A Year at the Shore

by Philip Henry Gosse

But these are trifles; the fortune of war; amply compensated by the joy of victory, when we succeed in capturing some rare or lovely creature, to be displayed in triumph within the glass walls of a prison. Such an one is this beauty, which is lurking in an angle of the block we have just overturned. It needs a sharp eye to detect it; for we see no beauty yet, nothing but a little lump of whitish jelly, dappled with orange-yellow, not bigger than the half of a split pea, clinging close to the stone. It requires some care to get it up without crushing; the end of a toothpick, or a penknife, or a bit of stick cut to a point, must be inserted under it; thus we lift it, and drop it into the ready phial of clear water. It opens instantly, sprawling even before it reaches the bottom, where it at once begins to crawl, and we detect in our prize the lovely little Triope.[16]

THE TRIOPE.

As it swiftly glides up the glass, we see that it has an oblong body of a pellucid white hue, curiously beset with finger-like appendages. There is a row of some half-dozen or so fringing the front of the head; and down a line on each side of the body, margining the mantle, there is a row of larger ones, and all these are tipped with the richest orange colour. Just behind the frontal points there are two club-shaped organs, which start up out of holes, the sides of which form sheaths for them, into which they can be withdrawn at the will of the animal. These organs carry a number of narrow plates set parallel to each other, diagonally pointing backwards and downwards. Doubtless, this structure is intended to augment the sensitive powers of these curious organs, which are understood to be the tentacles.

Then, in the middle line of the back, but placed a little nearer the tail than the head, there is an orifice, which is the vent; remarkable because the breathing organs are arranged partly around it. There are three tiny leaves cut like the fronds of a fern, which stand up over the orifice, and are endowed with the power of absorbing for the purposes of respiration the oxygen of the air commingled in the water.

But here is an animal which possesses all these peculiarities of structure, displayed on a much larger scale. It is a fine specimen of the Sea Lemon,[17] which we oftener find clinging to the sides of perpendicular rocks, or beneath projecting ledges, than on the undersides of stones. This fellow is two and a half inches long, and an inch and a quarter or more broad; but I have met with individuals much larger than he. Its back is rounded, and its outline generally reminds one of the half of a lemon cut longitudinally. The resemblance is heightened, too, by the round warts with which the whole surface is studded, and by the colour, a yellow more or less pure, often, however, clouded, as in this instance, with purple, by which its beauty is much enhanced.

Plate 4.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
SEA LEMON. CROWNED EOLIS. SPAWN OF BOTH.

The mantle, in this Doris, reaches down to the foot on all sides, and covers the head, and is not furnished with any appendages. The tentacles, which are plated, as in the Triope, pierce through the mantle, and are sheathed; the gill plumes are large and ample feather-like organs, eight in number, forming a complete circle round the orifice, in the manner of a beautiful expanded flower.

As the Doris crawls along, it now and then lifts and puckers the edge of the mantle, and displays its under surface and that of the foot, which are of a rich orange-scarlet hue.