish is white, compact, and of ex- cellent taste ; that of adults resembles the tunny. It is the object of a fishery of some importance in the Straits of Messina. The fisher- men of Messina and Reggio join in this fishery with a great number of boats, carrying brilliant flambeaus, while one of the crew is stationed at the mast-head to announce the approach of the sword-fish. At a 592 THE OCEAN WORLD. given signal the boats rush on to attack them with the harpoons (Fig. 392). During this fishery the sailors sing a peculiar melody, hut without words. The family of Pediculate Pectorals is so named from the fishes of which it is composed bearing their pectoral fins on a species of arm which forms a prolongation of the carp bone ; it includes the Frog- fish, remarkable for the excessive circumference of the head and shoulders as compared to the rest of the body, the immense opening of a jaw, armed -with pointed teeth, and the cutaneous jagged stripes Fig. 392. Fishing for Sword-fish in the Straits of Messina. of various lengths with which it bristles at many points. Its skin is soft, smooth, and without scales or other asperities ; the members which support the pectorals, and other peculiarities, combine to render it a hideous and forbidding object, well calculated in ignorant and superstitious times to frighten the multitude. The remains of this fish, prepared in such a manner as to be transparent and rendered luminous by a lamp enclosed in its interior, has often helped to deceive and frighten the timid by its fantastic appearance. OSSEOUS FISHES. 593 The Frog-fish, Lophius p>iscatorius — Linn. (Fig. 393), which attains the length of five or six feet, lives in the sand, or sunk in the mud, leaving the long and movable filaments with which the head is furnished to float in the water ; the shreds which terminate them act as natural bait when they float about in different directions, from their resemblance to worms and other living creatures. The fishes which swim above them, and which they see very well by tbe assistance of their two eyes placed on the summit of the head, are attracted by these deceitful decoys. When the prey arrives near to the enormous Fig. 393. The Frog-fish (Lophius piscatorius). jaws, which are almost always wide open, it is engulfed and torn to pieces by its strongly-hooked teeth. This manner of lying in ambush, and fishing, as it were, with a hook and fine for fishes which its conformation does not permit it to pursue, has acquired for it the name of the frog-fish, which is sometimes given to it. It is found more or less in all parts of the Mediterranean and in many parts of the Atlantic, being frequently taken both in the Gulf of Gascony and in the Channel. The family of Labridss comprehends : I. The Wrasse ( Labrns ), a genus of fishes decked in the most lively colours; for the yellow, 2 Q 594 THE OCEAN WORLD. green, blue, and red, forming bands of spots, give the body the appear- 1 ance of being enriched with brilliant metallic reflections. II. The JulisM of Bisso, the Mediterranean species of which is remarkable for its fine I violet colour, relieved on each side by an orange band. Of the Labridse we represent here, as a type of the family, the adult Green and Bed Labrus (Fig. 394), varieties of the commonest species, 1 called the sea-parrot, the body of each being oblong, clothed with large scales : a dorsal