"These curious creatures have afforded much entertainment, not only to myself, but to those scientific friends to whom I have had opportunities of exhibiting them. When I see them surrounding the mansion of the Sabella, gazing, as it were, after him as he retreats into his castle, flinging their wild arms over its entrance, and keeping watch with untiring vigilance until he reappears, it seems to require no very vivid fancy to imagine them so many guardian demons; and the Lares of the old Roman mythology occurring to memory, I described the form under the scientific appellation of _Lar Sabellarum_. You may, however, if it pleases you better, call them 'witches dancing round the charmed pot.'" When the tide is out you will frequently notice barnacles adhering to the rocks, or to the timbers used in the construction of wharves. Pray stop and examine them critically and see what admirable fishers they are. Their fishing-nets are composed of several long, flexible, jointed fingers, thickly beset with sensitive hairs. When the fisher wants a meal he thrusts his long hand (_Fig. 3_) out the door of his stone house; the sensitive fingers quickly tell when they come in contact with anything good to eat, and they curl over and grasp it and convey it to the mouth. These barnacles are wonderful creatures and well worthy your continuous study. They pass through several stages. When young they are a gay rolicking set, swimming freely in the water; but as maturity approaches they settle down in stone houses, never more to rove about, and set up fishing for a living. XII.--RHIZOPODS. Rhizopods are the lowest creatures in the animal kingdom. Some of them are apparently nothing more than animated protoplasm. Protoplasm pertains to the first formation of living bodies, whether vegetable or animal, and it appears to be only a viscid, glutinous, unformed mass of jelly-like substance, yet these rhizopods seem endowed with something more than simple life. [Illustration: FIG. 1. AMOEBA PRINCEPS, IN DIFFERENT FORMS.] Let us take the lowest of these lowly creatures, the _amoeba_, or proteus, which we may find during the summer in almost every fresh water pond. I cannot describe it, for, like its namesake, it is constantly changing its form, slipping away from us, as it were, right before our eyes, and assuming a new shape. As Proteus of old could assume any form, either plant or animal as he pleased, so our _amoeba_ can assume various forms at pleasure. You will remember that Homer introduces Proteus in the fourth book of the _Odyssey_. He makes him the servant of Neptune, and says his office was to take care of the seals or sea-calves. And who knows but his namesake may have some such office among the curious beings of the microscopic world which is peopled with as many strange creatures as those we read of in ancient mythology?