SEA-GARDENS. 13 
Actinia spread their treacherous petal-like 
arms, gorgeous in every variety of exquisite 
colouring; huge holuthuria, like brilliantly- 
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 