fin, frequently with membranous appendages, thick Fig. 394. Adult Green and Ked varieties of Labrus communis. fleshy lips, and large conical teeth ; cheeks and gill-covers clothed with scales ; gill-covers smooth at the edges ; three spines in the anal fin. In Julis the cheeks and gill-covers are without scales ; in other respects they resemble Labrus. Among the acanthopterygeous fishes we shall only notice the singular family of Fistulariache, or Pipe-fishes, so called from the extreme elongation of the fore part of the head, forming a tube, at the extremity of which is the mouth. Of this family, Fistvlaria tdbacaria, OSSEOUS FISHES. 505 (Fig. 395) may be considered the type. The tube of the muzzle is long and flat, and from the caudal fin springs a terminal filament nearly as long as the body. This species of pipe-fish is common at Fig. 395. The Pipe-fish (Fistularia tabnearia). the Antilles ; it attains the length of about three feet, but its flesh is leathery and insipid. It feeds upon crustaceans and small fishes, which it drags from the interstices of the rocks and stones by means of its long and taper pipe. We close our abbreviated history of the Ocean and such of the in- habitants with which it swarms as seemed most likely, from their habits aud other peculiarities, to interest the readers, conscious of its many imperfections. Where every creature which moves and breathes in the watery world is so full of interest, it will not surprise the reader to learn that one of the editor’s chief difficulties has been that of selection, his most painful task that of rejecting the vast mass of interesting matter he had necessarily to pass in review. We have shown in the first chapter of this work that nearly three- fourths of the surface of the earth is bathed by the sea. Struck with this vast extent of ocean, a witty French writer says, “ One is almost tempted to believe that our planet was specially created for fishes.” They are, indeed, a very important part of creation ; they form, as it were, a bond uniting the vertebrate to invertebrate animals. They have 2 q 2 59(» THE OCEAN WORLD. a more complicated organization than the other oceanic inhabitants, as they are also the most numerous, the most varied in form, and by far the most brilliant in colour, and the most active in their movements. Pliny, the naturalist, describes ninety-four species of fishes. Lin- i nseus has characterised four hundred and seventy-eight. The natu- ralists of the present day know upwards of thirteen thousand, a tenth of which are fresh- water fishes. INDEX. lAlxlominales, 552. Acalephae, or Sea Nettles, 197. Acanthopterygians, 578. 'Acclimatizing sponges, 110. Acephalous Molluscs, 319. Acetabuliferous Cephalopods, 445. Achatina zebra, 401. Actiniaria, 183. diantbus, 191. /Equerea violacea, 200. Agalma rubra, 241. Its graceful appear- ance, 241. Its interior, 242. Alcyonaria, 121. Alcyonaria proper, 146. Alcyonium digitatum, 146, 153. Alise Shad, 572. Alternate generation in the Biphora, 317. Apolemia contorta, 243. Parts magni- fied, 244. Aporous Madrepores, 152. Appearance of the sea, 63. Aquarium, the, 69. Arctic Ocean, 1 1. Argonauta, fables concerning it, 460. Aristotle’s description, 460. Oppian’s description, 461. His mistakes, 461. Rumphius, 461. Real history, 463. Madame Power’s experiments, 463. Locomotive organs, 464. Argonauta argo, shell and animal, 