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These are a very few of the microscopic inhabitants of my pond, but, as you will confuse them if I show you too many, we will conclude with two rather larger specimens, and examine them carefully. The first, called the Cydippe, is a lovely, transparent living ball, which I want to explain to you because it is so wondrously beautiful.
Twisting, lengthening, shortening, they are drawn back and re-coiled within, and "The ethereal substance closed, Not long divisible." This delicate wonder is the Cydippe. Though among the most charming of marine creatures, none is more liable to be overlooked, owing to its extreme subtilty.
Were the gods ever so insulted? Then the snaky Medusa and Pandora, our mother, are jelly-fish; Astræa is still to be found on coral reefs, a poor thing, and much browsed upon by parrot fish; and Doris and Tethys and Cydippe are sea slugs. It's worse than Heine's vision of the gods grown old. They can't be content with the departed gods merely.
The second, the Sea-mat or Flustra, looks like a crumpled drab-colored seaweed, but is really composed of many thousands of grottos, the homes of tiny sea-animals. Cydippe Pileus.
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