difficult to keep in domestic captivity, that it was delightful
to see him blooming and thriving as he does in Tank No. 1
of the Great Aquarium. His squat build—low and broad—
contrasts well with those tall white neighbours of his (
Di-
anthus plumosa
), whose faces are like a plume
of snowy feathers. All the sea-anemones in
this tank have settled themselves on the
rocks according to their own fancy. They
are of lovely shades of colour, rosy, salmon-
coloured, and pearly-white.
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195
There are more than five thousand sea-anemones of
various kinds in the Aquarium; and they have an attendant,
whose sole occupation is to feed them, by means of a pair of
long wooden forceps.
See What I See?
Ever wonder how clownfish can tolerate living among
stinging sea anemones? Their entire bodies are slath-
ered with a layer of mucus that insulates their bodies
against big stings.
Reluctantly breaking away from such old friends, we
pass through a door into a long vault-like stone passage or
hall, down one side of which there seem to be high large
windows, about as far apart as windows of a long room com-
monly are. Behind each of these is a sea-pool like the first
one.
Take the first of the lot—Tank No. 2. It is stocked
with
Serpulæ
. Sea-anemones are well-known to most people,
but tube-worms are not such familiar friends; so I will try to
describe this particular kind of “sea-gentlemen.” The tube-
worms are so called because, though they are true worms
Among the Mermaids
196
(sea-worms), they do not trust their soft bodies to the sea,
as our common earth-worms trust theirs in a garden-bed,
but build themselves tubes inside which they live, popping
their heads out at the top now and then like a chimney-
sweep pushing his brush out at the top of a tall round chim-
ney. Now if you can fancy one of our tall round manufac-
tory chimneys to be white instead of black, and the round
chimney-sweep’s brush to have lovely gay-coloured feathers
all round it instead of dirty bristles, or if you can fancy the
sweep letting off a monster catherine-wheel at the chimney’s
mouth, you may have some idea what a tube-worm’s head is
like when he pokes it out of his tube.
The
Serpulæ
make their tubes of chalky stuff, some-
thing like egg-shell; and they stick them on to
anything that comes to hand down below.
Those in the Great Aquarium came from
Weymouth. They were dredged up with
the white pipes or tubes sticking to oyster-
shells, old bottles, stones, and what not, like
bits of macaroni glued on to old crockery sherds.
These odds and ends are overgrown, however, with weeds
and zoophytes, and (like an ugly house covered by creep-
ers) look picturesque rather than otherwise. The worms
have small bristles down their bodies, which serve as feet,
and help them to scramble up inside their tubes, when they
Aunt Judy’s Aquarium
197
wish to poke their heads out and breathe. These heads are
delicate, bright-coloured plumes. Each species has its own
plume of its own special shape and colour. They are only
to be seen when the animal is alive. A good many little
Ser
-
pulæ
have been born in the Aquarium.
Through the next window—Tank No. 3—you may
see more tube-worms, with ray-like, daisy heads, and soft
muddy tubes. They are
Sabellæ
.
Have you ever seen a “sea-mouse”? Probably you have:
preserved in a bottle. It is only like a mouse from being about
the size of a mouse’s body, without legs, and with a lot of
rainbow-coloured hairs. You may be astonished to hear that
it is classed among the worms. There is a sea-mouse in the
Great Aquarium. I did not see him; perhaps because he is
given to burrowing. If he is not in one of the two tanks just
named he is probably in No. 21 or No.
25. He is so handsome dead and in
a bottle, that he must be gorgeous to
behold alive and in a pool. You should
look out for him.
It is a disappointing feature of this
water wonderland that some of the “sea-
gentlemen” are apt to hide, like hobbledehoy
children, when visitors call. Indeed, a good
many of them—such as the swimming-crabs,
Among the Mermaids
198
the burrowing-crabs, the sea-scorpions, and the eels—are
night-feeders, and one cannot expect them to change their
whole habits and customs to be seen of the British public.
