86 GLAUCUS; OR, 
them, probably, specimens of the new-old Crinoids, 
discovered of late years by Professor Sars, Mr. Gwyn 
Jeffreys, Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Wyville Thomson, and 
the other deep-sea disciples of the mythic Glaucus, 
the fisherman, who, enamoured of the wonders of 
the sea, plunged into the blue abyss once and for 
all, and became himself “the blue old man of 
the sea.” 
Next look at the corals, and Gorgonias, and all 
the sea-fern tribe of branching polypidoms, and 
last, but not least, at the glass sponges; first at the 
Euplectella, or Venus’s flower-basket, which lives 
embedded in the mud of the seas of the Philippines, 
supported by a glass frill “standing up round it 
like an Elizabethan ruff.” Twenty years ago there 
was but one specimen in Europe: now you may buy 
one for a pound in any curiosity shop. I advise you 
to do so, and to keep—as I have seen done——under 
a glass case, as-a delight to your eyes, one of 
the most exquisite, both for form and texture, of 
natural objects. 
Then look at the Hyalonemas, or glass-rope 
