ndeed the queen of Actiniae. But,
alas! she could not brook imprisonment, and, pining for the unwalled
grottoes of Poseidon, she drooped and died.

Behind that sheltering rock, and overhung with sea-weed, there is a
dark, deep cave, the chosen abode of Giant Grim. Push one of those
soldiers to the mouth of the den and wait the result. At the first
movement made by the unwitting trespasser on guarded ground, two long,
flexile rods are thrust out, reconnoitring right and left. Two huge
claws follow, lighted up by two great glaring eyes. At last the whole
creature emerges, seizes the intruder, and bears him swiftly away, far
beyond his jealously kept premises. With dogged mien he stalks gravely
back to his stronghold. You exclaim, "It is a Lobster!" A lobster truly;
but saw you ever a lobster with such presence before? Does he resemble
the poor bewildered crustaceans you have seen bunched together at a
fish-stall? Bears he any likeness to the innocent-looking edibles you
have seen lying on a dish, by boiling turned, like the morn, from black
to red?

Those ghost-like Prawns are near relatives of the giant. See them,
gliding so gracefully from under the arch, disappearing under the waving
Ulva, and floating into sight again from behind the cliff. At night, if
you look at them athwart a lighted candle, their eyes are seen to glow
like living rubies. As they row silently and swiftly towards you, you
might fancy each a fairy gondola, with gem-lighted prow.

A quick dashing startles you, and you see a Scallop rising to the top of
the water with zigzag jerks, and immediately sinking to the sand again,
on the side opposite that whence it started. There it rests with
expanded branchiae and moving cilia; a rude passer-by jostles it, and
with startled sensitiveness it shrinks from the outer world and hides
behind a stony mask.

The small, greenish, rough-coated creature, so like a flattened burr,
is an Echinus. It is hardly domiciliated, being a new-comer, and creeps
restlessly across the glass.

Under this sand-mound some one lies self-buried,--not dead, but only
hiding from the crowd in this bustling watering-place. He must learn
that there is no lasting retirement in Newport; so tap with a stick at
his lodging. With anger vexed, forth rushes the Swimming-Crab and dashes
away from the unwelcome visitor. As if he knew a bore to be the most
persistent of hunters, he plies his paddles with rapid beat until far
from his invaded