THE WONDERS OF THE SHOEE. 93 



are really higher, not lower, in the scale of creation, 

 than those salmons and perches which we from habit 

 consider the archetypes and lords of the finny tribes. 

 And it is equally possible that all onr dream (though 

 right in many another case, as in that of the shark 

 just quoted) is here altogether wrong, and that these 

 Chrysanthella are merely meant to fill up, for the 

 sake of logical perfection, the space between the 

 rooted Pol}^es and the free Echinoderms. Be this as 

 it may, there is another, and more human, source of 

 interest about this quaint animal who is wriggling 

 himself clean in the glass jar of salt water ; for he is 

 one of the many curiosities which have been added 

 to our fauna by that humble hero Mr. Charles Peach, 

 the self-taught naturalist, of whom, as we walk on 

 toward the rocks, something should be said, or rather 

 read ; for Mr. Chambers, in an often-quoted passage 

 from his Edinburgh Journal, which I must have 

 the pleasure of quoting once again, has told the story 

 better than we can tell it : — 



" But who is that little intelligent-looking man 

 in a faded naval uniform, who is so invariably to be 



