THE WONDEES OF THE SHORE. 169 



sweeps, and other workers in disgusting employ- 

 ments, should be rewarded for tlieir self-sacrifice in 

 behalf of the public weal by some peculiar badge of 

 lionour, or laurel crown. Not that his crown, like 

 those of the old Greek games, is a mere useless 

 badge ; on the contrary, his robe of state is composed 

 of his fellow-servants. His whole back is covered 

 with a little grey forest of branching hairs, fine as a 

 spider's web, each branchlet carrying its little pearly 

 ringed club, each club its rose-crowned polype, like 

 (to quote Mr. Gosse's comparison) the unexpanded 

 Imds of the acacia.* 



On that leg grows, amid another copse of the grey 

 polypes, a delicate straws-coloured Sertularia, branch 

 on branch of tiny double combs, each tooth of the 

 comb being a tube containing a living flower; on 

 another leg another Sertularia, coarser, but still 

 beautiful ; and round it again has trained itself, 

 parasitic on the parasite, plant upon plant of glass 

 ivy, bearing crystal bells,-!- each of which, too, pro- 

 trudes its living flower; on another leg is a fresh 



* Coryne liamosa. t Campanularia Integra. 



