For a great while people thought barnacles were not worth much study. They called them “shell fish,” and did not dream what wonders were hidden in their shell-plate cases. At last, when wise men knocked at Mr. Barnacle’s house door, and said, “Come out and tell me your secrets,” they found he was a most interesting little creature.
LESSON XXXVI.
FLOWERS OF THE SEA.
An Ocean Garden.
There are flowers in the sea as well as on the land. Under the waves of the ocean are fields of green sea-grasses and groves of great sea-weeds like trees. Diving-men go down to the sea-bottom and walk about. They often find it hard to move in the tall weeds. The weeds tangle the men’s feet. The divers feel as you would among the brush and vines of a great wood. There are splendid sea-plants of all colors,—red, pink, white, green, brown, purple, yellow, and orange.
The leaves of these sea-plants are of many shapes. They are round or long; they are flat or curly. Some are cut into fine fingers; many are like fringes; they have spots, dots, or knobs upon them that shine like silver and gold.
The sea has also another kind of flowers. These are animals or fishes that look more like lovely flowers than like any other thing. We call them sea-flowers or animal-flowers. We name some of them after dainty little plants that grow in the woods in spring.
The name “flowers” which we give to these is only a pretty fancy. You must know that really they are a kind of animal. It is, then, flower-animals that we shall now study for a few lessons.
You have read of animals made upon a ring pattern; these flower-animals are made upon a star pattern.