150 CRAB-LARV^. 



animals I brought home, and placed in a vase, where 

 they afforded me some entertainment. 



These little creatures were about one-fifth of an 

 inch in length ; they had assumed much of the form 

 of a Crab, but the abdomen projected like a long 

 slender tail behind, and was armed at the tip with 

 fine radiating pencils of hairs. The eyes, which were 

 very large, projected on each side, being set on thick 

 footstalks ; and as they were of a brilliant green hue, 

 and very lustrous, they formed a conspicuous feature 

 of the little animals. They manifested a sensibility 

 to light correspondent to this development of the eyes. 

 At night they congregated on that side of their glass 

 prison which was next the candle ; and when I trans- 

 ferred the light to the opposite side, they immediately 

 scuttled across, and crowded up as close to it as pos- 

 sible. They would follow the candle round and round 

 the glass, shifting as it shifted, and stopping when it 

 stopped. They were very nimble in swimming, 

 generally keeping near the surface ; but died off very 

 fast : though the vessel was proportionally large, a 

 few only out of some scores survived the first night. 

 One or two, however, underwent the change into the 

 Crab-form, which I was able to recognise as belonging 

 to the genus Portu7ius, 



I took an interesting fish in a somewhat unusual 

 manner. Before the infant breeze had yet broken up 

 the glassy surface of the sea, a small object was seen 

 floating ahead, towards which we pulled. It proved 

 to be a fine specimen of the Sordid Dragonet ( Calli- 

 onymus dracunculus) ; a fish which does not usually 

 come to the smface, much less float there. It seemed 



