CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVII.By the Sea-Shore.English Appreciation of the Sea-side—Its Variety and Interest—Heavy Weather—The Green Waves—On the Cliffs—The Sea from there—Madame de Gasparin’s Reveries—Description of a Tempest—The Voice of God—Calm—A Great Medusa off the Coast—Night on the Sea—Boating Excursion—In a Cavern—Colonies of Sea-anemones—Rock Pools—Southey’s Description—Treasures for the Aquarium—A Rat Story—Rapid Influx of Tide and its Dangers—Melancholy Fate of a Family—Life Under Water.“In hollows of the tide-worn reef,Left at low water glistening in the sun,Pellucid pools, and rocks in miniature,With their small fry of fishes, crushed shells,Rich mosses, tree-like sea-weed, sparkling pebbles,Enchant the eye, and tempt the eager handTo violate the fairy paradise.”The sea-side is nowhere more thoroughly appreciated than in our own rock and water girt island, as the popularity of so many of our coast watering-places fully attests. The wonders[pg 191]of the shore are so many and varied that they would require volumes like the present to do them full justice. Here, then, the subject can only be briefly discussed.51“The sea-side,”says Gosse, a writer who is both artist and scientist in his powers of description,“is never dull. Other places soon tire us; we cannot always be admiring scenery, though ever so beautiful, and nobody stands gazing into a field or on a hedgerow bank, though studded with the most lovely flowers, by the half-hour together. But we can and do stand watching the sea, and feel reluctant to leave it: the changes of the tide and the ever rolling, breaking, and retiring waves are so much like the phenomena of life, that we look on with an interest and expectation akin to that with which we watch the proceedings of living beings.”The sea-shore, in all its varied aspects, has beauties and characteristics all its own.“How grandly,”says the same writer,“those heavy waves are rolling in upon this long shingle-beach. Onward they come, with an even, deliberate march that tells of power, out of that lowering sky that broods over the southern horizon. Onward they come! onward! onward! each following its precursor in serried ranks, ever coming nearer and nearer, ever looming larger and larger, like the resistless legions of a great invading army, sternly proud in its conscious strength; and ever and anon, as one and another dark billow breaks in a crest of foam, we may fancy we see the standards and ensigns of the threatening host waving here and there above the mass.“Still they drive in, and each in turn curls over its green head, and rushes up the sloping beach in a long-drawn sheet of the purest, whitest foam. The drifted snow itself is not more purely spotlessly white than is that sheet of foaming water. How it seethes and sparkles! how it boils and bubbles! how it rings and hisses! The wind sings shrilly out of the driving clouds, now sinking to a moan, now rising to a roar; but we cannot hear it, for its tones are drowned in the ceaseless rushing of the mighty waves upon the beach and the rattle of the recoiling pebbles. Along the curvature of the shore the shrill, hoarse voice runs, becoming softer and mellower as it recedes; while the echo of the bounding cliffs confines and repeats and mingles it with the succeeding ones till all are blended on the ear in one deafening roar.“But let us climb these slippery rocks, and picking our way cautiously over yonder craggy ledges, leaping the chasms that yawn between and reveal the hissing waters below, let us strive to attain the vantage-ground of that ridge which we see some fifty feet above the beach. It is perilous work this scrambling over rocks, alternately slimy with treacherous seaweed, and bristling with sharp needle-points of honeycombed limestone; now climbing a precipice, with the hands clutching these same rough points, and the toes finding a precarious hold in their interstices; now descending to a ledge awfully overhung; now creeping along a narrow shelf by working each foot on a few inches at a time, while the fingers nervously cling to the stony precipice, and the mind strives to forget the rugged depths below, and what would happen if—ah! that‘if!’let us cast it to the winds. Another long stride across a gulf, a bound upward, and here we are.“Yes, here we stand on the bluff, looking out to seaward in the very eye of the wind. We might have supposed it a tolerably smooth slope of stone when we looked at[pg 192]the point from the sea, or from the various parts of the shore where we can see this promontory. But very different is it on a close acquaintance. It is a wilderness of craggy points and huge castellated masses of compact limestone marble, piled one on another in the most magnificent confusion. We have secured a comfortable berth, where, wedged in between two of these masses, we can without danger lean and look wistfully down upon the very theatre of the elemental war. Is not this a sight worth the toil and trouble and peril of the ascent? The rock below is fringed with great insular peaks and blocks, bristling up amidst the sea, of various sizes and of the most fantastic and singular forms, which the sea at high water would mostly cover, though now the far-receding tide exposes their horrid[pg 193]points, and the brown leprous coating of barnacles with which their lower sides are covered is broadly seen between the swelling seas.ON THE SEA-SHORE: CALM AND STORM.ON THE SEA-SHORE: CALM AND STORM.