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Such are the corals; those corallines which are called Polyzoa; those creatures which fabricate the lamp-shells, and are called Brachiopoda; the pearly Nautilus, and all animals allied to it; and all the forms of sea-urchins and star-fishes.
He had inspected two star-fishes which she had found last Fourth-of-July at Monterey and had dried; and had crumpled a withered leaf of bay in his hands and had smelled and nearly sneezed his head off; and had cracked and eaten four walnuts also gathered from her mother's yard and three almonds from the same source, and had stared admiringly at a note-book filled with funny marks which she called shorthand.
There are displayed tiny caves and grottoes of white coral of great delicacy and variety, star-fishes, sea-urchins, growing sponges, sea-fans, and gaudy-colored tropical fishes, including the humming-bird-fish, and others like butterflies with mottled fins and scales, and that little oddity the rainbow-fish.
He expected to find Crustaceans also, more nearly approaching the ancient Trilobites than those now living on the surface of the globe; and among Radiates he looked for the older forms of sea-urchins, star-fishes, and corals. Although the collections brought together on this cruise were rich and interesting, they gave but imperfect answers to these comprehensive questions.
The seaweed floated backward and forward like waving green hair; fruits round as Indian figs hung in whitish clusters on the rocks; pearly flowers shone in the depths of the green waters, and among the mysterious growth star-fishes spread their colored points; sea-urchins formed balls like dark blots covered with spines; the hippocampi, those little "devil's horses," swam restlessly; and flashes of silver and purple, of tails and fins, passed swiftly among whirlpools and bubbles, dashing out of one cave to disappear into the mouth of another unfathomable mystery.
No; though I do not deny that it looks like one. The creature most akin to it which you ever saw is a star-fish. What! one of the red star-fishes which one finds on the beach? Its arms are not branched. No. But there are star-fishes with branched arms still in the sea. You like to look it through for the sake of the vignettes, the mermaid and her child playing in the sea.
We look for Shells, for Mussels and Barnacles, for Crabs, for Shrimps, for Marine Worms, for Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, and we may find here and there a fish stranded on the sand or tangled in the seaweed. The geologist cannot find his way back in the record of the great stone book, to the far-off day when life began.
The light of the beach fires followed her till they too faded, and only the phosphorescence of the sea attended her into the night. Rough and stormy weather followed this fair start, and only two more dredgings were possible before reaching the Strait of Magellan. One was off the Gulf of St. George, where gigantic star-fishes seemed to have their home.
Such are the corals; those corallines which are called Polyzoa; those creatures which fabricate the lamp-shells, and are called Brachiopoda; the pearly Nautilus, and all animals allied to it; and all the forms of sea-urchins and star-fishes.
Sea-urchins are now found in the deposits, and, although their remains are not common, we may conclude that the star-fishes were scattered over the floor of the sea. For the rest we need only observe that progress and rich diversity of forms characterise the other groups of animals. The Corals now form great reefs, and the finer Corals are gaining upon the coarser.
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