exquisitely formed and coloured tentacula, with white clubbed tips
fringing the sides of the cup-shaped cavity in the centre, across
which stretches the oval disc marked with a star of some rich and
brilliant colour, surrounding the central mouth, a slit with white
crenated lips, like the orifice of one of those elegant cowry
shells which we put upon our mantelpieces. The mouth is always
more or less prominent, and can be protruded and expanded to an
astonishing extent. The space surrounding the lips is commonly
fawn colour, or rich chestnut-brown; the star or vandyked circle
rich red, pale vermilion, and sometimes the most brilliant emerald
green, as brilliant as the gorget of a humming-bird."

And what does this exquisitely delicate creature do with its pretty
mouth? Alas for fact! It sips no honey-dew, or fruits from
paradise. - "I put a minute spider, as large as a pin's head, into
the water, pushing it down to the coral. The instant it touched
the tip of a tentacle, it adhered, and was drawn in with the
surrounding tentacles between the plates. With a lens I saw the
small mouth slowly open, and move over to that side, the lips
gaping unsymmetrically; while with a movement as imperceptible as
that of the hour hand of a watch, the tiny prey was carried along
between the plates to the corner of the mouth. The mouth, however,
moved most, and at length reached the edges of the plates,
gradually closed upon the insect, and then returned to its usual
place in the centre."

Mr. Gosse next tried the fairy of the walking mouth with a house-
fly, who escaped only by hard fighting; and at last the gentle
creature, after swallowing and disgorging various large pieces of
shell-fish, found viands to its taste in "the lean of cooked meat