WONDERS OF THE SHORE 1365 



old Indians who bemoan your livers, this little Holo- 

 thuria knows a secret which, if he could tell it, you 

 would be glad to buy of him for thousands sterling. 

 To him blue pill and muriatic acid are superfluous 

 and travels to Brunnen a waste of time. Happy 

 Holothuria! who possesses really the secret of ever- 

 lasting youth, which ancient fable bestowed on the 

 serpent and the eagle. For when his teeth ache, or 

 his digestive organs trouble him, all he has to do is 

 just to cast up forthwith his entire inside, and faisant 

 maigre for a month or so, grow a fresh set, and then 

 eat away as merrily as ever. His name, if you wish 

 to consult so triumphant a hygeist, is Cucumaria 

 Pentactes. 



Now what are those bright little buds, like sal- 

 mon-colored Banksia roses half-expanded, sitting 

 closely on the stone? Touch them; the soft part is 

 retracted, and the orange flower of flesh transformed 

 into a pale pink flower of stone. That is the Madre- 

 pore (Caryophyllia Smithii) ; one of our south coast 

 varieties: and see, on the lip of the last one, which 

 we have carefully scooped off with the chisel, two 

 little pink towers of stone, delicately striated; drop 

 them into this small bottle of sea-water, and from the 

 top of each tower issues every half second what 

 shall we call it? a hand or a net of finest hairs, 

 clutching at something invisible to our grosser sense. 



"Doubtless you are familiar with the stony skele- 

 ton of our Madrepore, as it appears in museums. It 

 consists of a number of thin calcareous plates stand- 

 ing up edgewise, and arranged in a radiating 

 manner round a low centre. This is but 



