much resembles a beetle is the Hylea, and belongs to a singular race of creatures called wing-footed mollusks, so called from the fin-like lobes that project from the sides. These appendages are used as the wings are in insects, the creature flapping its way vigorously through the water as a butterfly urges his devious course through the air. One member of this family may justly be termed the firefly of the sea, as from the part of the body lodged in the apex of its shell there proceeds a soft luminosity, "which is yet," says Mr. F. D. Bennett, "sufficiently vivid to be visible even when opposed to the strong light of a lamp."

"It is hardly possible," says Mr. Wood, "to imagine any forms that are so strange, any habits so astonishing, as the crustaceans figured in this illustration. Although they have been known for some time, their proper place in the scale of cre

ation has long been a disputed point among systematic naturalists, some placing them among the crustaceans, and others considering them to belong to the spiders."

Specimens of the Coryne eximium, a well-known zoophyte, are given above as they grow upon the bed of the sea. Attached to the branches that are themselves instinct with animal life, for the zoophyte is an animal, may be observed sundry pear-shaped objects, which are directly analogous to galls upon plants. Each of these little nodules when opened is found to contain a minute crustacean, seemingly all legs, which are wrapped around the body like a ball of twine, as is shown in the illustration, the creature being removed from its envelope, and where is also shown the perfect forms of the creature at the top and bottom of the central engraving. The young crustacean on emerging from

spring of the hydroid is not a hydroid at all, but a jelly-fish, and, again, the offspring of these jelly-fish are not jellyfish, but hydroids, so that each generation resembles its grandparents, and not its progenitors. From the side of the buds branching out from the parents hang bunches of eggs that have the appearance of seed-vessels; and attached to the pretty cup-like jelly-fish, with its four long tentacles and proboscis, at the end of which is its mouth, are also attached clusters of eggs, from which are produced little pear-shaped bodies, which, becoming detached, grow into the stationary plantanimals, or hydroids first mentioned. The crinoid shown upon the other side of the illustration represents a group of marine plantflowers called sea-lilies. The respondence of the animal kingdom to plants and flowers seems to be divided between the arborescent polifera, sea - animals overgrown with fern-like processes, those

lovely produc

long as his legs. On the sides of this illustration may be seen specimens of the

tubulariada and the crinoids, the latter sufficiently enlarged to show its character. The tubularia, common in pools left by the tide, is a hydroid, growing in tufts like small shrubs, each of which bears a blossom-like cluster of tentacles at the end of a slender tube. In the centre of the bunch of tentacles is the mouth of the animal tube, and each individual eats for the whole. The strangest circumstance in the economy of these beings is that the off

tions of the sea, the sea-
anemone, and the cri-
noids or sea-lilies. The
perfection with which
these animal organisms,
almost all of which are
now extinct, answer part
for part with plants, re-
quires no description, as
the representation of this
on page 873 is very clear.
This represents one of the
only two living species
known, the Pinnigrada
europaeus, which, in fact,
is really the immature
form of a sort of star-
fish (Cornatula), which,
when it matures, leaves
its parent stem, and
swims off to seek its for-
tunes elsewhere. There
is one species of these
beautiful sea - flowers,
however, found in West Indian
waters which remains attached
to its stem, and conforms in all
respects to the typical sea-lilies

as they existed in the period of their per-
fection in our seas.

Sometimes the respondence exists only in certain members or parts of an animal, and while they can scarcely be called mimicries, yet exhibit singular and striking resemblances to those in other and not at all related animals. A surprising instance of this is given in the engraving on the preceding page of that paradoxical animal, the duck-billed mole of Australasia. This singular creature, had it been known in earlier times, might well have been considered a hybrid between a bird and a beast; for though a quadruped with the body and furry coat of a mole, the surprising approximation in its webbed feet and broad bill to those of a water-fowl can be seen at a glance. Another quadruped with a beak-like snout, Echinida acubata, is figured in the illustration. The quills that cover this animal resemble the feathers of the apteryx, which are without vanes; its eyes are small, brilliant, and bird-like; it has claws rather than feet; and the resemblance its head bears in contour to that of the sheldrake can be seen in the circle occupying the upper part of the engraving, where is also depicted the head of the duck-bill compared with that of the black duck.

MUSHROOMS OF THE SEA.

No one can fail to perceive a certain likeness between the radiates (jelly-fish, star-fish, and the like) and the thallogens (the mushrooms and fungoids generally). The recurrence of intermediate forms in the generations of species, of which an instance was given in the tubularia, and which, in the animals, is called alternate generation, the comparatively unsubstantial nature of the material of which many groups are composed, their excessive fecundity, and last, though by no means least, the circular configuration common to both, are points of resemblance among them that could be mentioned most likely to strike an ordinary observer. Any one who has happened to have seen the star-like fungoid, the opened geastrum, must remember how nearly it suggests the star-fish; and, not to multiply

examples, the resemblance between seaweeds and the plant-like animals called sertularia is, to say the least of it, very deceptive.

At the bottom of the illustration on page 875 (which contains a representation of the jelly-fish floating on the surface of a calm sea, compared with the mushrooms seen in the smaller circular picture) is figured the sea-mushroom, which so perfectly resembles petrified mushroom that it is very often taken for the latter imaginary object when seen in cabinets or collections by persons who have paid no special attention to natural history.

A volume might well be written on this subject-a volume replete with new facts, new principles, and new thoughts. It is a field as yet but imperfectly explored, presenting difficult questions but partially and imperfectly answered. A few chapters in the works of Wallace, Bates, Belt, and perhaps one or two other naturalists, an article or two in magazines, comprise almost all the literature on the subject-a subject, it is safe to predict, that will grow to the proportions of a science when the interest of those fitted by ability and especial education is awakened, and their investigations concentrated upon it.