34 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



ere you have done wondering, you hear that all 

 three are congeners of the ugly, shapeless white 

 " dead man's hand," which you may pick up 

 after a storm on any shore. You have a beau- 

 tiful madrepore or brainstone on your mantel- 

 piece, brought home from some Pacific coral-reef. 

 You are to believe that it has no more to do 

 with the beautiful tubular corals among which it 

 was growing, than a bird has with a worm, and 

 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 

 submarine world whereof Spenser sang : — 



" 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 tliosc which won in th' azure sky. 

 For much more eath to tell the stars on high, 



