n at their home, and not at Mr. Croker's. Two very different
things for our friends the "sea-gentlemen," as to colour as well as in
other ways. In his own home, for instance, a lobster is of various
beautiful shades of blue and purple. In Mr. Croker's home he would be
bright scarlet--from boiling! So would the prawn, and as solid as you
please; who in his own home is colourless and transparent as any ghost.

Strangely beautiful those prawns are when you see them at home. And that
one seems to do in the Great Aquarium; though, I suppose, it is much
like seeing land beasts and birds in the Zoological Gardens--a poor
imitation of their free life in their natural condition. Still, there is
no other way in which you can see and come to know these wonderful "sea
gentlemen" so well, unless you could go, like Jack Dogherty, to visit
them at the bottom of the sea. And whilst I heartily recommend every one
who has not seen the Aquarium to visit it as soon as possible, let me
describe it for the benefit of those who cannot do so at present. It may
also be of some little use to them hereafter to know what is most worth
seeing there, and where to look for it.

No sooner have you paid your sixpence at the turnstile which admits you,
than your eye is caught by what seems to be a large window in the wall,
near the man who has taken your money. You look through the glass, and
find yourself looking into a deep sea-pool, with low stone-grey rocks
studded with sea-anemones in full bloom. There are twenty-one different
species of sea-anemones in the Aquarium; but those to be seen in this
particular pool are chosen from about seven of the largest kinds. The
very biggest, a _Tealia crassicornis_, measures ten inches across when
he spreads his pearly fingers to their full extent. "In my young days"
we called him by the familiar name of Crassy; and found him so difficult
to keep in domestic captivity, that it was delightful to see him
blooming and thriving as he does in Tank No. 1 of the Great Aquarium.
His squat build--low and broad--contrasts well with those tall white
neighbours of his (_Dianthus plumosa_), whose faces are like a plume of
snowy feathers. All the sea-anemones in this tank have settled
themselves on the rocks according to their own fancy. They are of lovely
shades of colour, rosy, salmon-coloured, and pearly-white.

There are more than five thousand sea-anemones of various kinds in the
Aquarium; and they have an attendant, wh