“Heavily rolls in the long deep swell of the ocean from the south-west; and as it approaches, with its huge undulations driven up into foaming crests before the howling gale, each mighty wave breasts up against these rocks, as when an army of veteran legions assaults an impregnable fortress. Impregnable, indeed! for having spent its fury in a rising wall of mingled water and foam, it shoots up perpendicularly to an immense elevation, as if it would scale the heights it could not overthrow, only to be the next moment a broken ruin of water murmuring and shrieking in the moats below. The insular blocks and peaks receive the incoming surge in an overwhelming flood, which immediately, as the spent wave recedes, pours off through the interstices in a hundred beautiful jets and cascades; while in the narrow straits and passages the rushing sea boils and whirls about in curling sheets of snowy whiteness, curdling the surface; or where it breaks away, of the most delicate pea-green hue, the tint produced by the bubbles seen through the water as they crowd to the air from the depths where they were formed—the evidence of the unseen conflict fiercely raging between earth and sea far below.“The shrieking gusts, as the gale rises yet higher and more furious, whip off the crests of the breaking billows, and bear the spray like a shower of salt sleet to the height where we stand; while the foam, as it forms and accumulates around the base of the headland, is seized by the same power in broad masses and carried against the sides of the projecting rocks, flying hither and thither like fleeces of wool, and adhering like so much mortar to the face of the precipice, till it covers great spaces, to the height of many fathoms above the highest range of the tide. The gulls flit wailing through the storm, now breasting the wind, and beating the air with their long wings as they make slow headway; then yielding the vain essay, they turn and are whirled away, till, recovering themselves, they come up again with a sweep, only to be discomfited. Their white forms, now seen against the leaden-grey sky, now lost amidst the snowy foam, then coming into strong relief against the black rock; their piping screams now sounding close against the ear, then blending with the sounds of the elements, combine to add a wildness to the scene which was already sufficiently savage.“But the spring-tide is nearly at its lowest; a rocky path leads down from our eminence to a recess in the precipice, whence in these conditions access may be obtained to a sea cavern that we may possibly find entertainment in exploring.”Madame de Gasparin, in her visit to Italy, thus describes her impressions of a thunderstorm, the reveries of an enthusiastic poet-traveller.52She says:—“Last night a storm burst over Chiaveri. Three tempests in one! and we in the very centre of the action.“The thunder, marching on for a long time with that solemn roll which reveals the depths of the skies, suddenly explodes with a crash; the lightnings fall straight and serried—no longer a series of fantastic zig-zags, but a very focus of electric light. Sometimes the brilliancy flashes out behind the castle, and the outline of its square tower, black as ink,[pg 194]is thrown upon the palazzi opposite to it. Sometimes the fire kindles in the east, and the square, the houses, the fortress, are all lighted up by a flame of unbearable white, which scorches the eyes. The air is rent by the winds in fury, the boom of the waves resounds through an undertone of wild complaint. Angels of destruction are passing by this night; one hears the hiss of their swords. What is human life? A nothing. What is man himself? A worm. In hours like these the boldest among us calls his ways to remembrance.“I can understand seriousness; I have no patience with fear.“There was a time when, during heavy storms, my mother was wont to say to me:‘Come!’We used to go out in the full fury of the tempest.‘Listen,’my mother would say;‘it is the voice of God!’Then she made me join my hands; she prayed, and peace descended into my soul.”And again of a storm elsewhere Madame de Gasparin says:—“The mighty voice fills the air with clamour. Not another word; there it is in its frenzy.“There it is, stretching out to the furthest horizons. The clouds which are driving along alternately dye it grey or black; then the mists are rent, they let the sun pass through, and the intense blue is lit up to the very depths of immensity.