462. papyracea, animal and shell, 464. Aristotle’s Lantern, 289, 291. Ascidians, simple, social, and composite, 312. Alveolina oblonga, 87. Ambulacral appendages, 265. Amiba diffluens, 77. princeps, 77. Ammodytes lancea, 529. Anabas, 584. Analysis of sea water, 17, 20. Anatomy of the Carp, 495. Anchovy (Engraulis), 578. Ancient trilobite, 446. Animalcules, their action, 12. Antarctic Ocean, 5. Discoveries, 48, 54. Antipathida3, 150, 151. Apiocrinus pentacrinus, 273. Aplysia depilans, shell and animal, 408. Apoda, 528. Ascidia microcosmus, 312. pedunculata, 313. Aspergillum vaginiferum, 389. Asteracanthion glacialis, 266. Asterias, 262. aurantiaca, 264. rubens, 263. Asterophyton verrucosum, 281. Astrea punctifera, 157. Atlantic Ocean, 4. Atmospheric currents, 33. Atolls and Atollons, 168. Aurelia aurita, 201. Azoic rocks, 64. Bacterium termo, 100. Baffin’s Bay discovered, 48. 598 INDEX. Baltic Sea, 8. Barentz’s discoveries, 48. Barren reefs, 175. Beale’s adventure with a Cuttle-fish, 447. Bed of coral, 130. Behring’s Straits, 48. Beroe Forskahli, 257. Berthelot’s representation of the capture of a Cephalopod, 459. Biphora, 316. Birth of coralline larvae, 135. Bivalves, how united, 321. Blue minyade, 195. Bonitas, 583, 590. Bonpland’s account of the Electrical Eel, 531. Boring Pholades, 380. Botrylla, 313, 314. Branch of Virgularia magnified, 145. Branchial infusoria, 99. Breathing in Molluscs, 307. Brooke’s sounding apparatus, 7. Bryozoare Polypes, 136. Their organiza- tion, 307. Buccinum senticosum, and B. undatum, 429. Bulimus sultanus, 400, 401. Bulla ampulla, B. oblonga, and B. nebu- losa, 409. Cabot’s discoveries, 47, 546. Calmar, the, 468. Callianira, 259. Campanulariae, 230. Cancale Oysters, 327. Cape Horn, 4. Cape Bace, 10. Carcharius vulgaris (the Shark), 508. Its description, 508. Destructive habits, 509. Immense power, 510. Its flesh coarse, 512. Superstitious devotions to, 512, 513. Cardium hians, and C. Greenlandicum, 374. Cardium aculeatum, C. edulis, and C. cos- tatum, 375, 376. Carnivorous Cephalopods, 449. Cartilaginous fishes, 499. Caryophillia cyathus, 153. Cassidulina, 83. Cassiopea Andromeda, 224. Cassis glauca, C. rufa, C. canaliculata, and C. Madagascariensis, 425. Cassis undata, 426. Cat-fish, 579. Celebrated Oyster eaters, 332. Cephalopodous Mollusca, 445. Cephalous Mollusca, 391. Cerithium fasciatum, C. aluco, and C. giganteum, 432. Cestidae, 260. Chancellor’s discoveries, 47. Chart of the Atlantic, 9. Charybdis, whirlpool of, 46. Chimaera arctica, 515. Chiton magnificus, 438. Chrysaora Gaudichaudi, 220. Ciliate Infusoria, 103. Circulating tubes in the Coral, 133. Circulation of the ocean, 27. Cirrotheutis Miilleri, 456. Classic feast on the Corniche du Prado, at Marseilles, 293. Cleodara cuspidata, 444. lanceolata and C. compressa, 444. Clupeadae, 564. Clypeaster rosaceus, 289. Cocos Island, 171, 173. Cod-curing, 548. Cod-fish (Morrhua callarius), 545. Cod-fisheries, 547. Coffres (Ostracion), 525. Colour of the sea, 13. Local causes of, . 14. Effects of animalcules, 14. Algae of rivers, 16. Comatulse, 277. Comatula Mediterranea, 278. Complicated organization of a polypier, 139. Condylostoma patens, 105. Conger Eels (Auguilla conger), 535. Contents of a drop of water, 89. INDEX. 