G6 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



pitiless roll of the ground-swell, and drifted in 

 here, sick and sad, but not so far gone but that 

 each, in a jar of salt-water, will expand again into 

 a delicate compound flower, whose "snake-locked" 

 arms are all marbled with pellucid grays and 

 browns, till they look like a living mist, hovering 

 above the pink-striped cylinder of the body. 



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 dead low spring-tide ; and ere we go home, 

 we will spend a few minutes at least on the rocks 

 at Livermead, where awaits us a strong-backed 

 quarryman, with a strong-backed crowbar, as is to 

 be hoped, (for he snapped one right across there 

 yesterday, falling miserably on his back into a 

 pool thereby,) and we will verify Mr. Gosse's 

 observation, that, — 



" When once we have begun to look with curi- 

 osity on the strange things that ordinary people 

 pass over without notice, our wonder is continu- 

 ally excited by the variety of phase, and often by 

 the uncouthness of form, under which some of 

 the meaner creatures are presented to us. And 

 this is very specially the case with the inhabitants 

 of the sea. We can scarcely poke or pry for an 



