2 JELLY-FISH, STAR-FISH, AND SEA-URCHINS. 



in tlieir search are most Lkely to approach the keen 

 happiness of cliiklhood ? 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 gleam- 

 ino- 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. 



It is with these two kinds of creatures that the 

 present work is concerned, and if it seems almost 

 impious to lay the " forced fingers rude " of science 

 upon living things of such exquisite beauty, let it 

 be remembered that our human nature is not so 

 much out of joint that the rational desire to know 

 is incompatible with the emotional impulse to 

 admire. Speaking for myself, I can testify that my 

 admiration of the extreme beauty of these animals 

 has been greatly enhanced —or rather I should say 

 that this extreme beauty has been, so to speak,- 

 revealed — by the continuous and close observation 

 which many of my experiments required : both 

 with the unassisted eye and with the mici'oscope 

 numberless points of detail, unnoticed before, became 

 familiar to the mind; the forms as a whole were 

 impressed upon the memory; and, by constantly 

 watching their movements and changes of appear- 

 ance, I have grown, like an artist studying a face 

 or a landscape, to appreciate a fulness of beauty, the 

 esse of which is only rendered possible by the pc9' 

 ci'pi of such attention as is demanded by scientiiic 