599 Conus, principal forms of, 417. Cook’s discoveries, 48, 55. Coral and living polypus, 131. Coral fisheries, 139. Coral islands, 22. Beefs, 23. Coralline spicula, 132. Corallines, 121. Cornularia cornucopia, 146. Corpuscles from which young polypiers emanate, 138. Corystes cassivelaunus, male, 483. Female, 484. Cothumia pyxidiformis, 103. Crabs, their habits, mode of attacking cocoa-nuts, 478. Travelling Crabs, 479. Propagation, 480. Cramp-fish (Torpedo marmorata), 504. Crinoidea, 272. Cruelty to Oysters, 334. Orustaceaus, 473. Their organization, 474. Breathing apparatus, 476. De- structive habits, 476. Grvstatella mucedo, 309. Ctenophora, 200, 256. Cultivation of Oysters, 337. Currents of the ocean, their causes, 27, 31, 32. Bifurcation of currents, 37. Cuttle-fish, 446. Described, 465. Its pigments, 464. Habits, 467. Cyclobranchial gasteropoda, their organi- zation, 437. Cyclones, 36. Cyclopteris, 536. Cyclostoma, 499. Cydippa pilens, 259. Cypraxi, principal forms of, 418. capensis, C. testudinaria, C. nu- cleus, and C. pantherina, 421. Cyprrea coccinella, 419. tigris and animal, 419. undata, C. zigzag, C. moneta, and C. Madagascariensis, 420. Cytherea, principal forms of, 378. geographica, 379. Dab (Platcssa limanda), 542. Dactylopora cylindracea, 87. Darwin’s observations at Tierra del Fuego, 172. theory of Coral islands, 24. theory of subsidence, 172. Daughtc of the sea, 139. Davis’s discoveries, 47. Dead men’s fingers, 146. Death in the ocean, 64. Decapoda, their organization, 452. Decomposition of Infusoria, 99. De Haven’s search for Franklin, 61. Delphinula sphoerula, 415. Dendrophylla ramea, 162. Magnified, 163. Density of salt water, 18. Dentalina communis, 82. Depth of the sea, 3. Depths of oceanic storms, 66. Diodon pilosus, 524. Diphydm, 244. Disaster of the San Francisco, 36. Discobolida;, 536. Discophora, 200. Distribution of land and water, 3. Dog-fish (Acanthias vulgaris), 5 13. Donax trunculus, 323. rugosus and D. denticulatus, 37 < . Drag-net employed in Oyster fishing, 336. Dujardin’s discoveries, 81. D’Urville’s voyages, 48, 55. Adclia’s Land, 56. Dykes of Holland undermined, 385. Early animal life, 64. Echineis remora, 536, 537. Echinodermata, 261. Ecbinoidffl, 282. Armament, 282. Ske- leton and masticating apparatus, 290. Echinus esculentus, 286. mamillatus, without spines, 284. Echinus mamillatus, with spines, 283. Edible Snails, 393. Edwardsia calimorpha, 193. Effects of hurricanes, 44. Eggs of Sepia officinalis, 467. coo INDEX. Electrical Eel, 529. Electrical properties of the Cramp-fish, 505. Organs described, 507. Eledone moschatns, its habits, 454. Encrinites, or Stone-lilies, 272. Encrinus liliformis, 273. Enderby’s Land, 48. Equinoctial currents, 34. Eschara, 310. Esocidas, 559. Euglenia viridis, 103. European pentacrinus, 275. Euryalina, 281. Evaporation, 19. Its effects on the sea, 19. Exoccetus exiliens, 561. Expanding Coral, 137. Experiments on the Physalia, 252. Exuberance of life in the ocean, 65. Fabularia descolithes, 87. Falkland Islands, 168. Fan Gorgon, magnified, 124. Faujasina, 83. File-fish (Balistes), 524. First Oyster-eater, 330. Fishes, their organization, 493. Loco- motive apparatus, 494. Swimming bladder, 494. Breathing apparatus, 495. Sight, 496. Propagation, 498. Classification, 498. Fishes’ eye, 496. ■ teeth, 497. Fishing for Coral, 140. Electrical Eels with horses, 531. Fishing for Halibut, 543. Sponges, 115. Flabelium pavoninum, 155. Flaming Nautilus, 472. Flat fishes, their organization, 538. Spe- cial properties, 