Away! for I wish to explore another scene not less romantic than
this, and which I know by experience to be much more prolific in
strange and beautiful forms of life. Harry shall pull us round yonder
low point, which bears the appellation of Hope’s Nose, calling on
the way to look at some one of the inlets that lie between the long
projecting points at the foot of Black Rock. Here the boat floats over
dense forests of great brown sea-weeds, the _Laminariæ_, which lift
their dark masses, and wave to and fro, with a majestic dignity. Here
is the narrow crumpled blade of the Oarweed, of a rich yellow brown;
and the wavy stem of the Furbelows springing from its hedgehog-like
bladder; but chiefly is the forest composed of vast plants of the
Tangle, whose broad deep-brown fronds of a substance like stout
leather, French-polished, divide into many long straps, slide over
each other, and flap to and fro in the heave of the sea. Yonder we see
on the broadest part of a frond, just before it divides, what seems a
flower, as large as a chrysanthemum, but of the liveliest pea-green
hue, every long petal tipped with rosy pink. Hand over the boat-hook,
and carefully lift the tangle to the surface. Now we have it fully in
view. It is the green variety of the Opelet;[33] so called because
it is scarcely capable of infolding the walls of the body over the
disk and tentacles; these therefore remain habitually _open_, though
the animal is at times much less expanded than at others. We now see
it in its most charming condition; the short fawn-coloured column
inflated, the mouth elevated on a strong cone in the centre of the wide
saucer-shaped disk, and the numerous tentacles arranged in groups,
as if several stems sprang from the same root, long, slender, very
flexible, twisting about like the snaky locks of Medusa’s head, all
of the most delicate light green, with a rich satin lustre, and all
tipped with the richest crimson-lilac or light rose,--a most beautiful
harmony of colours. The animal adheres by a broad base firmly to the
disk of the tangle, and awaits, as it waves hither and thither, the
approach of one of the little fishes that play heedlessly at bo-peep
among the fronds. No sooner does one of them touch the far-stretching
tentacles, than a virulent and penetrating poison shoots through its
frame; its vigour is benumbed in an instant; it ceases to struggle; its
powerful fins strike the water no more; others of the fatal tentacles
enwrap themselves around it, and drag it towards the mouth, already
protruding and expanding in expectation of the morsel; where it is in
a few minutes engulfed, and soon digested in that capacious maw.
[Illustration: