back to places! All hands jump! Second couple right and left, three back
somersaults, and hop to places! Ladies chain! All hands hop! Right claw, left
claw, down the middle! All hands somersault back to places!”

Well! I never saw a dance like that before, did you? And everybody is
dancing: no lazy people here. There must beathousand people. A thousand!
There must be a million!

“Hop! Hop! Skip! Skip! Right claw, left claw, down the middle!”

Don’t you wish we could be sand-hoppers, too, just for a few minutes?
That is Mr. Sand-hopper himself in the picture, the one who is just jumping
backward so nimbly. He is dancing with his cousin, Miss Corophium,—that
lovely creature with the long, graceful, claw-like antenne. She is not quite
used to dancing on sand, for she lives in the mud at home; but still she is en-
joying herself very much. The lady in the left-hand corner is Mrs. Sand-Screw,
who is dancing back to back with Mr. Kroyler’s Sand-screw, her third cousin.
It is quite a family party, you see, for host and guests are all related to each

other.

 

 

 
 
 

Uy

 
 
 

Soh

 

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Curious people, aren't they? The biggest cannot be more than an inch
long. Their hard, shining shells are polished as bright as possible, and their
claws all neatly arranged. They have twelve legs, some of which they use in
walking and some in swimming; indeed, one of their family names is Amphi-
poda, which means “both kinds of feet.” Some of the ladies are carrying their
eggs with them, packed away under the fore-part of their bodies, just where the
legs are joinedon. Shouldn't you think they would be afraid of dropping them?

Ah! Now they are going to supper! There is the feast, spread out on
the sand. Great heaps of delicious rotten sea-weed, and plenty of worms—
a supper fit for a king, if the king happens to be a sand-hopper. They seem
very hungry, and no wonder, after dancing so hard!

They will eat anything and everything,—these tiny creatures; if you