Philip Henry Gosse

“ PEARLY NEREIS. RAINBOW LEAF-WORM.
The colours are very beautiful. The leaf-like fins of the sides, which are somewhat heart-shaped, are of a yellowish green hue, occasionally clouded with blackish; the middle portion of the back, which is exposed, is of a rich brown, but flushed with the most glowing iridescence of blue and purple; while the whole under parts are of a pearly flesh-colour. As it crawls over the stones, it throws its body into the most elegant lateral curves, while its suppleness and great length cause it to cling close to the rock ”

“ So, at length, the basin is formed, tiny at first;—I know scores not so big as a slop-bowl, which yet have their furniture of elegant little sea-weeds, green and purple, and their tenants of worms, and shrimps, and polyps;—but destined by-and-by to become noble reservoirs in which man may pleasantly bathe, and in which little fishes play and shoot to and fro, and hide under the umbrageous fronds of the oar-weed and tangle that droop gracefully into the ample cavity. ”

“ But while we are gazing at the beauty of our little Venus, we become cognizant of the presence of another spectator. He has slowly come out from beneath the shadow of that long dark-brown leaf of Laminaria, that floats like a crumpled ribbon across the pool, and now rests on the tuft of Iridæa, that fine scarlet weed of leathery texture, that grows in the shaded corner. It is a Prawn; [51] and a fellow of noble dimensions. Is he too attracted by the fair shell? ”

“ If you could dissect out one of these points, and submit it to careful examination with a good microscope, you would find all the parts essential to an organ of vision; there is a sclerotic coat, a distinct little pupil and iris, a cornea in front, and a dark pigment layer within, with vitreous and aqueous humours, and even a crystalline lens for the condensation of the rays of light. Minute these parts are, to be sure, but not less exquisitely finished for that. Indeed, the more skill they require in the demonstrator, the more they reflect the inimitable skill of the Creator. ”

“ From these seaward edges of the rocks the coarser sea-weeds growing in a thick fringe, when the tide has left them partly exposed, hang their tips in the heaving water; and under this grateful shelter the little Corkwings, as well as other small fishes, their companions, delight to disport themselves, finding copious food in the purple obscurity, and getting many a peep through the latticed leaves at their idler fellows in gamesome play without. ”

“ The iron lip of the drag, however, scrapes up with its edge the upper inch of sand-bottom, routs out the poor shrimps, which dart upwards, to find themselves within the mouth of the ever-advancing net. The agency in the burrowing is the false feet, which, waved rapidly to and fro, brush up the fine sand with the currents that they make in the water, and throw it up in those clouds on each side, presently to fall again on the body, and help to conceal it. ”

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

“ It requires some zeal in the pursuit of scientific lore to leave the glowing fire and the pleasant book, the luxurious arm-chair and the elastic carpet, and to venture down to the wild sea-beach, to poke and peer among the desolate rocks. Yet even now we may find a few bright days, when Nature abroad looks inviting, and when an hour’s marine research will prove neither unpleasant nor unsuccessful. ”

“ Now in the phial of water, how elegant it is! Its body is long and slender, tapering away to an almost imperceptible point behind, of a clear translucent white. The head forms two long smooth taper tentacles, which wave hither and thither as the creature gracefully glides along; and besides these it has two other tentacles, distinguished as the dorsal pair, resembling, in their position and in their structure, those of the Doris and Triope, but not sheathed.
The chief glory of this exquisite animal, however, is in its breathing organs. ”

“ Ugly, uncouth, bemired, the valves not nearly containing the shapeless flesh, they are not particularly attractive creatures, maugre the brilliant hue of their blushing siphons. Like Mrs. Merrifield’s Pholas, these Saxicavæ habitually break into one another’s houses, as we see here, and even cut one another’s shells and bodies through and through most ruthlessly. They will live very well out of the rock, and may be kept a considerable time in the aquarium. ”

“ And then we open the expanse of shore and sea, and the wheels of the carriage are suddenly six inches deep in the soft sand. How brightly the wide silver sea is glancing and sparkling under the climbing sun! Scarcely a breeze breaks its mirrory face, though far out in the offing lines and bands of deep blue show that there are intermitting puffs ruffling the water ”

“ He is being ‘played’ with such a fishing-rod as the skill of a Wilson or a Stoddart never could invent; a living line, with elasticity beyond that of the most delicate fly-rod, which follows every lunge, shortening and lengthening, slipping and twining round every piece of gravel and stem of sea-weed, with a tiring drag such as no Highland wrist or step could ever bring to bear on salmon or trout. ”

“ An elegant creature is the common prawn, or rock-shrimp, as the fishermen designate him, by way of distinction from another sapid crustacean that inhabits these shores. His armour of proof, composed of plates that slide so smoothly one under another, sustains the most lustrous polish, and is ever subject to the animal’s efforts to keep it so; for, whenever he has a moment’s leisure from more pressing avocations, he is constantly engaged in cleaning it with the brushes which those slender fore-limbs of his carry. ”

“ When gently exploring, he crawls among the weeds on the tips of his long feet; when swimming at ease, he glides gracefully along by the rapid paddling of the false feet, of which he carries five pairs beneath his abdomen. But when alarmed, he forcibly throws forward this plated tail, expanded to the utmost, bending the last joints of the body from the hump on his back, and thus strikes a powerful forward blow on the water, by the impact of which the whole prawn is jerked backward to a distance of several inches. ”

“ Every atom of meat that you drop into the water within his range of vision must be his: you perhaps intended the morsel for the Goby or the Blenny, but Proach sees it, and Proach must have it. They indeed may sail up towards the speck, but Proach dashes up, bristling with indignation at their temerity, and snaps the food from before their very noses. ”

