uinea_. Let
us pull up some and take it with us to dry it. It will keep its colour
for years and its smell for months. See, those are shrimps cruising in
and about those delicate branches, and crabs crawling round their stems,
and sandskippers darting about; ah, and there comes a goby! Did any of
you ever see a goby? Look at him!--what bright eyes he has got! He is
hardly bigger than a shrimp, but he is their deadly enemy. He eats up
their eggs and the young shrimps, as well as sandhoppers, and indeed
anything living which he can get into his big mouth. In his way he is
just as terrific a fellow as the shark. He is very hardy, too, and will
live in an aquarium with perfect contentment provided he can get enough
to eat."

"Well, I had no notion that so many curious things were to be found in a
little pool of water," observed Bouldon. "I've looked into hundreds,
but never found anything that I know of."

"Oh, I have not mentioned a quarter of the things to be found even in
this pool," answered Gregson. "Ah, look at that soldier-crab now! He
has just come out from among the sea-weed with his stolen shell in which
he has stowed away his soft tail. I'll tell you all about him--"

"Not now, Greggy, thank you," exclaimed Bouldon, who was getting
somewhat tired of the naturalist's accounts. When Gregson once began on
his favourite subject he was never inclined to stop. Nor was that
surprising, for no subject is more interesting and absorbing to those
who once take it up--nothing affords more pure or unmixed delight.

"But I say, Greggy, you promised to tell us about this sea-egg, or
whatever it is called," said Buttar. "Come, I want to hear."

"Well, look at this starfish," answered Gregson, drawing a five-fingered
jack from his jar. Then, taking the echinus in his hand,--"These two
fellows are first cousins, very nearly related, though you may not be
inclined to believe the fact. The thing you call an egg was as much a
living being, capable of feeding itself and producing young, as this
starfish. If I was to bend round the rays of the starfish and fill up
the interior, I could produce an animal very like the echinus. Both of
them have also a mouth at the lower part, and their internal structure
is very similar. It is curious that as the echinus grows he continually
sends forth a substance from the interior which simultaneously increases
the sides of all the plates which form his shell, and thus he neve