hind claws to sea-weed, and waving its gaunt grotesque body to and
fro, while it makes mesmeric passes with its large fore claws, -
one of the most ridiculous of Nature's many ridiculous forms.
Those which you will find will be some quarter of an inch in
length; but in the cold area of the North Atlantic, their cousins,
it is now found, are nearly three inches long, and perch in like
manner, not on sea-weeds, for there are none so deep, but on
branching sponges.

These are but two instances out of many of forms which were
supposed to be peculiar to shallow shores repeating themselves at
vast depths: thus forcing on us strange questions about changes in
the distribution and depth of the ancient seas; and forcing us,
also, to reconsider the old rules by which rocks were distinguished
as deep-sea or shallow-sea deposits according to the fossils found
in them.

As for the new forms, and even more important than them, the
ancient forms, supposed to have been long extinct, and only known
as fossils, till they were lately rediscovered alive in the nether
darkness, - for them you must consult Dr. Wyville Thomson's book,
and the notices of the "Challenger's" dredgings which appear from
time to time in the columns of "Nature;" for want of space forbids
my speaking of them here.

But if you have no time to read "The Depths of the Sea," go at
least to the British Museum, or if you be a northern man, to the
admirable public museum at Liverpool; ask to be shown the deep-sea
forms; and there feast your curiosity and your sense of beauty for
an hour. Look at the Crinoids, or stalked star-fishes, the "Lilies