. Shells and sea-life. secrete the horny material whichtakes the form of a feather. Old polyps may dienear the bottom and new ones grow near the tips. If you watch carefully, you may find several SOME OTHER LITTLE SEA-CREATURES. 153 other forms of these plant-like hydroids. Someyou may find growing on old shells, looking likelittle, stiff, brown grasses an inch or two in are quite long and slender, like threads,and they have numerous branches. But the test for them allis the microscope, whichneed not be more than apocket-lens. All of thetrue hydroids have littlecups on their side
. Shells and sea-life. secrete the horny material whichtakes the form of a feather. Old polyps may dienear the bottom and new ones grow near the tips. If you watch carefully, you may find several SOME OTHER LITTLE SEA-CREATURES. 153 other forms of these plant-like hydroids. Someyou may find growing on old shells, looking likelittle, stiff, brown grasses an inch or two in are quite long and slender, like threads,and they have numerous branches. But the test for them allis the microscope, whichneed not be more than apocket-lens. All of thetrue hydroids have littlecups on their sides, look-ing sometimes like finesaw-teeth. And if you geta live specimen and put itin a dish of sea-water, youmay be able to see the littlepolyps unfold their prettyarms, like the opening of aflower. But they are veryshy, and at the least frightthey draw back into theirsheltering home^ There are very queerstories told us about thesehydroids by men who havecarefully studied their life-history. They seem to be Figure 154 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. closely related to the jelly-fishes, as if one camefrom the other; but just which is the parent andwhich is the child, I will not attempt to say. There are plenty of things left in the sea yet,which are waiting for more careful study. Per-haps some of you will help read the puzzles. Large Corals require warmer water than thatwhich bathes our coast, and so we have no reefsand no coral islands such as those which are sonumerous off the coast of Florida and through-out the tropical parts of the Pacific Ocean. But we have true corals on our coast, most ofthem no larger than a ladys thimble. There isa very pretty red variety which you sometimesfind growing in a rock grotto when the tide is out. It looks like a little lump of red jelly, but whenyou touch it, the animal shrinks down, leaving a lit-tle hard, red, stony case, no bigger, perhaps, than apea. This case is made up of many blades oflimestone set like the spokes of a wheel. If you
Size: 985px × 2536px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectmollusk, bookyear1901