“Near the shore squadrons of green waves of baleful perfidious hue—heavy opaque masses, uplifted by a convulsive throb, shone athwart by a pale ray—roll over and break with thundering noise; and foaming cataracts, precipitated in torrents, dash up, then, suddenly quieted, come and lave the shore with their clear waters.“Terrible in its rage this sea! full of spite, like a wicked fairy. Howling to the four quarters of the sky, heedlessly breaking proud ships to pieces, intoxicated with cries, calamities, frenzied with might; and then, as in irony, tracing magic circles, enclosing, inundating you, and thrilling with pleasure, running back, leaving the sand strewn with rainbowed bubbles.“We stand motionless, mere nothings in presence of this brute force. But our soul thrills, feeling herself greater than the sea, stronger than the waves—she who can lay hold on God.* * * * * * *“But a ray or light has shone out....“And now that the sun is lavishingly scattering diamonds over the sea, now that the wrath of the waves breaks into sparkling laughter, let us run on the shore, and defy the spray.“And so, sometimes flying from, and sometimes braving the wind, we rush into the uproar, we push on to that mass of rocks upon which the waves are crashing. Swelling at a distance, they rear themselves up—they are giants! Hardly have they reached the rocks than they crumble away, and the silly foam throws its flakes on the pine-trees holding on to the mountain side. This is succeeded by a heavenly calm.”“The peaceful main,One molten mirror, one illumined plane,Clear as the blue, sublime, o’er-arching sky.”“Down we gazed,”says Gosse, in one of his charming sea-side works,“on the smooth sea, becoming more and more mirror-like every moment, as the slight afternoon breeze died away into a calm, and allowing us from our vantage height to see far down into its depths.[pg 195]Presently I was gratified with the sight of one and then another of that enormous Medusa, the Great Rhizostome, urging its diagonal course at the shining surface. Its great bluish-white disc, like a globe of fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, moves foremost by alternate contractions and expansions, which remind one of the pulse of an enormous heart, especially as at each stroke a volume of fluid is shot out of the cavity, by the impact of which on the surrounding water the huge body is driven vigorously forward. Meanwhile the compound peduncle, with its eight arms that hang down to the depth of two feet below, is dragged after the disc, its weight and the resistance of the water to its bulk combining to give that slanting direction which this great Medusa always assumes when in motion. We watched the great unwieldy creatures a long time, even till evening had faded into night, and were left almost the only wanderers on the hill. But what a night it was! So calm, so balmy, so solemnly still and noiseless; even the wash of the ripple at the foot of the cliff was hushed. There was no moon, but many stars were twinkling and blinking, and in the north-west a strong flush of light filled the sky, which was rapidly creeping along over the north cliffs. Then those cliffs themselves, all distinctness of feature lost in the darkness, stood like a great black wall in front of us, which being reflected in the placid sea so truly that no difference could be traced between substance and shadow, the dark mass, doubled in height, seemed to rise from a line only a few hundred yards off; and thus everything looked strange and unnatural and unrecognisable, although our reason told us the cause.“Let us now scramble down the cliff-side path, tangled with briers and ferns, where the swelling buds of the hawthorn and honeysuckle are already bursting, while the blackbird mellowly whistles in the fast-greening thicket, and the lark joyously greets the mounting sun above us. Yonder on the shingle lies a boat newly painted in white and green for the attraction of young ladies of maritime aspirations; she is hauled up high and dry, but the sinewy arms of an honest boatman, who, hearing footsteps, has come out of his little grotto under the rock to reconnoitre, will soon drag her down to the sea’s margin, and‘for the sum of a shilling an hour,’will pull us over the smooth and pond-like sea whithersoever we may choose to direct him.“‘Jump aboard, please, sir. Jump in, ladies. Jump in, little master.’And now, as we take our seats on the clean canvas cushions astern, the boat’s bottom scrapes along with a harsh grating noise over the white shingle-pebbles, and we are afloat.“First to the caverns just outside yonder lofty point. The lowness of the tide will enable us to take the boat into them, and the calmness of the sea will preclude much danger of her striking upon the rocks, especially as the watchful boatman will be on the alert, boat-hook in hand, to keep her clear. Now we lie in the gloom of the lofty arch, gently heaving and sinking and swaying on the slight swell, which, however smooth at the surface, is always perceptible when you are in a boat among rocks, and which invests such an approach with a danger that a landsman does not at all appreciate.