THE NAUTILtJS. 99 



his great brother. Queer topsy turvy molluscs these, lying hinge 

 down, gape up. And yet they have turned round in the shell and 

 live heart up, foot down, like other bivalves. 



" Here's something for you ! " Wading across, the conchologist 

 found four men standing at a respectful distance round one small 

 Octopus. Boldly he grappled with the fearsome beast, twining and 

 untwining the long sticky tendrils. The jib-sheet hand muttered 

 something to the cook, and both exploded with laughter. I fear 

 that irreverent young rascal had remarked how like the Octopus, all 

 legs and arms, was to Mr. Conchologist himself. Now the slippery 

 tiling is gathered up and slid into the bucket. "When packing time 

 came, however, no Octopus could be found ; evidently it climbed out 

 when the gaoler's back was turned. 



Another big coral block, over with it. A scuttle of little crabs, as 

 they clatter down small holes, a shrinking of things soft, a twisting 

 and a writhing of things neither hard nor soft; among them is a par- 

 ticularly energetic bunch. Left alone it unwinds into a huge Brittle 

 star ; casting a couple of cables into the water beneath, the Brittle 

 star lowers itself along itself to the sea, pulls after itself the cords 

 which are itself, and tucks itself, body and ropes and running rigging, 

 comfortably into a crack in the coral. 



This is a land of bijj things. Here is a huge sea anemone, bigger 

 than a dinner plate, Dizcosoma, with all its tentacles spread abroad. 

 A gorgeous little fish, crimson with a white bar, has made friends 

 with the anemone and at the least fright swims to its capacious 

 bosom and nestles safe among the poisonous tentacles. 



And here is the Chinese dainty, the beche de mer, a dozen differ- 

 ent kinds of them. The commonest Holothurian is a long, black, 

 snake-like species. When feeding they sweep all around with their 

 branching tentacles, grasping a miscellaneous catch of foraminifera, 

 shells and sea-weed, and thrust the mass down their throats. An- 

 other beche de mer has earned the name of cotton fish, because when 

 handled it voids a mass of white glutinous threads, troublesome to 

 clean from hands and clothes. 



" Pass the crow-bar and up-end this block. A heave, my hearties, 

 and up she goes !" " A mutton-fish," says the jib-sheet hand, and 

 grabs it. Huliotis asinina; now we always did think that narrow 

 shell could not contain the body, and here it is like Scutus or Um- 

 brella or Lucapina, only a shield upon the back. " And those, toe- 



