178 FISHES I HAVE KNOWN 



their own audacity, immediately vanished. There 

 were living madrepores, disc-shaped, and covered 

 with a few short tentacles, whose convolutions, 

 resembling the human brain, give them their 

 popular name of '■ brain-stones.'' 



Strangely shaped crabs crawled along the sandy 

 bottom, and sea-urchins walked with rapidity by 

 means of foot-like spines, or rolled themselves 

 along with a wheel-like motion. They resembled 

 hedgehogs or huge horse-chestnuts, and their spikes, 

 of which they have hundreds, after death fall off, 

 leaving a hard, round shell, something like an egg, 

 covered with stony warts. 



I tried to hoist up some of those at anchor 

 on the rocks within reach, but only cruelly in- 

 jured my fingers with the spines. At last, with 

 a stout gaff I contrived to move and secure a few 

 very large ones as trophies, and for days after- 

 wards the neighbourhood of my state-cabin was 

 studiously avoided, while the inmates of these 

 shells slowly decayed ! 



But there wbls the blue-peter flying on the mail- 

 boat ! A gun was fired to warn everybody that 

 she was about to sail. So I reluctantly tore 

 myself away, thinking that, could only one of these 

 pools be transported, just as it was, to London, 

 and kept fresh, what a fortune the enterprising 

 transplanter would make ! 



