him? Yet he does for the confervæ exactly
what the reaper does for grass and corn, and
with not so very different means. The tongue
of the periwinkle is like a translucent ribbon
with a number of hooks projecting from its
inner surface and arching downward. The
arching tip of each tooth is cut into five toothlets,
and with this ribbon-tongue, which he uses as
an endless band, or watch-spring, our friend
rasps and mows his crop of confervæ, using his
instrument in a highly workmanlike and creditable
manner, and leaving marks on his pastures
just like the marks which a mower leaves from
his scythe. Other rnollusks do the same: we
take the periwinkle as the type of his class, the
differences of management between him and his
compeers being too small for special record.
The eyes of mollusks are as curious as their
tongues, and much more beautiful. The periwinkle
carries his at the end of soft zebra bands,
striped black and white; while the little scallop
bears a row of jewels—rubies, emeralds,
sapphires, diamonds, and opals—at the base of the
waving tentacles which he pushes out from
between his shells. There they are, of all colours,
and bright as the brightest jewels, set on to
loose velvet ends that hang free from between the
shells. The eyes of the scallop are amongst the
most lovely things of all the lovely sea-world.
Snails have bright black eyes at the tips of their
"horns"; and slugs have ears—strange things,
not much like the ordinary ears of man or
donkey. Deeply seated in the soft flesh of the
neck are a pair of transparent globules, or
bladders, filled with a clear fluid, in which
several minute bodies swing about in all directions,
yet never hit the sides of the enclosing capsule.
These are the otolithes, or ear-stones, and are
the means by which the creature hears. When
they burst it is with a certain disengagement of
gas, whence these small microscopic otolithes
have been said to be formed of carbonate of lime.

Among the pretty baskets of dried seaweed
brought to us by old women and children on
the shingle are some things not quite the
"weeds" they look. Those exquisite crimson
leaves, thinner than the thinnest and finest
tissue paper, with solid ribs and sinuous edges,
are weeds; so are those tall, regularly cut,
dark-red feathers—that tuft of purple filaments
as fine as a silkworm's thread—that broad,
irregular expanse of richest emerald green,
crumpled and folded, but glossy as if varnished—
these are all algæ, or seaweeds proper. But
among them, though classed as plants, are some
things which are animals instead; such as those
pale-brown, drab, or snow-white flattened leaves,
divided into broad irregular lobes, which are
called broad hornwreck, or leafy sea-mat, by
men of the old school, but by naturalists of the
new, Flustra foliacca, of the class Polyzoa. Our
leafy sea-mat is a curious thing to look at.
Seen through the microscope it seems all made
up of wicker cradles, with pillows and counterpanes
complete, while at the end of some of
the cradles sits a tiny white globule with a
closed yellow door.

Mr. Gosse shall tell us what he saw in the
cradles:

"Suppose, then, a coverlid of transparent skin
were stretched over each cradle, from a little within
the margin all round, leaving a transverse opening
just in the right place, viz. over the pillow, and you
would have exactly what exists here. There is a
crescent-form slit in the membrane of the upper part
of the cell, from which the semicircular edge or lip
can recede if pushed from within. Suppose yet
again, that in every cradle there lies a baby, with
its little knees bent up to its chin, in that ziz-zag
fashion that children, little and big, often like to lie
in. But stay, here is a child moving! Softly! He
slowly pushes open the semicircular slit in the
coverlid, and we see him gradually protruding his head
and shoulders in an erect position, straightening his
knees at the same time. He is raised half out of
bed, when lo! his head falls open, and becomes a bell
of tentacles! The baby is the tenant-polype!"

The bird's head coralline is another strange
formation of the same class. In each principal
cell is an acknowledged polype, as is fit and
natural, but beside the polype proper, in other
and secondary cells lies a creature like the head
of a bird of prey, with a hooked beak, and two
mandibles which open to an enormous distance
and keep up a perpetual snapping. These birds'
heads catch the prey for the polype; hold fast
by some dainty little annelid or luscious slug,
and this poor wretch, dying in the merciless
grasp of the hooked beak, attracts whole crowds
of infusoria; which infusoria serve the polype
for food. So at least is the hypothesis of today;
another may be started tomorrow. The queer
little white baskets with closed yellow doors,
the globules set behind the cradles of the baby
polype, answer the same purpose. Each is
tenanted by a curious kind of creature that acts
as hunter or jackal to its master polype; a creature
with the oddest mixture of dependence and
individuality possible; catching food which it
does not eat, and acting as if by independent
will, when it cannot move a hair's breadth from
its place.

That sentence naturally brings with it the idea
of locomotion. Nothing in nature is more varied
than the several means of progression. We
have two feet, other animals have four; two of
these become wings with the bird, all of them
fins with the fish. But it is with the invertebrate
animals that we find the most variety. "The
poulpe 'flops' awkwardly but vigorously along
by the alternate contractions and expansions of
the web that unites its arms; the snail glides
over grass and stones by means of its muscular
disk; the scallop leaps about by puffs of water
driven from its appressed lips; the lobster shoots
several yards in a second by a blow of its tail
on the water; the gossamer spider floats in a
balloon of its own making; the centipede winds
slowly along upon hundreds of pairs of feet;
the beetle darts like an arrow upon three; the
butterfly sails on painted fans which some have
termed aerial gills; and the house-fly makes six
hundred wing strokes every second, and, if
alarmed, can go from thirty to thirty-five feet in
the time." The flight of the dragon-fly is even