32 THE LOBSTER PEAWN. 



habit of this pretty little species is to congregate in 

 some small hollow covered by the tide, usually beneath 

 the shelter of a protecting stone ; so fond is it of 

 companionship, that if you find one you may pretty 

 surely calculate on more. I have taken, one by one, 

 as many as fifteen out of a hollow hardly more than a 

 foot square. It lives long in an Aquarium ; but you 

 will rarely see it except you have occasion to empty 

 the contents, when you will see your Lobster-prawns, 

 as the last drops of water drain off, kicking and skip- 

 ping about from beneath some piece of rock, where 

 they had long been lurking unsuspected. 



In the accompanying Plate, several animals and 

 plants are depicted, which inhabit these ledges. In 

 the foreground, near the middle of the picture, Tro- 

 chus zizipliinus is represented crawling over a large 

 stone. Behind it, on the mass of rock, two specimens 

 of the Smooth Anemone [^Actinia mesemhryanthe- 

 mum) are seen ; both are of the common dark crimson 

 variety, the one being contracted, the other expanded : 

 the latter displays its petal-like tentacles, and the 

 curious azure tubercles that stud the margin. Around 

 the edge of a projecting rock on the right hand is 

 creeping Boris ^ilosa^ a pretty white species of the 

 Nudibranch Mollusca. 



Behind this is a tuft of the elegant Griffithsia 

 setacea ; and a much -cut frond of the delicate Dictyota 

 dichotoma rises from the rear of the Anemones; 

 while, in the left-hand corner of the foreground, is 

 that coarse shaggy plant, the Clado^Tiora arcta. 



