THE -SVONDERS OF THE SHORE. 149 



pewter spoon. Take care to tear the sucking 



base as little as possible (though a small rent 



they will dam for themselves in a few days, 



easily enough), and drop them into a basket of 



wet sea-weed ; when you get home, turn them 



into a dish full of water and leave them for 



the night, and go to look at them to-morrow. 



What a change ! The dull lumps of jelly have 



taken root and flowered during the night, and 



your dish is filled from side to side with a 



bouquet of chrysanthemums ; each has expanded 



into a hundred-petalled flower, crimson, pink, 



purple, or orange ; touch one, and it shrinks 



together like a sensitive plant, disjilaying at the 



root of the petals a ring of brilliant turquoise 



beads. That is the commonest of all the 



Actiniai {Mesemhnjantheiniim) ; you may have 



him when and where you will : but if you will 



search those rocks somewhat closer, you will 



find even more gorgeous species than him. See 



in that pool some dozen noble ones, in full 



bloom, and rpiitc six inches across, some of them. 



If their cousins whom wo found just now were 



like chrysanthemums, these are like quilled 



dahliius. Tiicir arms are stouter and shorter in 



proportion than tlio,=r- of the last species, but 



