38 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



a quadruped is from a fish. You see in some Mus- 

 selburgh dredger's boat the phosphorescent sea-pen 

 (unknown in England), a living feather, of the look 

 and consistency of a cock's comb ; or the still 

 stranger sea-rush {Virgularia mirahilis), a spine a 

 foot long, with hundreds of rosy flowerets arranged 

 in half-rings round it from end to end ; and you 

 are told that these are the congeners of the great 

 stony Venus's fan which hangs in seamen's cottages, 

 brought home from the West Indies. And ere you 

 have done wondering, you hear that all three are 

 congeners of the ugly, shapeless, white " dead man's 

 hand," which you may pick up after a storm on 

 any shore. You have a beautiful madrepore or 

 brain-stone on your mantel-piece, brought home 

 from some Pacific coral-reef You are to believe 

 that it has no more to do with the beautiful tubular 

 corals among which it was growing, than a bird 

 has with a worm ; and that its first cousins are the 

 soft, slimy sea-anemones which you see expanding 

 their living flowers in every rock-pool — bags of sea- 

 water, without a trace of bone or stone. You must 



