phantom but a prawn, compact of one bewildering blotch--and that is a word
of doubtful propriety in connection with so elfin an organism--a mere
shadow tinted the palest violet, and transparencies, with legs and
antennae frail as silken threads.


"Substance might be called what shadow seemed,
For each seemed either."


So far I have never seen this lovely lodger in the same anemone with the
painted fish. The latter, perhaps, admires it too ardently and literally.

Another marvel, the sea-hare (APLYSIA), is a crudely wedge-shaped body
but incomparable in its ruggedness to that or any other model, and the
colour of mud and sand and of coral, dead and sea-stained. It reposes,
with its back flush with the surface, beside a block of coral or stone
defiantly indistinguishable from the ocean floor--a stolid, solid, inert
creature, eight or ten inches long, the under part smooth, presenting the
appearance of wet chamois-leather, and irresponsive to touch--"the
mother tongue of all the senses." Ugly, loathsome, and tough of texture,
it is so helpless that if it is placed on the sand it is extremely
doubtful whether of its own volition it could regain its natural
position. The surge of the sea might roll it over, and it might then be
able to regain the grovelling attitude essential to life. Otherwise, I
am inclined to think fatal results would follow the mere placing of the
creature sideways on the sand. It seems to possess but the feeblest spark
of life, and yet it has its sentiments and love for its kind, for often
three or four are huddled together. And how, it may be asked, is this
creature, so apt at concealment and so completely disguised, made visible