LOW LIFE IN THE SEA. 61 



this change took place with our favorite — a fine, large, fawn- 

 colored one, obtained from Newport. When in health- 

 ful expansion it was larger than a good-sized dahlia ; and, 

 although of a subdued neutral tint, yet in form and color 

 we thought our marine flower the superior of its terrestrial 

 rival. 



8. Somewhere we read the lucubration of a philosopher 

 that there was no humor in Nature, but all was serious. 

 The observation struck us as very learned, but very silly. 

 No humor in Nature ? Nonsense ! Come out from your 

 candle-light cogitations unto some real observations in the 

 sunny light of Nature's beaming face, and I can show you 

 humor. A}-, fun, if you will — yes, even practical jokes. A 

 large actinia took a notion to swallow a large scallop, which 

 it had captured. After considerable stretching, it got the 

 bivalve down into its stomach, and in due time the con- 

 tained mollusk was digested. But what about the shell ? 

 Why, this — it could not get it up again ! It was a double 

 disaster — literally as to the scallop, and metaphorically as 

 to the polyp : both were sadly taken in. Actinia now 

 looked very serious — comically so — like one in an evil 

 strait. Perhaps it felt as bad as a hen-pecked subject, for 

 it had got itself around a pecten, and a pecten maximus at 

 that. If a guest at tea should swallow the tea-saucer, mat- 

 ters would look alarming. And this bolted scallop was as 

 big as a saucer. 



9. The effect upon the actinia's looks was ludicrous, 

 since there was a narrow, bulging, equatorial belt, strongly 

 significant of an undue centrifugal force in activity at that 

 place. Get rid of the saucer it could not ; so it seemed, 

 with a saucy air, to have made up its mind to resort to an 

 expediency that should fairly checkmate the strange exi- 

 gency. And tli is expediency was a change of base. In 

 fact, it transformed its old base entirely. Tentacles grew 

 out around it, an oval aperture appeared, and, in a word, 



