floors of the anemone caves, or crouch as the shadow of my hand
or net falls upon them.

The larger gorgeously coloured and graceful sea-worms contribute not a
small share to the beauty of Fundy tide-pools, swimming in iridescent
waves through the water or waving their Medusa-head of crimson tentacles
at the bottom among the sea-lettuce. These worms form tubes of mud for
themselves, and the rows of hooks on each side of the body enable them to
climb up and down in their dismal homes.

Much of the seaweed from deeper bottoms seems to be covered with a dense
fur, which under a hand lens resolves into beautiful hydroids,--near
relatives of the anemones and corals. Scientists have happily given these
most euphonious names--_Campanularia_, _Obelia_, and _Plumularia_. Among
the branches of certain of these, numbers of round discs or spheres are
visible. These are young medusae or jelly-fish, which grow like bunches of
currants, and later will break off and swim around at pleasure in the
water. Occasionally one is fortunate enough to discover these small
jellies in a pool where they can be photographed as they pulsate back and
forth. When these attain their full size they lay eggs which sink to the
bottom and grow up into the plant-like hydroids. So each generation of
these interesting creatures is entirely unlike that which immediately
precedes or follows it. In other words, a hydroid is exactly like its
grandmother and granddaughter, but as different from its parents and
children in appearance as a plant is from an animal. Even in a fairy-story
book this would be wonderful, but here it is taking place under our very
eyes, as are scores of other transformations and "miracles in miniature"
in this marvellous underworld.

Now let us deliberately pass by all the attractions of the middle zone of
tide-pools and on as far as the lowest level of the water will admit. We
are far out from the shore and many feet below the level of the
barnacle-covered boulders over which we first clambered. Now we may indeed
be prepared for strange sights, for we are on the very borderland of the
vast unknown. The abyss in front of us is like planetary space, unknown to
the feet of man. While we know the latter by scant glimpses through our
telescopes, the former has only been scratched by the hauls of the dredge,
the mark of whose iron shoe is like the tiny track of a snail on the leaf
mould of a vast forest.

The first plunge beneath the icy wat