152 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



one, clear the shell on Avliich it grows of every- 

 thing else (you may leave the oyster inside if 

 you "vvill), and watch it expand under water into 

 a furbelowed flower, furred with innumerable 

 delicate tentacula ; * and in the centre, a mouth 

 of the most brilliant orange ; altogether one of 

 the loveliest gems, in the opinion of him who 

 writes, with which it has pleased God to bedeck 

 his lower world. 



But you will want more than these anemones, 

 both for your own amusement and for the 

 health of your tank. Microscopic animals will 

 breed, and will also die ; and you need for them 

 some such scavenger as our poor friend Squinado, 

 to whom you were introduced a few pages back. 

 Turn, then, a few stones which lie piled on each 

 other at extreme low-water mark, and five 

 minutes' search will give you the very animal 

 you want, — a little crab, of a dingy russet above, 

 and on the underside like smooth porcelain. His 

 back is quite flat, and so are his large angular 

 fringed claws, which, when he folds them up, lie 

 in the same plane with his shell, and fit neatly 

 into its edges. Compact little rogue that he is, 

 made especially for sideling in and out of cracks 



* Sec Gosse's Afjuarium, Plate V. p. 192. 



