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164
Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore
·
Charles Kingsley
75
[Picture:
Plate
4:
Synapta
Digitata
etc.]
Colonel
Montagu
found
them
here
some
forty
years
ago;
and
after
him,
Mr.
Alder,
in
1845.
I
found
hundreds
of
them,
but
only
once,
in
1854
after
a
heavy
south-eastern
gale,
washed
up
among
the
great
Lutrariæ
in
a
cove
near
Goodrington;
but
all
my
dredging
outside
failed
to
procure
a
specimen—
Mr.
Alder,
however,
and
Mr.
Cocks
(who
find
everything,
and
will
at
last
certainly
catch
Midgard,
the
great
sea-serpent,
as
Thor
did,
by
baiting
for
him
with
a
bull’s
head),
have
dredged
them
in
great
numbers;
the
former,
at
Helford
in
Cornwall,
the
latter
on
the
west
coast
of
Scotland.
It
seems,
however,
to
be
a
southern
monster,
probably
a
remnant,
like
the
great
cockle,
of
the
Mediterranean
fauna;
for
Mr.
MacAndrew
finds
them
plentifully
in
Vigo
Bay,
and
J.
Müller
in
the
Adriatic,
off
Trieste.
But
what
is
it
like?
Conceive
a
very
fat
short
earth-worm;
not
ringed,
though,
like
the
earth-worm,
but
smooth
and
glossy,
dappled
with
darker
spots,
especially
on
one
side,
which
may
be
the
upper
one.
Put
round
its
mouth
twelve
little
arms,
on
each
a
hand
with
four
ragged
fingers,
and
on
the
back
of
the
hand
a
stump
of
a
thumb,
and
you
have
Synapta
Digitata
(Plates
IV.
and
V.,
from
my
drawings
of
the
live
animal).
These
hands
it
puts
down
to
its
mouth,
generally
in
alternate
pairs,
but
how
it
obtains
its
food
by
them
is
yet
a
mystery,
for
its
intestines
are
filled,
like
an
earth-worm’s,
with
the
mud
in
which
it
lives,
and
from
which
it
probably
extracts
(as
does
the
earth-worm)
all
organic
matters.
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