76 GLAUCUS; OR, 
food. Note, moreover, that the soldier crab is the 
most hasty and blundering of marine animals, as 
active as a monkey, and as subject to panics as 
a horse; wherefore the poor anemone on his back 
must have a hard life of it; being knocked about 
against rocks and shells, without warning, from 
morn to night and night to morn. Against which 
danger, kind Nature, ever maxima in minimis, has 
provided by fitting him with a stout leather coat, 
which she has given, I believe, to no other of his 
family. 
Next, for the babies’ heads, covered with prickles, 
instead of hair. They are sea-urchins, Amphidotus 
cordatus, which burrow by thousands in the sand. 
These are of that Spatangoid form, which you will 
often find fossil in the chalk, and which shepherd 
boys call snakes’ heads. We shall soon find another 
sort, an Echinus, and have time to talk over these 
most strange (in my eyes) of all living animals. 
There are a hundred more things to be talked of 
here: but we must defer the examination of them 
till our return; for it wants an hour yet of the 
