Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore

That last word is no figure of speech. Look among the beds of sea-weed for a few of the bright yellow or green sea-snails (Nerita), or Conical Tops (Trochus), especially that beautiful pink one spotted with brown (Ziziphinus), which you are sure to find about shaded rock-ledges at dead low tide, and put them into your aquarium. For the present, they will only nibble the green ulvæ; but when the film of young weed begins to form, you will see it mown off every morning as fast as it grows, in little semicircular sweeps, just as if a fairy’s scythe had been at work during the night. [Picture: Plate 8: Littorina Littorea etc.] And a scythe has been at work; none other than the tongue of the little shell-fish; a description of its extraordinary mechanism (too long to quote here, but which is well worth reading) may be found in Gosse’s “Aquarium.” {201} A prawn or two, and a few minute star-fish, will make your aquarium complete; though you may add to it endlessly, as one glance at the salt-water tanks of the Zoological Gardens, and the strange and beautiful forms which they contain, will prove to you sufficiently.