COLOUR-VARIETIES OF HIPPOLYTE 169 



interval. The <Esop prawn (rig. 29) of our coasts 

 makes this adjustment with the greatest nicety, 

 and for this reason is not so easily seen nor so widely 

 known as the restless edible prawn. Its pigmenta- 

 tion recapitulates the descending colour-scale of the 

 seashore. Green, brown, and red, the notes of the 

 upper shore, of the lower shore, and of deep water are 

 struck by this Hippolyte as we find it on sea-grass, 

 tangle, or ruddy weed. Seated motionless, and almost 

 invisible, it reproduces not only the colour, but also 

 the pattern of its background, and, according as the 

 light is more or less broken up by the bushy or leaf- 

 like form of these sea-forests, so does the colouring 

 of the prawn exhibit marbling or uniformity ; and 

 as there is an infinite variety of colour gradation 

 in this water-foliage, of which green, brown, and 

 red are but the most salient tints, so does the 

 livery of the prawn vary through the whole gamut 

 of the spectrum from red to violet. If a collection 

 of such motley be gathered together and supplied 

 with a choice of varied weeds, each after its coat 

 will select its colour harmony and vanish as if by 

 magic. 



With a renewed sense of the fitness of things the 

 eyes and the mind of the observer rest contented 

 upon this sympathy of colour between animals and 

 their surroundings. Such orderliness has a special 

 power to arrest the attention. The policy of bees or 

 the flight of birds is scarcely a more finished perform- 

 ance. But the spectacle of such harmony has not 



