A year at the shore

The entire surface of this translucent and almost colourless body is studded with minute specks of rust-red, and with still smaller ones of opaque pale yellow, which are visible...

It is one of our showy shells. This specimen before us has for its ground colour a chaste, cool grey, occasionally varied with tints of reddish buff, but most conspicuously ador...

They are entertaining inmates of an aquarium; they play slowly up and down in the corners of the tank, exploring every angle and cranny, hanging in every possible attitude, espe...

[12] Quin died in 1766. Montagu, in 1803, says of this Pecten, that “it is known by the name of Frills or Queens,” with no allusion to the actor. The term “frill” obviously refe...

Let us then scramble down to the beautiful Anstey’s Cove, along the steep path tangled with briers and ferns; where the swelling buds of the hawthorn and honeysuckle are already...

A close ally of this form is a pretty shell which we often obtain by dredging, called the Cup-and-Saucer Limpet. It is a pretty little white porcellaneous cone, with a curved pl...

These details convey but a feeble and imperfect notion of the numerous and elaborate contrivances which are so profusely bestowed upon these mean and grovelling worms; but they...

Attached to the thin crumpled leaf of an Ulva in this pool is an animal, having much of the texture, and somewhat of the form, of an Anemone. Formerly, indeed, it was associated...

The action of the heart in these transparent creatures is equally visible. Below the muslin curtain with its living chambers, down at the very bottom of the body-cavity, there i...

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 armo...

It is the Lesser Weever;[58] a name corrupted from the French, who call it Vive, from the length of time which the fish will _live_ out of its native element. It also bears the...

The protrusion of the fore parts, which takes place in a much more leisurely manner, is performed by quite another set of instruments, formed on a totally different principle. T...

All this time the tentacles have been set around the terminal margin, but now these are absorbed, and a new set rapidly spring from the basal segment. The saucers become very lo...

Perhaps you may be more interested in the development of the Dog-winkle. Under the ledges of rocks we find in abundance groups of little yellow bodies, resembling ninepins in sh...

As the animal glides over the surface of the smooth weed, or over the inequalities of the rough rock, we see that its thin papery margin is frequently thrown up into waves, or f...

Who, on looking at these two creatures side by side,--the Sea-Urchin and the Encrinite,--would imagine that they possessed any close natural relationship, or would suspect that...

Most formidable are the powers which reside in the long tentacles. Each of these is an excessively slender ribbon of contractile substance, connected at its base with a transluc...

The little specimens before us appear to belong to _Ebalia Bryerii_. It is porcellaneous white, tinged with pale scarlet. The little feet are painted scarlet on a white ground,...

Advance of Waves upon a Beach--Foam--Shingle Voices--Climbing the Cliff--Look-out--Assault of the Sea--Defeat--Gulls--Descent--Cavernous Recess--Rock-pool--Purple-spotted Top--I...

Now we notice another peculiar form:[165] creeping, worm-like masses of orange-yellow or buff hue, soft and spongy in texture, which throw up one or more free, erect processes,...