“Yet the water, despite the swell, is glassy, and invites the gaze down into its crystalline depths, where the little fishes are playing and hovering over the dark weeds.“The sides of the cavern rise around us in curved planes, washed smooth and slippery by the dashing of the waves of ages, and gradually merge into the massive angles and projections and groins of the broken roof, whence a tuft or two of what looks like samphire depends.[pg 196]But notice the colonies of the smooth anemone or beadlet (Actinia mesembryanthemum) clustered about the sides, many of them adhering to the stone walls several feet above the water. Those have been left uncovered for hours, and are none the worse for it. They are closed, the many tentacles being concealed by the involution of the upper part of the body, so that they look like balls or hemispheres, or semi-ovals of flesh; or like ripe fruits, so plump and glossy and succulent and high-coloured, that we are tempted to stretch forth the willing hand to pluck and eat. Some are greengages, some Orleans plums, some magnum-bonums, so varied are their rich hues; but look beneath the water, and you see them not less numerous, but of quite another guise. These are all widely expanded; the tentacles are thrown out in an arch over the circumference, leaving a broad flat disc, just like a many-petalled flower of gorgeous hues; indeed, we may fancy that here we see the blossoms and there the ripened fruit. Do not omit, however, to notice the beads of pearly blue that stud the margin all around at the base of the over-arching tentacles. These have been supposed by some to be eyes; the suggestion, however, rests upon no anatomical ground, and is, I am afraid, worthless, though I cannot tell you what purpose they do serve.”SEA ANEMONES.SEA ANEMONES.1, 2, 3.A. sulcata. 4.Phymactis sanctæ Helenæ. 5.Actinia capensis. 6.A. Peruviana. 7.A. sanctæ Catherinæ. 8.A. amethystina. 9, 10.Anthea cereus.[pg 197]Southey must have had the deep rocky pools of the Devonshire coast in his mind’s eye when he wrote—“It was a garden still beyond all price,Even yet it was a place of Paradise.* * * *And here were coral bowers,And grots of madrepores,And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eyeAs e’er was mossy bedWhereon the wood-nymphs lieWith languid limbs in summer’s sultry hours.Here, too, were living flowers,Which like a bud compacted,Their purple cups contracted,And now, in open blossom spread,Stretched like green anthers many a seeking head;And arborets of jointed stone were there,And plants of fibres fine as silkworm’s thread;Yea, beautiful as mermaid’s golden hair,Upon the waves dispread.”It is among the rock-tide pools that some of the most prized treasures of the aquarium may be obtained. There are the little shrubberies of pink coralline, Southey’s“arborets of jointed stone”; there are the crimson banana-leaves of theDelesseria, the purple tufts of Polysiphoniæ and Ceramia, the broad emerald green leaves ofUlva, and the wavy, featheryPtitolaandDasya. Then everywhere is to be found the lovelyChondrus crispus, with its expanding fan-shaped fronds cut into segments, every segment of every frond reflecting a lovely iridescent azure.DELESSERIA.DELESSERIA.ULVA.ULVA.Mr. Gosse was reclining one evening on the turf, looking down on a Devonshire cove that formed the extremity of a great cavern. Though it was low tide, the sea did not recede sufficiently to admit of any access to the cove from the shore. Presently he saw a large rat come deliberately foraging down to the water’s edge, peep under every stone, go hither and thither very methodically, pass into the crevices, exploring them in succession. At length he came out of a hole in the rock, with some white object in his mouth as big as a walnut, and ran slowly off with it by a way the observer had not seen him go before, till he could follow him no longer with his eyes because of the projections of the precipice. What could he possibly have found? He evidently knew what he was about. From his retirement into the cavern, when the sea had quite insulated it, the sagacious little animal had doubtless his retreat in its recesses, far up, of course, out of the reach of the sea, where he would be snugly lodged when the waves dashed and broke wildly through the cove, kindling millions of fitful lamps among the clustering polypes below.The influx of the tide is frequently, as we all know, very rapid on the sands, and cuts off the communication between rocky islets and the shore in rather a treacherous fashion. Mr. Gosse, in giving an account of such influx on a part of the Devonshire coast says:—“In the evening we strolled down to look at the place, and were beguiled into staying till it was quite late by the interest which attached to the coming-in of the tide. There was a[pg 198]breeze from the southward, which hove the sea against the opposite entrance of the cavern to that on which we were standing; and the funnel-shaped cliffs on that