Anyhow, whether they hide from custom or caprice, they are
quite safe from interference. Much happier, in this respect,
than the beasts in the Zoological Gardens. One may disturb
the big elephant’s repose with umbrella-points, or throw
buns at the brown bear, but the “sea-gentlemen” are safe in
their caves, and humanity flattens its nose against the glass
wall of separation in vain.
The Stamina of Squids
A pair of squids start having sex after a prolonged
mating dance—and don’t stop for two whole weeks.
They take breaks only so the female can dive to the
ocean floor and deposit her eggs.
The Dana Octopus Squid, about as tall as a person,
uses a blinding flash of light to disorient its prey while
simultaneously illuminating it so that the squid can
feast.
Aunt Judy’s Aquarium
199
Possessed Crabs
The female Sacculina
parasite slips under the crab’s ar-
mor and begins growing thin roots that snake through
and around every part of the crab—even its eyestalks.
Once her home is prepared, she makes room for the
male Sacculina to join her. By the time the parasites
are mating, the crab is completely enslaved by the
parasites and spends all its energy doing their bidding
.
When I looked into Tank No. 5, however, there were sev-
eral swimming-crabs and sea-scorpions to be seen. The sea-
scorpions are fish, but bold-faced, fiery, greedy little fellows.
The swimming-crabs are said to be “the largest, strongest,
and
hungriest
” of English crabs. What a thought for those
they live on! Let us picture to ourselves the largest, strongest,
and
hungriest
of cannibals! Doubtless he would make short
work even of the American Giant, as the swimming-crabs,
by night, devour other crabs, larger but milder-tempered
than themselves. It speaks volumes for the sea-scorpions,
who are small fish, that they can hold their own in the same
pool with the swimming-crabs.
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Tank 4 contains big spider-crabs, who sit with their
knees above their heads, winking at you with their eyes and
feelers; or scramble out unexpectedly from dens and caves
here and there, high up in the rocky sides of the pool.
Nos. 6, 7, and 8 contain fish.
It really is sad to think how completely our ideas on the
subject of cod spring from the kitchen and the fish-kettle.
(As to our cod-liver oil, we know no more
how much of it has anything to do with
cod-fish than we can guess where our
milk and port-wine come from.) Poor
cod! If of a certain social standing, it’s
odds if we will recognize any of him but
his head and shoulders. I have seen him served up in country
inns with a pickled walnut in the socket of each eye; and in
life, and at home, he has the attentive, inquisitive, watchful,
humorous eyes common to all fishes.
Fishes are coldblooded: slow, watchful, inquisitive, ac-
quisitive, and full of a sense of humour. There are fishes in the
Great Aquarium whose faces twinkle again with quiet fun.
The cod here seemed quite as much interested in look-
ing at us through a glass window as we were in looking at
them. They are tame, and have very large appetites—so
tame, and so hungry, that the fish who live with them are at a
Aunt Judy’s Aquarium
201
disadvantage at meal-times, and it is feared that they must
be removed.
These other fish are plaice, soles, brill, turbot, and skate.
The skate love to lie buried over head and ears in the sand.
The faintest outline of tail or a flapping fin betrays the spot,
and you long for an umbrella-poke from some Zoological-
Garden-frequenting old lady, to stir the lazy creature up; but
it is impossible.
Suddenly, when you are as tired of waiting as Jack
was when Coomara was “engaged thinking,” the
fin movement becomes more distinct, a cloud
of sand rises into the water, and a grey-coat-
ed skate, with two ornamental knobs upon
his tail, flaps slowly away across the pool.
Looking Up
Stargazers, named because their eyes are on top of
their heads, also catch prey by lying on the sea floor
mostly covered in sand. When oblivious prey float by
above, stargazers use their two poisonous spines and
their ability to send out electrical shocks to kill them.
Among the Mermaids
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Sometimes these flat-fish flap upwards to the surface,
poke their noses into the other world, and then, like larks,
having gone up with effort, let themselves easily down again
to the ground.
