2fiO THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



crustaceans are not likely to be extirpated, nor to disappoint 

 the hopes of their gastronomical admirers for many an age to 

 come. 



When we hear of fishes wandering about on the dry land, we 

 cannot wonder that some insects and arachnidans should depart 

 so strangely from the usual habits of their class as to select 

 the sea for their habitation. 



"There is a minute marine spider," says Mr. Gosse, "very 

 common on most parts of the coast, crawling sluggishly upon 

 the smaller sea-weeds, which seems, from its lack of centralisa- 

 tion, to realise our infant ideas of Mr. Nobody ; but zoologist* 

 have designated him as Nymphon gracile. "Widely different 

 from the spiders of terra firma, in which an abdomen some ten 

 times as bulky as all the rest of the animal put together is the 

 most characteristic feature, the belly of our marine friend is re- 

 duced to an atom not so big as a single joint of one of his 

 eight legs ; though his thorax is more considerable, this is little 

 more than the extended line formed by the successive points of 

 union of the said legs. These latter, on the other hand, are 

 long, stout, well-armed, and many-jointed; but, apparently 

 from the lack of the centralising principle, they are moved 

 heavily, sprawled hither and thither, and dragged about like 

 the limbs of an unfortunate who is afflicted with the gout.' f 

 This strange little creature has four eyes gleaming like diamonds, 

 respires by the skin, and its stomach is prolonged into each of 

 its eight legs, which are thus made the seats of digestion. Mr. 

 Nobody and his marine relations, some of which also attach 

 themselves to fishes, form the small group of the Pycnogonida 

 (ttvkvos, frequent; >y6vv, knee) thus named from their many- 

 jointed legs. 



It is a well-known fact that the winds will sometimes waft 

 butterflies to an immense distance from the shore. Thus 

 Acherontia atropos has been found on the Atlantic a thousand 

 miles from the nearest land ; and while Mr. Darwin was in the 

 bay of San Bias, in Patagonia, he saw thousands of butterllies 

 hovering over the sea as far as the eye could reach. These 

 insects, of course, are nothing but stray wanderers on an alien 

 and hostile element; but Leptopus longipes, a species of 



