capable, in spite of his perpetual imprisonment, of walking,
feeding, and breeding, doubt it not, merrily enough. But this
result has been attained at the expense of a complication of
structure, which has baffled all human analysis and research into
final causes. As much concerning this most miraculous of families
as is needful to be known, and ten times more than you are likely
to understand, may be read in Harvey's "Sea-Side Book," pp. 142-
148, - pages from which you will probably arise with a sense of the
infinity and complexity of Nature, even in what we are pleased to
call her "lower" forms, and the simplest and, as it were, easiest
forms of life. Conceive a Crystal Palace, (for mere difference in
size, as both the naturalist and the metaphysician know, has
nothing to do with the wonder,) whereof each separate joist,
girder, and pane grows continually without altering the shape of
the whole; and you have conceived only one of the miracles embodied
in that little sea-egg, which the Creator has, as it were, to
justify to man His own immutability, furnished with a shell capable
of enduring fossil for countless ages, that we may confess Him to
have been as great when first His Spirit brooded on the deep, as He
is now and will be through all worlds to come.

But we must make haste; for the tide is rising fast, and our stone
will be restored to its eleven hours' bath, long before we have
talked over half the wonders which it holds. Look though, ere you
retreat, at one or two more.

What is that little brown thing whom you have just taken off the
rock to which it adhered so stoutly by his sucking-foot? A limpet?
Not at all: he is of quite a different family and structure; but,
on the whole, a limpet-like shell would suit him well enough, so he