186 GLAUCUS; OE, 



both for your own amusement, and for the health of 

 your tank. Microscopic animals will breed, and will 

 also die ; and you need for them some such scavenger 

 as our poor friend Squinado, to whom you were 

 introduced a few pages back. Turn, then, a few- 

 stones which lie piled on each other at extreme 

 low-water mark, and five minutes' search will give 

 you the very animal you want, — a little crab, of a 

 dingy russet above, and on the under side like smooth 

 porcelain. His back is quite flat, and so are his 

 large angular fringed claws, which, when he folds 

 them up, lie in the same plane with his shell, and fit 

 neatly into its edges. Compact little rogue that he 

 is, made especially for sideling in and out of cracks 

 and crannies, he carries with him such an apparatus 

 of combs and brushes as Isidor or Floris never 

 dreamed of; with which he sweeps out of the sea- 

 water at every moment shoals of minute animalcules, 

 and sucks them into his tiny mouth. Mr. Gosse will 

 tell you more of this marvel, in his "Aquarium," 

 p. 48. 



Next, your sea-weeds, if they thrive as they ought 



