the seamen active and experienced, though the waves roll mountain high, and the wind blow in heavier and heavier gusts, yet the storm may be weathered, and the port be won. If knowledge, and experience, and coolness be wanting; if ignorance preside at the helm; if stupidity stand sentinel at the prow, another addition may be made to the numbers who have struggled, and sunk, and died in the deep abyss. But for our walk as naturalists, this calm bright day is best, and we shall commence with the point, or rather promontory of rocks which projects into the sea towards the north, and which, with a similar point about half a mile to the left, forms the extremities of a deep bay, the shore of which is composed of a pure white sand. The land, forming the amphitheatre of the bay, rises in undulating hills on each side, while in the centre, a small stream glides down to the sloping shore, and there delivers its scanty stores to the great general reservoir. When we stand on a rock above deep water, or take a sail on a fine summer day, we generally see some animals of the genus Medusa, swimming in the clear sea. In this part of the world they are called falling stars, or seablubbers; their substance is scarcely more very long tentacula or arms, which are kept waving in various directions. Their motion is very beautiful, and is performed by an alternate contraction and dilatation of their concave, domelike body, so that they move back foremost. There are many species, which vary greatly in bulk, some growing to the weight of many pounds, and others being scarcely a line in diameter. In the end of summer I have often observed them to be thrown in considerable numbers on the shores of Belfast Lough, of nearly two feet in diameter. Some species are beautifully marked with a cross or star; some reflect the rays of the sun in a very splendid manner; and many, if not all, are phosphorescent in the dark. The organization of these animals must be inconceivably delicate, and it is wonderful how they can exist at all in so boisterous and uncertain an element. Yet they are very numerous, the sea being often crowded with them as far the eye can see, and to an unknown depth. Perhaps they only come to the surface in calm weather, and at other times. remain deep down, where they may be safe from the agitation of the waves. These medusæ, or sea-blubbers, are mere jellies, and yet they devour fish, and even crabs. How do they escape being torn in pieces by the struggles of these? Delicate and gelatinous as they are, and helpless as they appear to be, they seem to possess a very formidable property, that of paralysing, if not striking dead, their prey by their touch. The medusa has no instrument by which it can wound, yet some species seem to possess a means of destruction even more powerful than that of the serpent. You know how suddenly death is produced by the prussic acid, simply by dropping a little on the tongue of a cat or rabbit. The secretion which covers the tentacular and other parts of the medusa, probably exerts even a more instantaneous effect on the animals it lives on, which seem to be struck dead the moment they come in contact with it. What the nature of this poison is we cannot tell, but in some species it seems to be of a very acrid description, for it is a thing of not very uncommon experience that persons, in bathing, if they come in contact with one of them, will immediately feel as if scourged with nettles, and this is sometimes followed by fever and sickness of several days' duration. On this account they are often called sea-nettles. It is not improbable that many animals which are not furnished with mechanical means of offence or defence are provided with poisonous secretions, on In which their means of existence depend. the common, or green polypus, (the celebrated polype of Trembley), the tentacula or arms are well adapted for seizing its prey; but no sooner does the worm touch the lips of the polypus than it expires, though no wound whatsoever has been made. Fontana supposed the polypus to be possessed of a powerful venom.* Should it happen that some plank or log of wood, which had long floated in the water, some part of a wreck, or a trunk of a tree brought down by a river and carried out to sea, were stranded among the rocks, we might have the satisfaction of finding attached to it several interesting species of shells, especially the barnacle shell. This is a multivalve, that is, it is composed of more than two pieces. It stands upon a fleshy contractile pedicle, and from the opening of the shell a number of very beautiful dark-brown feathered tentacula protrude. The following figure (12) will render any farther description unnecessary. The history of this little shell-fish affords a striking example of the readiness with which errors and absurdities are adopted, if they be at all connected with the marvellous. At one * Adams on the Microscope. Lepas anatifera, barnacle shell; a, the pedicle; b, the shell; period it was an accredited opinion among all classes, as it still is with the vulgar, that the bird called the barnacle was produced from this shell; and on what grounds? simply because the nest of the barnacle was unknown; and the tentacula of the shell-fish bear a resemblance to feathers. But if the shell pro |