The hermit reflects. He has but one instrument, his foot, from that he developes a very serviceable appendage with which he closes the aperture and behold him safe at home for the night. His great and permanent difficulty is this, to combine safety with connection with the outer world. He cannot, like the oursin, utterly isolate himself; without the aid of his instructors and nurses, light and air, he cannot strengthen his soft body and make his organs. He must acquire senses; he needs scent and hearing, those guides of the blind; he must acquire sight, and above all, he must be able to breathe freely. Great and imperative function, that! How little we think of it while it is easy; but what terrible pain and agitation if it become too difficult! Let our lungs become congested, let the larynx even be embarrassed for a single night and our agitation and anxiety are so extreme, so unendurable, that often, at all risks, we have every window thrown open. With the asthmatic, the anxiety and torture are so extreme that when they cannot breathe freely through the natural organ, they create a supplementary means. Air, air, air, or death! Nature, when thus pressed, is terribly inventive. We not wonder if the poor sedentaries, stifling in their houses, have discovered a thousand means, invented a thousand sorts of pipes through which to admit the vital air. One admits air between plates around his feet, another by a sort of comb, another by a disc or buckler, and others by extending threads, some with pretty side plumes, and lastly, some have on their back a little tree, a pretty miniature aspen, which trembles continually and at every movement inhales or exhales a breath. Sometimes those most sensitive and important organs affect the most elegant and fanciful forms; we would say that they wish to plead, to melt, to secure mercy, taking every form and every color. These little children of the sea, the molluscs, in their infantine grace, in their rich variety of colors, are their ocean mother's eternal ornament and joy. Stern as she may be, she has but to look on them, and she must smile. But a timid life is full of melancholy. One cannot doubt that she greatly suffers from her severe seclusion, that fairest of the fair, that queen beauty of the seas, the Haliotide. She has a foot, and could, if she chose, get along, though slowly; but she dares not. Ask her why, and she will reply: "I am afraid. The Crab is continually watching me, and a whole world of voracious fish are continually swimming over my head. My cruel admirer, man, punishes me for my beauty; pursuing me from the Indies to the Pole, and is now loading whole ships with me at golden California."