It is, at least, a
beast worth talking about; as for finding one, I fear that we have
no chance of such good fortune.
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
Lutrariae 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. M?ller 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.
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