The animal life of our seashore With special reference to the New Jersey coast and the southern shore of Long Island . rd, are theforce. When placed on its back the animal hassome difficulty in at first righting itself, but byarching upward the carapace, at the same time re-ceiving assistance from the tail, it soon recoversitself. The horseshoe crab so closely resembles in ap-pearance and structure the ancient trilobites, whoseremains are so numerously buried in the older rock-deposits of our earth, that there are strong groundsfor concluding that the latter were the true pro-genitors of the m
The animal life of our seashore With special reference to the New Jersey coast and the southern shore of Long Island . rd, are theforce. When placed on its back the animal hassome difficulty in at first righting itself, but byarching upward the carapace, at the same time re-ceiving assistance from the tail, it soon recoversitself. The horseshoe crab so closely resembles in ap-pearance and structure the ancient trilobites, whoseremains are so numerously buried in the older rock-deposits of our earth, that there are strong groundsfor concluding that the latter were the true pro-genitors of the modern race, a conclusion that hasbeen strongly reinforced by the embryolbgical studyof the two types. The young Limulus, in fact, sonearly resembles the young of certain forms oftrilobites as to be barely distinguished from them;at this period the spine is still wanting. Subse-quent moulting of the carapace is preceded by asplitting of the latter along its border, the animaldrawing itself through the opening thus made. This species is found abundantly along the coastfrom Maine to Florida. Where left exposed on 9*. 102 OUR CARCINOLOGICAL FRIENDS. the beach for some time, the gill-sacs are apt tobecome infiltrated with the sand, when their pe-culiar accordion-like disposition becomes thus distended in irregular rolls they are com-monly supposed to represent egg-capsules strungtogether on a ribbon. Before dismissing the sub-ject of spider forms, it maybe well to call attention tothe singular slender (eight-legged) creatures that arefrequently met with on hy-droid colonies and on Sea-spider. -r^ ,i • t sponges. JBrom their dis-tinctive forms, and their habit of living in theoceanic waters, they have been named sea-spiders(Pycnogonoids); but their exact relationship hasnot yet been determined. THE GOOSE BARNACLE, AND BARNACLES IN GENERAL. Of the remarkable traditions which have investedthe life-histories of many of our animals none isperhaps more indicative of a fert
Size: 1605px × 1558px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectmarineanimals, bookye
