TUE AVONDERS OF THE SHORE. 79 



hand, that the idea of the Chrj'santhcllum, and 

 its congeners Scolanthus and Chirodota, has been 

 developed downwards into the far lower Actinia, 

 as well as upwards into the higher Holothurians ; 

 just as the idea of a fish was first realized in the 

 liiglicst type of that class, and not, as has been 

 too hastily supposed, in the lowest ; for it is now 

 discovered that the sharks, the earliest of fish, are 

 really higher, not lower, in the scale of creation, 

 than those salmons and perches which we from 

 liabit consider the archetypes and lords of the fin- 

 ny tribes. And it is equally possible that all our 

 dream (though right in many another case, as in 

 that of the .shark just quoted) is here altogether 

 wrong, and that these Chrysanthella are merely 

 meant to fill up, for the sake of logical perfection, 

 the space between the rooted Polypes and the 

 free Eciiinoderms. Be this as it may, there is 

 mother, and more human, source of interest 

 il>out this quaint animal who is wriggling him- 

 self clean in the glass jar of f^alt water ; for he 

 is one of the many curiosities which have been 

 adfled to our fauna by that humble hero, Mr. 

 Charles Peach, the self-taught naturalist of Corn- 

 wall, of whom, as we walk on toward the rocks, 

 -omcthing should be said, or rather read ; for 



