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, whose sole occupation is to feed them, by means of a pair of long wooden forceps.

Reluctantly breaking away from such old friends, we pass through a door into a long vault-like stone passage or hall, down one side of which there seem to be high large windows, about as far apart as windows of a long room commonly are.  Behind each of these is a sea-pool like the first one.

Take the first of the lot—­Tank No. 2.  It is stocked with Serpulae.  Sea-anemones are well-known to most people, but tube-worms are not such familiar friends; so I will try to describe this particular kind of “sea-gentlemen.”  The tube-worms are so called because, though they are true worms (sea-worms), they do not trust their soft bodies to the sea, as our common earth-worms trust theirs in a garden-bed, but build themselves tubes inside which they live, popping their heads out at the top now and then like a chimney-sweep pushing