As we were looking into No. 7, an ambitious little sole
took into his head to climb up the rocks, in the caves of
which dwell crusty crabs. By marvelously 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
Aunt Judy’s Aquarium
203
us to hold communion. But though, when you put the point
of your little finger towards a Crassy, he gives it a very affec-
tionate squeeze, and seems rather anxious to detain it per-
manently, 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
Serpulæ
and
Sabellæ
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.
But with the fishes it is quite
another thing. When you can fairly
look into eyes as bright and expres-
sive as your own, a long stride has
been taken towards friendly rela-
tions. You fatten your nose on one
side of the glass, and Mr. Fish flat-
tens his on the other. If you have
the stoniest of British stares he will
outstare you. You long to scratch his
back, or show him some similar at-
tention, and (if he be a cod) to ask him, as between friends,
why on earth (I mean in sea) he wears that queer horn under
his chin.
When you can
fairly look into
eyes as bright and
expressive as your
own, a long stride
has been taken
towards friendly
relations.
Among the Mermaids
204
Now with the
Crustaceans
(hard-shelled sea-gentlemen)
it is different again. So far as one feels friendly towards a fish
it is a fellow feeling. You know people like this or that cod, as
one knows people like certain sheep, dogs, and horses. And
a very short acquaintance with fish convinces you that not
only is there a type of face belonging to each species, but that
individual countenances vary, as with us. It is said that shep-
herds know the faces of their sheep as well as of their other
friends, and I have no doubt that the keeper of the Great
Aquarium knows his cod apart quite well.
And if one’s feeling for the
Crustaceans
—the crabs, lob-
sters, prawns, &c.—is different, it is not because one feels
them to be less intelligent than fishes, but because their intel-
ligence is altogether a mysterious, unfathomable, immeasur-
able quantity. There’s no saying what they don’t know. There
is no telling how much they can see. And the great puzzle is
what they can be thinking of. For that the spiny lobsters are
Aunt Judy’s Aquarium
205
thinking, and “thinking very seriously about something,” you
can no more doubt than Jack did about the Merrow.
The spiny lobsters (commonly, but erroneously called
craw-fish or cray-fish) and the common lobsters are in Tank
No. 9.
Ah! that is a wonderful pool. The first glimpse of the
spiny lobsters is enough for any one who has read of Coo-
mara. We are among the Merrows at last.
I don’t k
now that Coomara was a lobster, but I think he
must have been a crustacean. Even his green hair reminds one
of the spider-crabs; though matter-of-fact naturalists tell us
that
their
green hair is only seaweed which grows luxuriantly
on their shells from their quiet habits, and because they are
not given to burrowing, or cleaning themselves among the
stones like the silver-coated basse. At one time, by the bye,
it was supposed that they dressed
themselves in weeds, whence they
were called “vanity-crabs.”
But the spiny lobsters—please
to look at them, and see if you can
so much as guess their age, their ca-
pabilities, or their intentions. I fancy
that the difference between the feel-
ings with which they and the fishes
inspire us is much the same as that
At one time, by
the bye, it was
supposed that they
dressed themselves
in weeds, whence
they were called
“vanity-crabs.”
between our mental attitude towards hill-men or house-
elves, and towards men and women.
The spiny lobsters are red. The common lobsters are
blue. The spiny lobsters are large, their eyes are startlingly
prominent, their powerful antennæ are longer and redder
than Coomara’s nose, and wave about in an inquisitive and
somewhat threatening manner. When four or five of them
are gathered together in the centre of the pool, sitting sol-
emnly on their tails, which are tucked neatly under them,
each with his ten sharp elbows a-kimbo “engaged thinking”
(and perhaps talking) “very seriously about something,” it is
an impressive but
uncanny
sight.
We witnessed such a conclave, sitting in a close circle,
face to face, waving their long antennæ; and as we watched,
from the shadowy caves above another mer-
row appeared. How he ever got his
cumbersome coat of mail, his stif legs,
and long spines safely down the
face of the cliff is a mystery. But
he scrambled down ledge by ledge,
bravely, and in some haste. He knew
what the meeting was about, though
we did not, and soon took his place,
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