538. Flight of the Flying-fish, 562. Flounders (Platessa flessus), 541. Flustra foliacea, 310. Flux of the waves, 41. Flying-fish, 559, 561. Flying Gurnard, 583. Fog-banks, 30. Foraminifera, 78. Franklin’s discoveries, 51. Fringing reefs, 175, 176. Frog-fish (Lophius), 593. Fungia agariciformis, 160. ecliinata, 159. Fusus proboscidiferus, F. pagodus, and F. colus, 433. Gadidm, 544. Galeolaria aurantiaca, 246. Gathering of the waters, 13. Generation of Star-fishes, 269. Geographical distribution of Oysters, 329. Gigantic Cephalopod stranded ou the coast of Jutland, 458. Globe-fish (Orthagoniscus mola), 522. Gorgonia flabelium, 123. verticellata, 125. Gorgonida5, 123. Gosse’s description of the Sea-urchin, 284. Great barrier reef, 23. Gulf of Mexico, 11. Gulf Stream, 34. Gurnards (Trigla), 582. Gymnotus, its electrical properties, 530. Effect of its shock, 532. Haddock (Morrhua mglefinus), 551. Halibut, 543. Hammerhead (Zygoma malleus,) 513, 514. Hammerhead mollusc, 352. Harpa imperialis, and H. articularis, 430. ventricosa, 429. Harpooning Holothuria, 297. Helix citrina, and H. Stuartia, 400. Hermit Crab, 486. Herring, the, 564. Habits, 565. Fish- eries, 567. Scotch fisheries, 568. Dutch fisheries, 568. A night at the herring fishery, 569. Norwegian fisheries, 570. Holothuria lutea, 295. fishery, 297. Humboldt’s researches, 533. Hyalea gibbosa, and H. longirostris, 443. INDEX. 601 Indian Ocean, 4. Industrial occupation on the sea-shore, 67. Inequalities of the sea basin, 11. Infusoria, 89. Their numbers, 89. In the Ganges, 89. Species, 89. In blocks of ice, 90. Reproduction, 95. Infusorial parasites, 97. Isis corollo'idis, 126. Isis hippuris, 127. Jan Mayen’s Island, 48. Kane’s, Dr., discoveries, 29, 53. Kerguelen Island, 48. Kraken, marvellous stories concerning, 457. Labridae, 594. Labrus communis, 594. Labyrinthiform Pharyngeans, 584. Land and water, 3. Legend of the first Mussel-fisher, 364. Sea-urchin, 282. Life in the ocean, 63. Limax rufus, 403. Limpets, 438. Lobsters, 490. Loligo vulgaris, and L. Gahi, 469. Lophias piscatorius, 593. Lophobranchii, 526. Luidia fragillissima, 271. Lump-fish (Cyclopteris), 537. (Raia clavata), 503. Lunar tides, 39. Lymnea stagnalis, 405. Lymneans, 404. Their habits, 404. Or- ganization, 404. Mackerel, 587. Do they migrate, 588. M'Clintock’s discoveries, 52. M'Clure’s discoveries, 52. Madreporidai, 161. Madrepora plantaginea, 164. Madrique, a combination of nets, 586. Maelstrom whirlpool, 46. Malacopterygii, 528. Malleus alba, 352. vulgaris, 352. Mantle in Molluscs, its uses, 321. Marennes Oysters, 342. Masticating apparatus, 290. Mean depth of the sea, 3, 5. Meandrina cerebri formis, 158. Mediterranean Sea, 8. Medusadre, 197, 215. Medway Oyster-beds, 330. Meleagrina margaritifera, 353. Metamorphoses in Infusoria, 98. Microscopic forms of life, 65. Millepora alcicornis, 166. Milne Edwards’ study, 68. Minyadinians, 195. Mitra episcopalis and M. papalis, 424. Mollusco'ida, 305. Organization, 306. Generation, 307. Molluscs, 301. Their characteristics, 317. Monade Lentille, 101. Monodonta Australis, and M. labio, 415. Monsoons, 37. Montfort, Denis de, on the Kraken, 457. Mounts Erebus and Terror, 59. Mullet (Mullus), 580. A Roman luxury, 581. Muraana, 533. ponds, a passion with Roman patricians, 534. Murex scorpio, and M. erinaceus, 431. tenuispina, and M. haustellum, 430. , Muschelkalk rocks, 274. Mussels, 361. Organization of, 362. Habits, 362. Localities, 363. Mussels of Aiguillon Bay, 364 Mussel-piles in Aiguillon Bay, 366. — , with basket work, 367. punt of Aiguillon, 365. Mutilation of Infusoria, 99. Mytilus edulus, 361. Nacre, its composition, 353. Nadir points, 40. Nautilus pompilius, section with animal and without, 471. Nephtys, 147. 