barrel, after a violent whisking through the
frosty air.

Everybody has not seen a sea-anemone,
although they are multitudinous on many
parts of our coast. If you take a stroll at
ebb-tide, below high-water mark, along a
rocky shore, you will find the boulders plentifully
sprinkled with seeming specks of clotted
blood. Touch them, and they shrink into a
thin leathery patch. In the little pools which
have been left by the retiring waves, you will
observe apparent flowers of various sizes,
from a sixpence to a five-shilling piece, and
mostly of a dull deep crimson tint. You
might fancy them a knot of self-sown,
submarine German asters. Try to gather one,
and it withers into nothing, perhaps squirting
a few drops of water in your face. It is a
living creature and not a flower, and has
transformed itself into a cold clot of gore as
the best means of escaping from your grasp.
You will have a better chance of capturing
those which the tide has left entirely dry.

Here is one, plump and of a good colour.
It has nothing to attach it to the limestone
boulder but the pressure of the atmosphere
acting on its sucker-like base; but we may
rend it to pieces before we can get it off.
And there are none to be found (or very
rarely) on pebbles of a portable size; as if
the creatures knew which was the safest
anchorage. We will have it, however, to add
to our menagerie. It is on the side of the
block, which is more convenient for us than
the top. With this lump of stone, I rap, tap,
tap just above it, taking care not to touch
its very crushable person. See; it dislikes
the jar and is beginning to give way. It
drops, and I catch it in this oyster-shell,
which contains a tempting little pool of salt-
water. It settles; we may now put our
prisoner in our game-bag and march off with it
home.

Tame sea anemones display great wilfulness,
and, if not properly managed, a sulky temper.
The grand object is to have them show to
advantage, and make the best possible display
with their petals, or arms. To effect this you
must keep them very hungry; short commons
are sure to call forth their attractive endowments.
Like poets, and painters, and dancers,
and singers—omitting all mention of periodical
prose-writers—they exercise their talents for
what they can get, as well as because it is
their born vocation to please. Every petal is
a moveable member, whose office is to provide
for the central mouth. Drop a pin's-head
morsel of fish-meat just over the anemone, so
as to fall, while sinking, between the arms, and
it is clutched by the one that is nearest to it,
and packed at once into the digestive repository.
But feast your flower, and he doubles
himself up close, to open no more until he is
again half-famished.

Our sea-anemone travelled about the glass,
by sliding along, sometimes at quite a perceptible
rate, on his sucker. Now and then his
spirits drooped, while changing his skin, which
came off occasionally in a filmy cuticle. On
one occasion only did he try to escape;
and that was when his water had become
turbid, by shrimp-flesh put in to feed his
abominations, the crabs. He climbed up the
glass until he was almost high and dry. It was
as much as to ask us to renew his bath. But
the weather was stormy, and we could not go
to the beach for his usual supply. Next
morning, he lay at the bottom of the tumbler,
all flabby and unattached. We thought he
was dead, but it was only a piece of pouting.
In an hour or two he was as cheerful as ever.
To reward his good conduct, we descended
the cliff, and tapped the raging ocean at the
risk of a good ducking.

The sea-anemone was perfectly amiable, in
comparison with the tenants of an opposite
tank. Spring water was the element which
filled a soup-tureen that had ever been innocent
of English mock-turtle. Instead of the
nutritious and delicious and pernicious stuff,
which, when cold, you may chop with a
hatchet, this vase of abstinence had never got
beyond sorrel and cabbage, with a Sunday
bouillon in which were swimming mighty
islands of well-soaked crust. Its contents
were also maigre during its second phase. On
the surface floated a green bunch of watercress;
in the middle sported a leash of sticklebacks,
whose only pleasure was to fight and
dissect each other alive with their dorsal
thorn; at the bottom pined a pair of cray-fish,
hating the light, disgusted at being stared at,
refusing to eat, and cursing in their heart of
hearts the villanous temptation of the dead
dog in a faggot, which had brought them into
this pale captivity from their dear dark holes
on the river's bank. Be pleasant they would
not, unless at night, when we were all upstairs
and fast asleep. Their hearts were more
obdurate than mine; they stood out so well,
and refused to be comforted so completely,
that we turned them into a brook, to take
their chance. And yet they might have been
amusing, if they had not proved so
nocturnal and shy. They are the very miniature
of the esculent lobster, only of stronger build,
and greater tenacity of life, with the further
claim to close relationship by turning red when
they are boiled.

But our quadrupeds?—Of course we had
quadrupeds. Chance made me acquainted
with a lovely little animal, the very thing I
wanted; at once pretty, convenient and new.
I wonder the idea never entered my head
before. That a school-boy should put me up
to getting a pair of croquenoix! I had not
seen a Croquenoix for years. Those which I
then saw were the property of a lady who,
for morning dress, always wore one of those
pretty silk aprons, with little frilled and
fringed watch-pockets on each side, about large
enough to hold a turkey's egg. But instead
of eggs, in either pocket she carried a
Croquenoix.