Jellyfish, Starfish, and Sea-Urchins

by G.J. Romanes

Overview

Among the most beautiful, as well as the most common, of the marine animals which are to be met with upon our coasts are the jelly-fish and the star-fish. Scarcely any one is so devoid of the instincts either of the artist or of the naturalist as not to have watched these animals with blended emotions of the �sthetic and the scientific�feeling the beauty while wondering at the organization. How many of us who live for most of the year in the fog and dust of large towns enjoy with the greater zest our summer's holiday at the seaside? And in the memories of most of us is there not associated with the picture of breaking waves and sea-birds floating indifferently in the blue sky or on the water still more blue, the thoughts of many a ramble among the weedy rocks and living pools, where for the time being we all become naturalists, and where those who least know what they are likely to find in their search are most likely to approach the keen happiness of childhood? If so, the image of the red sea-stars bespangling a mile of shining sand, or decorating the darkness of a thousand grottoes, must be joined with the image, no less vivid, of those crystal globes pulsating with life and gleaming with all the colours of the rainbow, which are perhaps the most strange, and certainly in my estimation the most delicately lovely creatures in the world.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940150735163
Publisher:	Bronson Tweed Publishing
Publication date:	08/19/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

George John Romanes was a Canadian-born English evolutionary biologist and physiologist who laid the foundation of what he called comparative psychology, postulating a similarity of cognitive processes and mechanisms between humans and other animals.

He was the youngest of Charles Darwin's academic friends, and his views on evolution are historically important. He invented the term neo-Darwinism, which is still often used today to indicate an updated form of Darwinism. Romanes' early death was a loss to the cause of evolutionary biology in Britain. Within six years Mendel's work was rediscovered, and a whole new agenda opened up for debate.