human conception of the beautiful either in figure or colouring. While
some shrink from observation, others, though themselves obscure to the
vanishing-point, seem to be endowed with a vicious yearning for
notoriety.

A certain cute little pursuer of fame is absolutely invisible until you
find it stuck fast to one of your toes with a serrated dorsal spur a
quarter of an inch long. It is invisible, because Nature sends it into
this breathing world masquerading, as she did Richard III, deformed,
unfashioned, scarce half made-up. In general appearance it closely
resembles a crazy root-stalk of alga--green and not quite opaque, and
clinging to such alga it lives, and lives so placidly that it cannot be
distinguished from its prototype except by the sense of touch. When you
pick it gingerly from between your toes there is a malicious gleam in the
pin-point black eyes, and then you understand that it is one of the many
inventions designed for the torment of trespassers.

I have often sought specimens of this poor relation of the fish-shop
window aristocrat, but invariably in vain, until I have found myself
suddenly shouting "Eureka!" while balancing myself on one foot eager
for the easement of the other, and the giggling demeanour of the imp as
it parts company with his spur gives a sort of comic relief to the
thrilling sensations of the moment. Upon examination this imp seems to be
an example of arrested development. Whimsical fate has played upon it a
grim practical joke, flattering it primarily by resemblance to a
grotesquely valorous unicorn, and then, having changed her mood to mere
pettishness, finished it offhand by adding a section of semi-animate
seaweed.

Although among the commonest of the species, the grey sand crab, which