would be glad to buy of him for thousands sterling. To him blue
pill and muriatic acid are superfluous, and travels to German
Brunnen a waste of time. Happy Holothuria! who possesses really
the secret of everlasting youth, which ancient fable bestowed on
the serpent and the eagle. For when his teeth ache, or his
digestive organs trouble him, all he has to do is just to cast up
forthwith his entire inside, and, faisant maigre for a month or so,
grow a fresh set, and then eat away as merrily as ever. His name,
if you wish to consult so triumphant a hygeist, is Cucumaria
Pentactes: but he has many a stout cousin round the Scotch coast,
who knows the antibilious panacea as well as he, and submits, among
the northern fishermen, to the rather rude and undeserved name of
sea-puddings; one of which grows in Shetland to the enormous length
of three feet, rivalling there his huge congeners, who display
their exquisite plumes on every tropic coral reef. (9)

Next, what are those bright little buds, like salmon-coloured
Banksia roses half expanded, sitting closely on the stone? Touch
them; the soft part is retracted, and the orange flower of flesh is
transformed into a pale pink flower of stone. That is the
Madrepore, Caryophyllia Smithii (Plate V. fig. 2); one of our south
coast rarities: and see, on the lip of the last one, which we have
carefully scooped off with the chisel, two little pink towers of
stone, delicately striated; drop them into this small bottle of
sea-water, and from the top of each tower issues every half-second
- what shall we call it? - a hand or a net of finest hairs,
clutching at something invisible to our grosser sense. That is the
Pyrgoma, parasitic only (as far as we know) on the lip of this same
rare Madrepore; a little "cirrhipod," the cousin of those tiny
barnacles which roughen every rock (a larger sort whereof I showed