By
marvellously agile doubles of his flat little body, he scrambled a good
way up. Then he fell, and two or three valiant efforts still proving
vain, he gave it up.
"He's turned giddy!" shouted a man beside us, who, like every one else,
was watching the sea-gentlemen with rapt interest.
Why the little sole tried rock climbing I don't know, and I doubt if he
knew himself.
Tank 7 is full of Basse--glittering fish who keep their silver armour
clean by scrubbing it among the stones. Like other prettily-dressed
people, they look out of the window all along.
At Tanks 1, 2, and 3, your chief feelings will be curiosity and
admiration. The sea-flowers and the worms are rather low in the scale of
living things. Far be it from you to decide that there are any living
creatures with whom a loving and intelligent patience will not at last
enable us to hold communion. But though, when you put the point of your
little finger towards a Crassy, he gives it a very affectionate squeeze,
and seems rather anxious to detain it permanently, the balance of
evidence favours the idea that his appetite rather than his affections
are concerned, and that he has only mistaken you for his dinner.
At present our intercourse is certainly limited, and though the
_Serpulae_ and _Sabellae_ have their heads out of their chimneys all
along, there is no reason to suppose that they take the slightest
interest in the human beings who peer at them through the glass.
Pages:
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185