“ If you put into a basin of sea-water one of the pretty kind [89] which we find so abundantly under stones at low water,—whose green spines are tipped with rosy purple, like the tentacles of an Anthea,—you will presently observe it marching majestically along by means of the hundreds of sucker-feet, which it possesses in common with the Star-fish. Now, if you have in your cabinet the empty box of an Urchin of this same kind, and taking it in your hand, hold it up to the light, and look into the cavity from the under or mouth side, you will have a very interesting spectacle. ”

“ When the ship ploughing through the tropical sea, turns luminous furrows on each side of her prow, and leaves a long wake of curdling light astern, or when the steamer dashes the water of our own estuaries into cascades of fire and showers of coruscating sparks, it is doubtless to the microscopic Infusoria, Annelida, and Entomostraca, that we are mainly indebted for the charming spectacle. ”

“ Then the cliff-line rapidly diminishes in height as it recedes, and the heads of Dawlish project, and we see no more till at Exmouth the land trends to the eastward, and from its white terraces faintly seen in the slanting sun now, but to stand out full and clear in the afternoon, we follow the bold, varying, beauteous coast, beauteous in its outline, but dim in its detail, for some twenty miles farther, till the straining eye finally fails to discern it somewhere between Lyme and Bridport ”

“ The eyes are exquisitely beautiful, and as they are prominent, very movable, and especially as they are moved quite independently of each other, they at once attract and fix the admiration of the beholder. The large pupil is of a deep lustrous green, the iris of the most brilliant orange gold, and the whole set as it were in the midst of a globe of the purest glass. On the whole I scarcely know of a more attractive little fish than this. ”

“ TOP-SHELL.
At the very first glance into this little rock-hollow, all fringed with crimson and purple weed, lined with scales of lilac coralline, and partly shadowed by the olive fronds of the leathery tangle, we discern many forms of animal life. Here, for instance, is a fine hand [Pg 7] some shelled mollusk, the Purple-spotted Top. [1] Before we take him up, let us notice for a moment with what an easy even movement he glides along over the leaves of the sea-weed, now over the stony projections of the pool, now on the broad weeds again. ”

“ All round the curving sides of the sea-washed basin, crowding one upon the other beneath the projecting angles, or seated in single majesty on some prominence, we see them flaunting the most gorgeous colours, and attaining a diameter of expanse that no other, at least of our common forms, can rival or approach. The wide but low column, rough with [Pg 82] coarse warts, may be olive, or deep green, or purple-crimson, or light green splashed and streaked with scarlet like an apple; the disk is equally varied, but generally displays diverging bands of rich red which fork and embrace the tentacles ”

“ In the unbounded freedom of their native sea, and in the limited dimensions of a glass vase, they are alike sprightly. By rapid pump-like contractions of their nectocalyx, they dart through the water, and shoot round and round, almost with the force and swiftness of a swimming fish. The summit of the bell always goes foremost, whether the direction of the movement be vertical, horizontal, or, as is most commonly the case, oblique; and the tentacles, and the long white polypite, drag behind in trailing lines. ”

“ If we could roam at pleasure over the bottom of the sea, with the privilege of using all our senses as effectually and as comfortably as in the air, we should doubtless see some wonderful things. We might not, indeed, find all the useful and ornamental articles that drowning Clarence saw in his dream, but doubtless we might substitute for them things that he never dreamed of, things that the eye of man was not as yet cultivated to see. ”

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

“ What a wonderful piece of mechanism is a Sea-Urchin! Accustomed as I am to the multitudinous contrivances and compensations that present themselves at every turn to the philosophic naturalist, often as surprising and unexpected as they are beautifully effective, I am yet struck with admiration at the structure of an Echinus whenever I examine it anew. ”

“ The Trochus gnaws or rather rasps away the tender growth of marine vegetation, or the fronds of the grown Algæ, with its remarkable palate-ribbon, all studded with reversed points, of which I may find another opportunity to speak. The Dog-whelk, on the other hand, acts the part of a cannibal ogre, feeding on his simpler brethren of the bivalve shells; storming their stony castles, in which they seem so secure, by open violence. ”

“ However, you at last contrive to raise the slippery subject, and commit it safe to your tank at home, in which it will live an indefinite while; often invisible for weeks at a time, lying concealed under some of the stones, then seen perhaps in every corner of your aquarium at once, stretching from one stone to another, and coiling around every groin and projection, folded back upon itself, until in the multitude of convolutions you despair of finding head, tail, or any end at all to the uncouth vermin. ”

“ HERMIT-CRAB AND CLOAKLET.
Every one is familiar with that impudent and intrusive species of Hermit-crab, [119] which, with its foxy-brown head and legs protruding, rolls over shells and pebbles with rattling patter, on almost every beach. The species I speak of is quite distinct from that homely and amusing subject. Though attaining a size fully equal, its proportions are much slenderer and more elegant; and the colours,—a light fawn, set off with soft tints of azure, lilac, and scarlet,—are far more beautiful than those of its fellow ”

“ In an aquarium the little worms protrude their breathing fans very constantly, and are pretty, though not conspicuous objects, being varied with bright blue, grey, and white. Pretty as they are, however, the collector wishes them further a hundred times during his collecting, for, in such an expedition as this, he is fortunate indeed if he come home without half of his fingers gashed with deep incisions, smarting from the sea-water, and all the slower to heal from the skin of the finger-tips being worn to thinness in handling the stones. ”

“ In either of these, placed in a stage-trough of sea-water, we can watch at leisure the performance of the various vital functions in healthy action, with the knowledge that the little subject has not been martyred to science, but is all the while enjoying its humble life with perhaps as much zest as if it were still environed by the rough walls of its little native basin of rock. ”