38 GLAUCUS ; OR, 
from some Pacific coral-reef. You are to believe 
that its first cousins are the soft, slimy sea-anemones 
which you see expanding their living flowers in 
every rock-pool—bags of sea-water, without a trace 
of bone or stone. You must believe it; for in 
science, as in higher matters, he who will walk 
surely, must “walk by faith and not by sight.” 
These are but a few of the wonders which the 
classification of marine animals affords; and only 
drawn from one class of them, though almost as 
common among every other family of that sub- 
marine world whereof Spenser sang— 
‘*Oh, what an endless work have I in hand, 
To count the sea’s abundant progeny! 
Whose fruitful seed far passeth those in land, 
And also those which won in th’ azure sky. 
For much more earth to tell the stars on high, 
Albe they endless seem in estimation, 
Than to recount the sea’s posterity ; 
So fertile be the flouds in generation, 
So huge their numbers, and so numberless their nation.” 
But these few examples will be sufficient to 
account both for the slow pace at which the know- 
ledge of sea-animals has progressed, and for the 