side concentrated the successive waves, which drove through a sort of‘bore,’and covered with turbulent water large tracts which but a few moments before were dry. We were pushed from stone to stone, and from spot to spot, like a retreating enemy before a successful army; but we lingered, wishing to see the junction of the waters and the insulation of the rock. It is at this point that the advance is so treacherous. There was an isthmus of some twenty feet wide of dry sand, when my wife, who had seen the process before, said,‘It will be all over by the time you have counted a hundred.’Before I had reached fifty it was a wide wash of water.”A melancholy fate overtook a large family party near here some years ago. They had walked over the sands to Fern Cliff, and made their picnic in a cavern close by, forgetful of the silent march of the tide. When they discovered their isolation escape was cut off, and the overhanging rock forbade all chance of climbing. They were all drowned, and the bodies picked up one by one, as the sea washed them in.All the species of anemone found on the rocks above the water are to be seen below it, and all displaying their beauties in an incomparably more charming fashion. The whole submerged wall is nothing else than a parterre of most brilliant flowers, taken bodily and set on end.“The eye is bewildered with their number and variety, and knows not which to look at first. Here are the rosy anemones (Sagartia rosea), with a firm fleshy column of rich sienna-brown, paler towards the base, and with the upper part studded with indistinct spots, marking the situation of certain organs which have an adhesive power. The disc is of a pale neutral tint, with a crimson mouth in the centre, and a circumference of crowded tentacles of the most lovely rose-purple, the rich hue of that lovely flower that bears the name of General Jacqueminot. In those specimens that are most widely opened this tentacular fringe forms a blossom whose petals overhang the concealed column, expanding to the width of an inch or more; but there are others in which the expansion is less complete in different degrees, and these all give distinct phases of loveliness. We find a few among the rest which, with the characteristically-coloured tentacles, have the column and disc of a creamy white; and one in which the disc is of a brilliant orange, inclining to scarlet. Most lovely little creatures are they all! Commingling with these charming roses there are others which attain a larger size, occurring in even greater abundance. They are frequently an inch and a half in diameter when expanded, and some are even larger than this. You may know them at once by observing that the outer row of tentacles, and occasionally also some of the others, are of a scarlet hue, which, when examined minutely, is seen to be produced by a sort of core of that rich hue pervading the pellucid tentacle. The species is commonly known as the scarlet-fringed anemone (Sagartia miniata). The inner rows of tentacles, which individually are larger than those of the outer rows, are pale, marked at the base with strong bars of black. The disc is very variable in hue, but the column is for the most part of the same rich brown as we saw in the rosy. Yet, though these are characteristic colours, there are specimens which diverge exceedingly from them, and some approach so near the roses as to be scarcely distinguishable from them.”The loveliness of these submarine gardens cannot be over-rated.[pg 199]CHAPTER XVIII.By the Sea-shore(continued).A Submerged Forest—Grandeur of Devonshire Cliffs—Castellated Walls—A Natural Palace—Collection of Sea-weeds—The Title a Miserable Misnomer—The Bladder Wrack—Practical Uses—The Harvest-time for Collectors—The Huge Laminaria—Good for Knife-handles—Marine Rope—The Red-Seeded Group—Munchausen’s Gin Tree Beaten—The Coralline a Vegetable—Beautiful Varieties—Irish Moss—The Green Seeds—Hints on Preserving Sea-weeds—The Boring Pholas—How they Drill—Sometimes through each other—The Spinous Cockle—The“Red-noses”—Hundreds of Peasantry Saved from Starvation—“Rubbish,”and the difficulty of obtaining it—Results of a Basketful—The Contents of a Shrimper’s Net—Miniature Fish of the Shore.Mr. Gosse tells us in his“Tenby,”of a veritable submerged forest near Amroth. Pieces of soft and decayed wood constantly come to the surface, and are called by the peasantry“sea turf.”It is very commonly perforated by the shells ofPholas candida, being ensconed therein as closely as they can lie without mutual invasion. Other pieces are quite solid, resisting the knife like the good old oak timbers of a ship. Occasionally, during storms, whole trunks and roots and branches are torn away, come floating to the surface of the sea, and are cast on the shore. Some of them have been found“at the recess of the autumnal spring tides, which have marks of the axe still fresh upon them, proving that the encroachment of the sea has been effected since the country was inhabited by civilised man.”Several kinds of trees, including elm, willow, alder, poplar, and oak, have been found among the large fragments cast up. An account of the encroachments of the sea on various parts of our coasts would fill a large volume.Mr. Gosse well describes some of the Devonshire coast scenery.