LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE POOLS. 



PART L 



The Reverend Albert White, of Sel- 

 borne, often lamented not living near the 

 seashore, that he might note the migra- 

 tions of birds; but he -would doubtless 

 have revelled, as the Rector of Eversley 

 did, in the ''Wonders of the Shore.'' 



When we were children, in the fifties 

 and early sixties, all our books were 

 English ; which was often tantalizing, 

 and never more so than when we wanted 

 advice for our "aquariums." In this case 

 we could but turn to Charles Kingsley's 

 "Glaucus," and half his animals were 

 unknown to us and half ours to him. 

 Hermit crabs, live pets, and some anem- 

 ones formed a common ground ; but 

 our pink doris, for instance, did not 

 answer to Kingsley's description, and so 

 we installed him with pride as a large 

 eolid, until his actions proclaimed his 

 predatory character, and he was turned 

 out. 



But he was merely a relative with the 

 family failings in excess, for the eolids 

 themselves were not without reproach. 

 They would go and perch on an anemone 

 in bloom, nibble its tentacles and injure 

 its appearance very much if not discov- 

 ered and dislodged ; while the tiniest 

 star-fish was equal to a wolf in the fold, 

 settling all over a limpet, for example, 

 drawing him out of his shell and absorb- 

 ing him into his own economy. Even 

 the beautiful smooth crimson star was 

 impossible on this account — a far more 

 aristocratic being than the rough com- 

 mon star, and correspondingly difficult 

 of access, — only to be had at the lowest 

 tides, among outlying reefs calling for a 

 boat. His manners, however, were quite 

 the same. Ah, this heredity ! 



Again, the anemones, — those miracles 

 of expansion and sometimes of rapidity 

 in the exercise of this quality, seemed to 

 possess, like the jelly-fish, the property 

 of paralyzing the unwary minnow who 

 presumed to approach the harmless-look- 

 ing hump of jelly sticking to a rock, with 

 only a faint suggestion of tentacles in 

 the middle. Alas for the minnow ! If 

 the anemone were what we called "sl 

 smart one," it bloomed, swelling to an 



incredible size, running out long and 

 slender or expanding laterally, as suited 

 the occasion, unfolding with deliberation 

 its whole fair panoply of fringed and 

 fluted ruffs, while with relentless method 

 it engulfed the passive minnow and 

 swept him into his doom. 



Against eolid and doris, of like fibre 

 with itself, — soft white creatures with 

 short white antennae and pink or brown 

 tentacles waving on their backs, — the 

 anemone has no redress, being habitually 

 stationed while they are mobilized and 

 lounge about, taking a languid interest 

 in things. Then the minnows, if not dili- 

 gently fed, attack each other, and sel- 

 dom in any case deny themselves a sly 

 nibble at each other's fins for dessert. 

 Naturally the only way to avert frequent 

 catastrophes of the kind is to be as faith- 

 ful as the turning tides in bringing them 

 all food twice in the twenty-four hours. 

 She of the nibbled fins was held to be a 

 careless housewife. 



Once we took in a little sculpin some 

 three inches long. He used to lie 

 goggling in the shadow of the bridge 

 until a minnow swam over his nose, 

 when he made one lunge at him, missed 

 him and then sagged back, tail first, 

 exactly in the line of his lunge, — which 

 explains the family drag at the hook, so 

 solid as to be instantly recognized by the 

 luckless fisher who knows what derision 

 waits on the capture of ''Daddy Corip." 

 "Oh, he has wings !" cried a near-sighted 

 child on the wharf as Daddy came row- 

 ing in on her hook, — much to her dis- 

 pleasure, — for she saw he wasn't hand- 

 some, and she heard he wasn't good. 

 Our small friend disappeared from the 

 tank after a time, and was found stiff 

 on the floor under the music-rack, with 

 a minnow across his jaws. The minnow 

 had broken out in avoiding the rush of 

 the midnight marauder, and the latter, 

 grown reckless, had followed. See what 

 comes of sending a sculpin to bed 

 hungry ! 



The point of smartness in certain 

 anemones was well iflustrated in a tiny 

 three-pint aquarium we set up at one 



101 



