THE PRAWNS. 171 



tail, and whisked himself over the smooth lip of the 

 shell into its tube with a rapid adroitness that was 

 perfectly marvellous. And then in his new contrasted 

 position he looked so funny — such at-hqmeishness 

 there was in it; he was so different from the poor 

 houseless vagabond with a drivelling tail, that one had 

 seen miserably crawling about a moment before : he 

 looked right up in your face and said, as plainly as 

 looks can speak, ' How d'ye do ? here I am, quite at 

 home already.' I never saw it without laughing.' 



THE COMMON PRAWN, AND THE BtJLLHEAD PRAWN. 



The Prawns are particularly pleasing inhabitants of 

 the Aquarium. There is a certain lightness in the 

 slender filiform appendages of the head, which are 

 continually thrown into the most graceful curves, that 

 resembles in character " the hght tracery of ropes and 

 spars" so much admired in a trimly rigged ship. Their 

 bodies are so pellucid that a lady who was this moment 

 looking at the Tank compared them to ghosts, and 

 their smooth gliding movements aid the similitude. 

 The beautiful colours which adorn them I have de- 

 scribed elsewhere, and shall merely here say that the 

 fine contrasts of the black-margined Hnes of paleyeUow 

 with the pellucid grey of the ground, show well as the 

 animals rest on the dark stones. The two species 

 fP. serratus and P. squillaj are so closely alike in 

 their colours and in the distribution of these, that it 

 is only by miaute examination and comparison that 

 we can determine what is characteristic of each. The 

 mostobvious distinction is, that in the former the outer 

 ■tail-plate has a yellow line, the intermediate one no 