“Now,”says he,“we are under Lidstep Head, a promontory in steepness and height rivalling its‘proud’opponents. I never before saw cliffs like these. The stratification is absolutely perpendicular, and as straight as a line, taking the appearance at every turn of enormous towers, castles, and abbeys, in which the fissures bear the closest resemblance to loopholes and doors. Great areas open enclosed as if with vast walls. The sea surface was particularly smooth, and we ventured to pull into one of these, exactly as if into a ruined castle or vast abbey; chamber opening beyond chamber, bounded and divided by what I must callwallsof rock, enormous in height, and as straight as the architect’s plumb would have made them, with the smooth sea for the floor. If the tide had been high, instead of being low-water of a spring tide, we might have rowed all about this great enclosed court; but as it was, the huge square upright rocks were appearing above water, like massive altars and tables. The sea was perfectly clear, and we could look down to the foundations of the precipices where the purple-ringed Medusæ were playing. Altogether, it was a place of strange grandeur; we felt as if we were in a palace of the sea genii, as if we were where we ought not to be, and when a gull shrieked over our heads, and uttered his short, hollow, mocking laugh, we started and looked at one another as though something uncanny had challenged us, though the sun was shining broadly over the tops of those Cyclopean walls.“We left this natural palace with regret; but the tide was near its lowest ebb, and I wished to be on the rocks for whatever might be obtainable in natural history. The lads, therefore, gave way, and we swiftly shot past this coast of extraordinary sublimity.[pg 200]Presently we came to the Droch, where a more majestic cavern than any we had yet seen appears. Up on a beach of yellow sand its immense span is reared with a secondary entrance; the arch of uniting stone is thrown across with a beautiful lightness, and appears as if hewn with the mason’s chisel. Dark domes are seen within, far up in the lofty vaulted roof, and pools of still, clear glassy water mirror the rude walls. This is certainly a glorious cave.”Easiest of all maritime objects to collect are the so-called“sea-weeds,”which the Rev. J. G. Wood rightly terms a“miserable appellation,”to be employed under protest. They are in reality beautiful sea-plants of oft-times delicate form and colour; and even the larger and commoner varieties have much of interest about them, some having actual uses. One of the first to strike the eye on almost any beach is the common bladder-wrack (Fucus vesiculosus), that dark olive-brown sea-weed familiar to all visitors to our coasts. It is distinguished by its air-vessels, which explode when trodden on or otherwise roughly compressed, and which are the delight of all youngsters at the sea-side. This slimy and slippery weed makes rock-walking perilous in a moderate degree, a fact which does not generally stop young British maidens and their companions from slipping about over its tangled masses. A larger species (Fucus serratus) sometimes grows to a length of six feet. It is used as manure, and even as food for cattle; while it is excellent to pack lobsters, crabs, &c., if they have to be sent inland. These and kindredalgæ, the generic term for sea-weed, are known asMelanosperms, or black-seeded, so called from the dark olive tint of the seeds or spores from which they spring, and with which they abound.BLADDER WRACK.BLADDER WRACK.(Fucus vesiculosus.)The best time for the collector who would reap a harvest is at spring-tides, when, Mr. Wood tells us, an hour or two’s careful investigation of the beach will sometimes produce as good results as several days’ hard work with the dredge.“It is better to go down to the shore about half an hour or so before the lowest tide, so as to follow the receding waters and to save time.”The naturalist or amateur collector then finds at these low tides a new set of vegetation, contrasting with the more delicate forms left higher on the beach, as forest-trees with ferns and herbage. Huge plants, some of them measuring eleven feet in length, of the oar-weed (Laminaria digitata), are lying about in profusion. It is known by its scientific name on account of the flat thin-fingered fronds it bears. Its stem is used for handles to knives and other implements, so tough and strong is it. One good stem will furnish a dozen handles, and when dry it is as hard as horn.