Page:Natural History, Mollusca.djvu/85

 expanded. Near the head there is on each side a large fin or wing, by the motions of which it changes its place. These motions are amusing; and as the little creatures are so abundant, they make the dreary sea quite alive with their gambols as they dance merrily along. In swimming, the Clio brings the tips of its fins almost into contact, first on one side, then on the other. In calm weather they rise to the surface in myriads, for the purpose of breathing; but scarcely have they reached it before they again descend into the deep. Mr. Scoresby kept several of them alive in a glass of sea-water for about a month, when they gradually wasted away and died. The head of one of these little creatures exhibits a most astonishing display of the wisdom of God in creation. Around the mouth are placed six tentacles, each of which is covered with about three thousand red specks, which are seen by the microscope to be transparent cylinders, each containing about twenty little suckers, capable of being thrust out, and adapted for seizing and holding their minute prey.

Thus, therefore, there will be three hundred and sixty thousand of these microscopic suckers upon the head of one Clio: an apparatus for prehension perhaps unequalled in the creation.