002 INDEX. New Caledonia, 176. •Noctiluca miliaris, 88. Non-pulmonary Gasteropoda, 407. Their organization, 407. Nummulites, 80. Nummu litis lenticularis, 83. — Rouaulti, 85. Occulina flabellifonnis, 155. Octopus brevisses, and O. horridus, 454. macropus, 453. vulgaris, 453. Olaiis Magnus on the Kraken, 457. Oldhamia, 64. Oliva erythrostoma, O. porphyria, 0. irisans, and 0. Peruviana, 423. Operculina, 83. Ophiocoma Russei, 280. Ophiurad®, 279. Orbulina universa, 82. Organization of Foraminiferaj, 88. Infusoria, 92. ■ — Sponges, 118. — Star-fishes, 262. Ossei, or Bony fishes, 521. Ostend Oysters, 329. Ostreadaj (the Oyster), 324. Oyster (Ostrea), 324. Its organization, 324. Reproduction, 326. Incubation, 327. Oyster beds of France, 340. beds on Lake Fusaro, 338, 339 claires of Marennes, 342. cultivation, 337. eaters, 332. farms at Whitstable, 344. fishing, 335. of different ages, 329. Oyster packing system, 340. Ovula oviformis, and 0. cornea, 422. volva, 423. Pacific Ocean, 5. Pagurus Bernhardus, 486. Palinurus vulgaris, 481. Pallas on Alcyonia, 147. Pandore Oyster beds, 330. I aramccium aurelia and its parasites, 97 Paramecium Bursaria, 104. Parr, or young Salmon, 554. Parry’s discoveries, 49. Patella cairn lea, P. umbella, P. granatina and P. barbata, 439. Patella longicosta, 440. Paulin’s submarine apparatus, 68. Pearl fisheries, 354. Value of, 357. Pearl Oyster, 353. Pecten glaber, 347. Japonica, 349. opercularis, 348. plica, 349. pseudamussium, 347. Pectcnidas, 345. Pelagia noctiluca, 202. Pelagic plants and animals, 66. rivers, 34. Pennatula spinosa, 143. Pennatulidaj, 141. Pentacrinus, 273. caput Medusa), 274. — — Europteus, 276. — fasciculosus, 273. Pectunculatis aureflua, 349. — delessertii, 349. pectiniformis, 350. scriptus, 351. Perforated madrepores, 152. Peyssonnel’s discoveries, 128. Pliallusia grossularia, 313. Pholades, or borers, 380. Pholas crispata, 382. papyracea and P. melanoura, 383. Phosphorescence of the sea, 14. Causes of, 15. Phosphorescent chain of Salpas, 317. Phyllactis pratexta, 194. Physa castanea, 406. Physalia, 246. Its poisonous properties, 250. Physical properties of water, 28. Physophora hydrostatica, 236. Pilchards, 573.. Cornwall “ liuers,” The pilchard fishery, 574. Pina bullata and P. nobilis, 370. INDEX. G03 Pina radis and P. nigrina, 3G9. Pinnoctopus corolliformis, 456. Pintadine pearls, 353. Pipe-fish (Syngnathus), 52G. Pipe-fishes (Fistularia), 595. Plaice (Platessa vulgaris), 541. Planorbis corneus, 405. Pleuronectidse, 538. Phunatella cristallina, 308. Polar seas, 47. Expeditions to, 47. Polype and branch, 133. Polypidum, 146. Polypier and Polypi defined, 107. Polypifera, 107. Polypiferous crust in Gorgons, 151. Pomotouan Archipelago, 171. Porcelain shells, 418. Porites, 164. astroides, 149. furcata, 165. Porpila pacifica, 235. Porpitse, 234. Portion of the disk of Physophora hydro- statica, 238. Portumnus variegatus, 482. Poulpe : Marvellous stories of the ancients concerning, 457. Mandibles preserved in the College of Surgeons, 458. Praya