[pg 201]LAMINARIA.LAMINARIA.Among the same group is to be found a most singular rope-like marine plant, hardly thicker than an ordinary pin at the base, where it adheres to the rock, but swelling to the size of a large swan’s-quill in the centre. When grasped by the hand it feels as though oiled, being naturally slimy, and covered by innumerable fine hairs. It is found from the length of one to twenty, thirty, and even forty feet. It may be mentioned that sea-weeds have no true roots, but adhere by discs or suckers. They derive their nourishment from the sea-water, not from the rock or soil.Another sub-class ofalgæare named theRhodosperms, or red-seeded, and they are among the most beautiful known to collectors. They are delicate, and some turn brown when exposed to too much light. Above low water-mark may be found growing largish masses of a dense, reddish, thread-like foliage, sometimes adhering to the rock, and sometimes to the stems of the greatLaminaria. This is one of a large genus,Polysiphonia(“many-tubed”) the specific name beingUrceolata, or pitchered—it is actually covered with little jars, or receptacles of coloured liquid.“That popular author and extensive traveller, Baron Munchausen,”says Mr. Wood,“tells us that he met with a tree that bore a fruit filled with the best of gin. Had he travelled along our own sea-coasts, or, indeed, along any sea-coasts, and inspected the vegetation of the waves there, he would have found a plant that might have furnished him with the groundwork of a story respecting a jointed tree composed of wine-bottles, each joint being a separate bottle filled with claret. It is true that the plant is not very large, as it seldom exceeds nine or ten inches in height, but if examined through a microscope it might be enlarged to any convenient size.”The scientific name of this marine plant signifies the“jointed juice-branch.”It may be found adhering to rocks, or large seaweed, and really resembles a jointed series of miniature red wine bottles.The common coralline (Corallina officinalis) is also one of the red sea-weeds, although long thought to be a true coral. It is a curious plant; it deposits in its own substance so large an amount of carbonate of lime that when the vegetable part of its nature dies the chalky part remains. When alive it is of a dark purple colour, which fades when removed from[pg 202]the water, and the white stony skeleton alone remains. It is, however, a true vegetable, as may be seen by dissolving away the chalky portions in acid; there is then left a vegetable framework precisely like that of other algæ belonging to the same sub-class. It is a small plant, rarely exceeding a height of five or so inches, but it grows in luxuriant patches wherever it can find a suitable spot.A beautiful marine plant is theDelesseria sanguinea, with its beautiful scarlet leaves, the branches being five or six inches in length. It has a very“ancient and fish-like smell,”once noticed not to be forgotten. Then again every one will remember in the little seaweed bouquets and landscapes on card sold at the fashionable seaside watering-places, a gay, bright, pinky-red kind, which is sure to be remarked for its charming beauty. This is thePlocamium coccineum, which is found to be even more beautiful under the microscope, for it is there seen that even the tiniest branchlets, themselves hardly thicker than a hair, have each their rows of finer branches.Some seaweeds are eaten, as for example the so-called“Carrageen,”or Irish moss, which is used in both jelly and size, and is one of theRhodospermalgæ. To preserve it for esculent purposes it is washed in fresh water and allowed to dry; it becomes then horny and stiff. If boiled it subsides into a thick jelly, which is considered nutritious, and is used by both invalids and epicures. Calico-printers use it for size. It is used, boiled in milk, to fatten calves.A pretty little seaweed,Griffithsia selacea, has the property of staining paper a fine pinkish-scarlet hue when its membrane bursts. Contact with fresh water will usually cause the membrane to yield, and then the colouring-matter is exuded with a slight crackling noise.TheChlorosperms, or green-seeded algæ, have the power of pouring out large quantities of oxygen under certain conditions, and are therefore very valuable in the aquarium. Among them are the sea-lettuce, before mentioned, the common sea grass, and a large number of smaller and more delicate forms.“If,”says Mr. Wood,“the naturalist wishes to dry and preserve the algæ which he finds, he may generally do so without much difficulty, although some plants give much more trouble than others. It is necessary that they should be well washed in fresh water, in order to get rid of the salt, which, being deliquescent,53would attract the moisture on a damp day, or in a damp situation, and soon ruin the entire collection. When they are thoroughly washed the finest specimens should be separated from the rest and placed in a wide, shallow vessel, filled with clear fresh water. Portions of white card, cut to the requisite size, should then be slipped under the specimen, which can be readily arranged as they float over the immersed card. The fingers alone ought to answer every purpose, but a