ieces, each ending in a hard, triangular tooth. The
whole mouth is a conical box, called by naturalists "Aristotle's
lantern."

The shell is hardly thicker than that of a hen's egg, and is even more
fragile. When the spines are rubbed off, the brioche-like shape is
modified, and in place of the depression in the middle of the upper
side there is seen a slight prominence.

Mine was a very inoffensive creature. He occupied the same corner for
many weeks, and changed his place only when a different arrangement of
stones was made. He then wandered to a remote part of the tank and
chose a new abode. Both retreats were on the shady side of a stone
overhung with plants. There for months he quietly kept house, only
going up and down his hand-breadth of room once or twice a day.
Minding his own business without hurt to his neighbor, he dwelt in
unambitious tranquillity. Had he not fallen a victim to the most cruel
maltreatment, he might still adorn his humble station.

As he was sitting one evening at the door of his house, bending about
his lithe arms in the way he was wont, two itinerant Sticklebacks
chanced to pass that way. They paused, and, not seeing the necessity
for organs of which they had never known the use, they at once decided
on their removal.

In vain did the poor Hedgehog oppose them. With all the pertinacity of
ignorance, they maintained their certainty of his abnormal condition;
and with all the officiousness of quackery, they insisted upon
immediate amputation. Aided by two volunteer assistants, the self-made
surgeons cut off limb after limb before their reckless butchery could
be stopped.

At last I effected their dismissal. But their pitiable patient was too
far reduced for recovery. His exhausted system never rallied from the
shock, and he survived but a few days.

Alas! alas! that so exemplary a member of the community should have
perished through piscine empiricism!

How many things you have collected! Your well-filled basket attests
your industry and zeal, and suggests the fruitful question of the
novelist, "What will you do with it?" Will you throw its contents on
the sand, and go away satisfied with these imperfect glimpses of
sea-life? Will you take them home indeed, but consign them to a
crowded bowl, to die like the prisoners in the Black Hole of Calcutta?
Or will you give to each a roomy basin with water, and plants to keep
it pure?

This were well; and you could thus study their structu