diphys, 245. Primitive generation, 98. Principal forms of Anodonta, 370. Principal species of Sea-anemones, 189. Propagation of Infusoria, 96. of Sea-urchins, 292. Protozoa, 74. Leuwnhoek’s discoveries, 74. Pteroceras, their origin, 436. chiragra and P. lam bis, 437. scorpio, and P. millepeda, 436. Pteropoda, 441. The organization, wings, or flappers, 441. Pulmonary Gasteropoda, 393, 404. Pupa uva, 401. Pure water, 17. Purpura, its reputation with the ancients, 427. Purpura lapillus and patula, 428. Jyrosoma, 314. Raiadae, 501. Rarefaction in Polar seas, 62. Rataria, 234. Ravages of the Teredo, 385. Ray-fish, 504. Recuperative powers of Holothuria, 295. Red Sea Corals, 177. Reflux of tides, 41. Reign of law, 64. Rhizopods, 75. Rhizostoma Aldrovandi, 223. Cuvieri, 222. Rock covered with young Coral Polypes, 137. Roman indifference to life, 534. Rose aurelia, 227. Ross’s (Sir James) discoveries, 50, 51, 58. Rotation of the earth, 40. Rotella Zealandica, 412. Rudimentary forms of life, 64. Rugous madrepores, 150. Sagartia vidua ta, 191. Salmonidaj, 553. Salmon leaps, 557. Falls of Kilmorack, 557. Anecdote of Lord Lovat, 558. Salpa maxima, 316. Saltness of the sea, 18. Its source, 25. Salt water at tho Poles, 21. At the Equator, 21. Salt-water lakes, 18. Sarcoda, 92. Sargasso Sea, 35. Saw-fish, 514. Scallop shell, 346. Scombero'ides, 584. Scoresby’s account of the Polar seas, 60. Scottish pearls, 372. Scylla and Charybdis, 46. Sea Anemone, 184. Organization, 185. Toxological properties, 188. Sea Cucumber, 293. Sea Eel (Murama Helena), 533. Sea Eggs, 293. consul, 428. INDEX. 604 Sea Horse (Hippocampus), 527. Sea Lampreys, 499. Sea Level, 12. Sea Mussels, 361. , Sea Nettles, 197. Sea Palm, 274. Sea Pen, 141 — 146. Sea Slug, 402. Sea Snail (Liparis), 536. Sea Stars (Astrea), 157. Sea Urchins, 283. Sea water, its components, 17. Section of a Coral branch, 134. Section of Atlantic Telegraph, 10. Seine Net, 576. Selachians, 501. Sepia (Cuttlefish), 446. Its Suckers, 447, 448. Sepia officinalis, 465. Sepia tuberculosa, and bone of S. offici- nalis, 466. Sertulariad®, 213. Shad, the (Alosa), 572. Shallow water, its temperature, 29. Shark (Carcharius vulgaris), 508. Shark fishing, 510. Shell of the Mollusca, 319. Is it a skeleton ? 320. How built up, 321. Shell of the Strombus, 435. Ship-worm and its ravages, 385. Its organization, 386. Reproduction, 387. Its boring hood, 389. Siderolites calcitrapoides, 86. Silver in the sea, 24. Siphonophora, 230. Skeleton Echinus, 290. Skeleton of the Perch, 494. Srnolt, 555. Snails: Form and characteristics, 394. Their organization, 395. Breathing, 395. Circulation, 395. Sight, 396. Reproduction, 396. Shell, 396. Their reputation with the Classics, 397. Solarium perspecticum, and S. variega- ■ turn, 413. Solar-lunar tides, 41. Soles (Solea vulgaris), 539. Sophonophora, 200. Spearing Halibut, 543. Spey Salmon, 558. Spherical form of the Earth, 12. Spiroloculina, 84. Spondylus, various, 350. Spongia, half natural size, 112. Spongia, 109. Their generation, 110. Organization, 111. Localities, 111 "Varieties of, 117. Spontaneous division of Infusoria, 96. Spontaneous generation, 97. Squalid®, 508. Stai-fishes, 157, 262. Their metamor- phoses, 269. Dismemberment, 270. Suicidal propensities, 270. Star-fishes and Oysters, 268. Stentor Miilleri, 106. Stinging apparatus of Physophora hydro- statics, 240. Stinging tentacles