MORE SPECIMENS. 419 



the crown and body of the worm. I did not well 

 know what to do, but I thought the best thing was to 

 take both out, and endeavour to pull away the tenta- 

 cles of the Anthea one by one. While thus engaged, 

 to my infinite chagrin, the lovely coronet suddenly 

 came off all in a piece from the body, though pulled 

 with the least imaginable force. To use a phrase of 

 the ladies, " I could almost have sat down and cried." 

 I did no such thing, however, but put body and head- 

 dress into another bottle, only, alas ! to note the sad 

 contrast between its now shrunken form, and that 

 which it had assumed when the life was pervading it, 

 spreading its graceful curves, opening and closing the 

 spires, and gently waving every delicate filament. 



It has often occurred to me, — so often that I have 

 wondered at the coincidence,- — that when I have found 

 any thing very rare or curious that I have long vainly 

 desired to see, I meet with others directly afterwards, 

 though in circumstances which have no connexion 

 with the first. It was so with respect to this Sabella. 

 The very next day a man who keeps a little shop for 

 the sale of shells, corals, and other specimens of 

 natural history, took me to the cove at the back of the 

 quay, to shew me " a sort of barnacles" that he had 

 found there. What should these be but a colony of 

 this very Sabella ? When we arrived at the place, 

 there, in a little hollow about as large as a washing- 

 basin, were the tubes of some eight or nine clustered 

 together, and protruding, apparently, from the edges 

 of the laminae of the shale, for there was no visible 

 crevice. 



We emptied the little basin with our hands, and 



