But for colour and shape, to what shall we compare it

But for colour and shape, to what shall we compare it? To pocomedian, says Mr. Gosse. I say, to one of the great red capsicumswhich hang dry ing in every Covent-garden seedsman's window. Yet iseither simile better than the guess of a certain lady, who, entering a roomwherein a couple of Cardium tuberculatum were waltzing about a plate,exclaimed, "Oh dear! I always heard that my pretty red coral came ouof a fish, and here it is all alive!C. tuberculatum, says Mr. Gosse(who descnbed it from specimenswhich I sent him in 1854),"is far the finest species. The valves aremore globose and of a warmer colour, those that I have seen are evenmore spinous.

Such may have been the case in those I sent: but it hasoccurred to me now and then to dredge specimens of C. aculeatumwhich had escaped that rolling on the sand fatal in old age to its delicatespines, and which equalled n colour, size, and perfectness the noble onefigured in poor dear old Dr. Turton'sBntish Bivalvesaculeatum is a far thinner and more delicate shell And a thirdC. echinatum, with curves more graceful and continuous, is to be foundnow and then with the two former. In it, each point, instead ofgenerating into a knot, as in tuberculatum, or developing from delicatefat briar- prickles into long straight thoms, as in aculeatum, is close-setto its fellow, and curved at the point transversely to the shell, the wholebeing thus homd with hundreds of strong tenterhooks, making his castlepregnable to the raveners of the deep. For we can hardly doubt thatthese prickles are meant as weapons of defence, without which soa morsel as the mollusc within(cooked and eaten largely onrts of our south coast) would be a staple article of food for seof prey. And it is noteworthy, first, that the defensive thomswhich are permanent on the two thinner species, aculeatum andechinatum, disappear altogether on the thicker one, tuberculatum, as oldage gives him a sold and heavy globose shell; and next, that he too.while young and tender, and liable therefore to be bored through bywhelks and such murderous univalves, does actually possess the samebriar- prickles, which his thinner cousins keep throughout lifeNevertheless, prickles, in all three species, are, as far as we can see,useless in Torbay, where no wolf-fish(Anarhichas lupus) or otherowner of shell-crushing jaws wanders, temible to lobster and to cockleOriginally intended, as we suppose, to face the strong- toothed monsters ofthe mediterranean, these foreigners have wandered northward to shoreswhere their armour is not now needed: and yet centuries of idleness andsecurity have not been able to persuade them to lay it by. This-ifexplanation is the night one. is but one more case among hundreds nwhich peculiarities, useful doubtless to their original possessors, remain,though now useless. in their descendants. Just so does the tame ramnherit the now superfluous homs of his primeval wild ancestors, thoughhe fights now. if he fights at all. not with his horns, but with hisforehead

Enough of Cardium tuberculatum. Now for the other animals of theheap; and first, for those long white razors. They, as well as the greyscimitars, are Solens, Razor fish(Solen siliqua and S. ensis), burrowersn the sand by that foot which protrudes from one end, nimble nescaping from the Torquay boys, whom you will see boring for themwith a long iron screw on the sands at low tide. They are very good toeat, these razor fish; at least, for those who so think them; and abound inmillions upon all our sandy shores. ( 3)Now for the tapering brown spires. They are Turmtellae, snail - lkeanimals(though the form of the shell is different), who crawl andbrowse by thousands on the beds of Zostera, or grass wrack, which yousee thrown about on the beach, and which grows naturally in two orthree fathoms water. Stay: here is one which is "more than itself.On its back is mounted a cluster of bamacles(Balanus Porcatus), of thesame family as those which stud the tide- rocks n millions, scratchingthe legs of hapless bathers. Of them, I will speak presently; for I mayhave a still more curious member of the family to show you. Butmeanwhile, look at the mouth of the shel; a long grey worm protrudesfrom it which is not the rightful inhabitant He is dead long since, andhis place has been occupied by one Sipunculus Bernhardi: a wight oflow degree, who connects radiate wIth annulate forms- m plainEnglish sea- cucumbers (of which we shall see some soon) with sea-worms. But however low in the scale of comparative anatomy, he haswit enough to take care of himself: mean ugly little worm as he seems.For finding the mouth of the Turritella too big for him, he has plasteredIt up with sand and mud ( Heaven alone knows how), just as a wry-neckplasters up a hole m an apple-tree when she intends to build therein, andhas left only a round hole, out of which he can poke his proboscis. Acurious thing is this proboscis, when seen through the magnifier. Youperceive a ring of tentacles round the mouth, for picking up I knowwhat and you will perceive, too, if you watch it, that when he draws ithe tums mouth tentacles and all inwards. and so down into hisstomach, just as if you were to tum the finger of a glove inward from thetip till It passed into the hand: and so performs, every time he eats, theclown's as yet ideal feat of jumping down his own throat (4