40 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



raged. But look iiLside my pans and pie-dishes, and if you 

 are not pleased with the beauty of those exquisite animals, 

 and those charming weeds, I set you down as one who 

 judges of books by their binding, not by their contents. 

 Observe, I do not take my stand on these pie-dishes. I 

 should greatly prefer a tank, either of glass or stone ; but 

 one can't improvise a tank at sea-side lodgings, whereas pie- 

 dishes are attainable. 



From the glimpse just given of my before-breakfast 

 occupation, you begin to suspect something of what was 

 meant by the intermediate episodes between the capture and 

 the scalpel ; you see that the mere keeping and watching of 

 these animals will be a source of pleasures unattempted yet 

 in prose or rhyme. One gets interested in anything which 

 solicits attention, and in proportion to the solicitation ; 

 hence our fondness for animals and children. Nay, do but 

 watch a man walking round his garden, pulling oiit this 

 weed, and brushing off that insect, trimming this branch 

 and trailing up that cluster, — see what an incessant jileasure 

 it is to him. Now deepen this pleasure by a scientific 

 interest, which makes every detail of manners, and every 

 newly-observed point of structure, the starting-point for 

 fresh speculation, and you will form a faint idea of what it 

 is to keep pans and vases full of animals. 



You doubtless know the Hermit-crab, by naturali.sts 

 named Pagurus ? Unlike other crabs, who are content to 

 live in their own solid shells, Pagurus lives in the empty 

 shell of some mollusc. He looks fiercely upon the world 

 from out of this apparently inconvenient tub, the Diogenes 