of Physalia, 249. Stomach of Infusoria, 94. Stomia bea, 560. Strombus gigas, shell and animal, 434. Stone lilies, 278. Stormouthfield fish-ponds, 555. Straits of Gibraltar, 38. Sturgeon (Acipenser sturio), 517. fishing in the Volga, 518. Sturiona, 515. Sty las ter fiabelliformis, 156. Sub-branchiata, 536. Submarine currents, 37. Subsidence, theory of Coral islands, 180. Suckers of Star-fishes, 266. Suicidal tendency of Star-fishes, 271. Swimming bladder, 494. Sword-fish (Xiphias), 590. Warlike habits, 591. Fishing, 592. Symphynota, 355. Synapta duvernea, 301. Succinea putris, 401. Tabulate madrepores, 165. Teeth of the Bream, 497. Carp, 497. Gold-fish. 497. INDEX. 605 Teeth of the Trout, 497 . Tellina radiata, 377. sulphurea, and T. donacina, 378. virgata, 377. Temperature of the sea, 26. Tentacles of Molluscs, 304. Tentaculiferous Cephalopoda, 470. Their suckers (Acetabula), 470. Teredo navalis, its ravages, 385, 386. Testacella lialiotidea, 403. Textilaria, 83. Thalassianthidffi, 193. Thames Oyster beds, 330. Thermal lines of sea temperature, 27. Tbynnus pelamys (the Bonito), 584, 590. Tidal wave, 41. Its height in different seas, 42. Of the Atlantic, 29. Tides, 39. Torpedo marmorata, 504. Trachinus communis, 579. Trade-winds, their origin, 33. Trembley's discoveries, 109. Tridacna gigas, 372. . squamosa, 373. Triton variegatum, T. lotorium, and T. anus, 431. Trochus agglutinans, T. stellaris, 412. inermis, T. Cookii, T. imbricatus, and T. agglutinans, 411. Trochus niloticus, and T. virgatus, 410. Tuhelaridm, 228. Tubipora musica, 122. Tubiporinfe, 122. Tubulous madrepores, 152. Tunicata, 311. Tunny fish (Thynnus), 584. fishing, 585. net, 586. Turbinolia, 152. Turbo imperialis, 414. margaritaceus and T. argyrostomus, 413. Turbo undulatus, 414. Turbot (Rhombus), 539. Ultima Thule, 47. Umbellularia Greenlandica, 145. Unio littoralis, and U. pictorum, 371. Uranoscopus vulgaris, 580. Uses of salt in the sea, 29. Vastness of the oceanic fields of observa- tion, 67. Vegetable life, 67. Venus verrucosa, 378. Veretillum cynomorium, 146. Vetrina fasciata, 402. Vibracule in molluscs, 304. Vibrion baguette, 100. Vilelladm, 231. limbosa, 231. Virgularia, 144. mirabilis, 145. Volvox globator, 102. Walsh’s, Dr., experiments with the Tor- pedo, 506. Water, 3. Watering-pot, the, 389. Water-lilies, 308. Waves off Cape Horn, 45. Weddell’s discoveries, 48, 55. Weevers (Trachinus), 579, 580. Weight of the waters of the sea, 13. of equatorial waters, 32. Whence comes the salt of the sea ? 25. Whirlpools, 46. Scylla,46. Chary bdis, 46. White Ray (Raia batis), 502. Whiting (Merlangus vulgaris), 551, 552. Whorled Gorgon, magnified, 126. Wilkes’ expedition, 48, 55. . Willoughby’s discoveries, 47. Winds, 43. Effect on tides, 43. Wrasse (the), Labrus, 594. Young Oysters, 328. Young Polype attached to a rock, 137. Zenith points, 40. Zoantharia, 149, 161. Zoantha thalassanthos, 150. Zoanthus socialis, 195. Zone of Calms, 34. Zoophytes, 71. Its derivation, 72. LONDON: ntlNTI® BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD &TIUF.T AND CHARING CROSS. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. LOUIS FIGUIER. Second Edition. Demy 8vo. With 233 Illustrations. i6r. The World before the Deluge. By Louis Figuier. Corrected from the Fifth French Edition. Second Edition. Revised and Enlarged by H. W. 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