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And day after day the creatures will grow more tame, the serpula will not dart back into his case when you approach, nor the pecten close his beautiful shell as your shadow passes over it. Moreover, the habits of the creatures grow more entertaining as you become familiar with them, and even the dull oyster begins at last to show some signs of individual character.
According as it goes further and further in the direction of vision, it gives the simple pigmentary masses of a lower organism, or the rudimentary eye of a Serpula, or the slightly differentiated eye of the Alciope, or the marvelously perfected eye of the bird; but all these organs, unequal as is their complexity, necessarily present an equal coördination.
I could spend the day in showing you my Aquarium; the merry antics of the blithe Minnows; the slow wheeling of the less vivacious Sticklebacks; the beautiful siphon of the Quahaug and the Clam; the starry disk of the Serpula; the snug tent of the Limpet; the lithe proboscis of the busy Buccinum; the erect and rapid march of his little flesh-tinted cousin; the slow Horsefoot, balancing his huge umbrella as he goes; the But I cannot name them all.
As we advance in our practice with the aquarium we may venture to introduce more delicate lodgers. Such are the beautiful family of the Annelidae: the Serpula, in his dirty house; and the Terebella, most ancient of masons, who lays the walls of his home in water-proof cement.
Another worm builds of sand or mud, with a rough casting of fine gravel and shell-grit, a habitation similar in design to that of the serpula, though on a less complete and authoritative model; indeed, it would almost seem that the latter had designed its tenement after the fashion of that of its poor relation that the one made a study in mud which the other reproduced in carbonate of lime.
'I am perverse enough never to like what is the fashion, she said. 'I tried to disgust Fitzjocelyn with his pets on that very ground, said James; 'but their charms were too strong for him. 'Fashion is the very testimony to them, said Louis. 'I think I could convince you. He would perhaps have produced his lovely serpula blossoms, but he was forced to pass on to his aunt and Mrs.
In the serpula they have already become separate. How feeble this attempt is to individuate, is most clearly shown in their mode of generation. Notwithstanding the report of Professor Pallas, it still remains doubtful whether there exists any actual copulation among the polypi. The mere existence of a polypus suffices for its endless multiplication.
Below the marls are seen, at Meup's Bay, more than thirty feet of brackish-water strata, abounding in a species of Serpula, allied to, if not identical with, Serpula coacervites, found in beds of the same age in Hanover. Some of the cypris-bearing shales are strangely contorted and broken up, at the west end of the Isle of Purbeck.
'Take care the serpula don't! as James hurriedly opened the door leading to the stairs disposed of the raw meat on one step and the serpulas on another, and hurled after them the heap of seaweed, all but one trailing festoon of 'Luckie Minnie's lines, which, while his back was turned, Louis by one dexterous motion wreathed round the crown of his straw hat; otherwise never stirring, but washing quietly on, until he rose as little Priscilla opened the door, and stood aside, mutely overawed at the stream of flounced ladies that flowed past, and seemed to fill up the entire room.
It is well known that these animals, when living, are invariably covered with spines supported by rows of tubercles. These last are only seen after the death of the sea-urchin, when the spines have dropped off. The full-grown Serpula, therefore, which now adheres externally, could not have begun to grow till the Micraster had died, and the spines became detached.
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