SEA-GAKDENS. 13 



Actinia spread their treacherous petal-like 

 arms, gorgeous in every variety of exquisite 

 colouring : hufre holuthuria, like brilliantlv- 



O / O / 



painted cucumbers, clung to the dripping rock ; 

 starfish of all sizes and tints chitons in black 

 spiny mail shells of purpura and trochus, and 

 hosts of kindred. Annelides too were peeping 

 from out their cases of stone and horn, their ex- 

 quisite feathery tufts, fishing-lines, and traps 

 wondrously beautiful, but, like the embrace of a 

 siren, fatal in its clasp ; all these creatures, hungry 

 and anxious, awaited the coming tide. Biding 

 his time like the rest in this stronghold was the 

 Keyhole Limpet. 



I had found him at last, and at home, so 

 pounced upon him as a lawful and legitimate 

 prize. Knife and hammer soon severed his 

 close attachment to the rocks ; and turning him 

 up, to take a peep at his powerful ring of muscle 

 and strangely-formed breathing apparatus, I spied 

 a worm evidently very uneasy, about three inches 

 long, brown, and in shape like an ancient dagger- 

 blade. He appeared to me to be wriggling out 

 from betwixt the folds of the foot or the mantle, 

 and apparently most anxious to escape. 



My first impression was, that he was a captive 

 that by some mischance had got imprisoned 



