Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/225

178 distinctly seen through the transparent integument. Ever and anon the tiny forceps of the hand are employed to seize and pull off any fragment of extraneous matter which clings to the skin too firmly to be removed by brushing; it is plucked off, and thrown away, clear of the body and limbs. The long antennæ and all the other limbs, are cleaned by means of the foot-jaws principally.

There is scarcely any object more familiar to the eye of one accustomed to dredge, or to pore about the water's edge at extreme low tide, than the tubes of stony or shelly substance which are found adhering, in various contortions and aggregations, to almost every stationary object that is habitually submersed. The undersides of every ledge, of every boulder, and almost every pebble, are studded with these twisting, creeping tubes, which seem to contend with the crowding Acorn-barnacles (Balanus) for the possession of every inch of space within their domain. Those that occur within tide-marks are usually of a small species, with the tube strongly carinated, and somewhat three-sided, and the exposed part of the animal banded with blueish-grey. But in deep water they are much finer, and more brilliantly coloured. I believe the former is S. triquetra, the latter S. contortuplicata; but the species of this tribe have yet to be disentangled from the confusion of closet nomenclature. It is of the deep-water species that I would speak; not the rarer solitary kind (S. tubularia), that adheres to the stone or shell by only a small portion