a cousin stronger than he, or who has had the fortune to be ejected without dismemberment.  The full face of the red blue-spotted variety (PAGURUS PUNCTULATUS) is an effective menace to any ordinary foe, and that honourable part is presented at the front door when the tenant is at home.  For safety’s sake the flabby gelatinous, inert rear end must be tucked and hooked into the convolutions of the shell, deprived of which he is at the mercy of foes very much his inferior in fighting weight and truculent appearance.  The disinterested spectator may smile at the vain, yet frantically serious efforts of the hermit to coax his flabby rear into a shell obviously a flattering misfit.  But it is not a smiling matter to him.  Not until he has exhausted a programme of ingenious attitudes and comic contortions is the attempt to stow away a No. 8 tail into a No. 5 shell abandoned.  When a shell of respectable dimensions is presented, and the grateful hermit backs in, settles comfortably, arrays all his weapons against intruders, and peers out with an expression of ferocious content, smiles may come, and will be out of place only when the aches of still increasing bulk force him to hustle again for still more commodious lodgings.

A frilled clam (TRIDACNA COMPRESSA) in its infancy seals or anchors itself in a tiny crack or crevice, and apparently by a continuous but imperceptible movement analogous to elbow-rooming, deepens and enlarges its cavity as it develops.  Should it survive in defiance of all its foes, just taking from the sea the sustenance for which it craves with gaping valves, it may increase in bulk, but its apartment in the limestone never seems too large—­just a neat fit In its abiding-place it presents an irregular strip of silk, green as polished malachite, or dark green and grey, or blue and slaty green, mottled and marbled, with crimped edges and graceful folds—­an attractive ornament in the drab rock.  Touch any part—­there is a slow suspensory withdrawal, and then a snap and spurt of water as the last remnant of the living mantle disappears between the interlocking valves of porcelain white.

Apart from the bulk and the fantastic shapes of coral structures, there is the beauty of the living polyps.  That which when dry may have the superficial appearance of stone plentifully pitted—­a heavy dull mass—­blossoms with wondrous gaiety as the revivifying water covers it.  The time to admire these frail marine flowers is on an absolutely calm day.  All the sediment of the sea has been precipitated.  The water is as transparent as rock crystal, but like that mineral slightly distorts the object unless the view is absolutely vertical.  It is a lens perfect in its limpidity.  Here is a buff-coloured block roughly in the shape of a mushroom with a flat top, irregular edges, and a bulbous stalk.  Rich brown alga hangs from its edges in frills and flounces.  Little cones stud its surface, each of which is the home of a living, star-like flower, a flower which