Notwithstanding the strange, not to say grotesque, appearance of its beak, the Seiche is decidedly an interesting creature. All the various shades of the most brilliant and various rainbow, come and go, die and reappear on his transparent skin, according to the play of the light as he turns now hither and now thither, and as he dies his azure eyes look upon you with an expression, now flashing and now fading, which seems to rebuke you for your cruelty in killing, or to express a regret at parting with life. The general decrease of that class, so immensely important in the past ages, is less remarkable as to the navigators (Seiches, &c.) than in the Poulpe, properly so called, the sad frequenter of our shores. It has not the same firmness as the Seiche, strengthened as the latter is by an interior bone, and it has not, like the Argonaut, a resisting exterior, a shell to protect the most vulnerable organs. Neither has it the kind of sail which aids its navigation and spares it the labor of _rowing_. It paddles about along our shores, hugging the shore like some timid coaster. And its conscious inferiority teaches it habits of treachery; it is at once timid and bold--lying in ambush until quite sure that it can devour without the preliminary necessity of a fight. Lying in wait in some rocky crevice, it awaits its prey. That having passed in unsuspicious security, your Poulpe throws out the terrible lashes, the weaker of the prey are devoured, the stronger get loose and escape. A man when swimming, if thus attacked, finds no difficulty in mastering his at once insolent and imbecile assailant. Disgusted, but not alarmed, he handles the creature without gloves, crushes, collapses him, and feels actually vexed with himself for having even for an instant been provoked by an enemy so contemptible. "Bah!" one is tempted to exclaim, on having so easily vanquished such a thing--"Bah! You came swelling, blowing, threatening, and after all you prove to be only a sham, a mask rather than a being. Without fixity, without substance, a blown-up bladder, now collapsed, to be to-morrow a mere drop, a nameless portion of the dark blue waters of the Sea." CHAPTER X. CRUSTACÆ--BATTLE AND INTRIGUE.