camel’s-hair brush and a needle will often be useful. When the specimen is properly arranged the card is lifted from the water, carrying upon it the piece of seaweed. There is little difficulty in getting the plants to adhere to the paper, as most of the algæ are furnished with a gelatinous substance which acts like glue and fixes them firmly down.”If not, the[pg 203]use of hot water will generally accomplish the desired end. Animal glue or gum-water cannot he recommended.Every visitor to the sea-shore has observed rocks drilled with innumerable holes, almost as though by art. A few good blows with a stout hammer on the chisel-head serve to split off a great slice of the coarse red sandstone. The holes run through its substance, but they are all empty, or filled only with the black fœtid mud which the sea has deposited in their cavities. These are too superficial; they are all deserted; the stone lies too high above low-water mark; we must seek a lower level. Try here, where the lowest spring-tide only just leaves the rocks bare. See! now we have uncovered the operators. Here lie snugly ensconced within the tubular perforations, great mollusca, with ample ivory-like shells, which yet cannot half contain the whiter flesh of their ampler bodies, and the long stout yellow siphons that project from one extremity, reaching far up the hole towards the surface of the rock.We lift one from its cavity, all helpless and unresisting, yet manifesting its indignation at the untimely disturbance by successive spasmodic contractions of those rough yellow siphons, each accompanied with a forciblejet d’eau, a polite squirt of sea-water into our faces; while at each contraction in length, the base swells out till the compressed valves of the sharp shell threaten to pierce through its substance.Strange as it seems, these animals have bored these holes in the stone, and they are capable of boring in far harder rock than this, even in compact limestone. The actual mode in which this operation is performed long puzzled philosophers. Some maintained that the animal secreted an acid which had the power of dissolving not only various kinds of stone, but also wood, amber, wax, and other substances in which the excavations are occasionally made. But it is hard to imagine a solvent of substances so various, and to know how the animal’s own shells were preserved from its action, while, confessedly, no such acid had ever been detected by the most careful tests. Others maintain that the rough points which stud the shell enable it to serve as a rasp, which the animal, by rotating on its axis, uses to wear away the stone or other material; but it was difficult to understand how it was that the shell itself was not worn away in the abrasion.Actual observation in the aquarium has, however, proved that the second hypothesis is the true one. M. Cailliaud in France, and Mr. Robertson in England, have demonstrated that the Pholas uses its shell as a rasp, wearing away the stone with the asperities with which the anterior parts of the valves are furnished. Between these gentlemen a somewhat hot contention was maintained for the honour of priority in this valuable discovery. M. Cailliaud himself used the valves of the dead shell, and imitating the natural conditions as well as he could, actually bored an imitative hole, by making them rotate. Mr. Robertson at Brighton exhibited to the public living Pholades in the act of boring in masses of chalk. He describes it as“a living combination of three instruments, viz., a hydraulic apparatus, a rasp, and a syringe.”But the first and last of these powers can be considered only as an accessory to the removing of the detritus out of the way when once the hole was bored, the rasp being the real power. If you examine these living shells you will see that the fore part, where the foot protrudes, is set with stony points arranged in transverse and longitudinal rows; the former being the result of elevated ridges radiating from the hinge,[pg 204]the latter that of the edges of successive growths of the shell. These points have the most accurate resemblance to those set on a steel rasp in a blacksmith’s shop. It is interesting to know that the shell is preserved from being itself permanently worn away by the fact that it is composed of arragonite, a substance much harder than those in which the Pholas burrows. Yet we see by comparing specimens one with another, that such a destructive action does in time take place, for some have the rasping points much more worn than others, many of the older ones being nearly smooth.PHOLADES IN A BLOCK OF GNEISS.PHOLADES IN A BLOCK OF GNEISS.The animal turns in its burrow from side to side when at work, adhering to the interior by the foot, and therefore only partially rotating to and fro. The substance is abraded in the form of fine powder, which is periodically ejected from the mouth of the hole by the contraction of the branchial siphon, a good deal of the more unpalpable portions being deposited by the current as it proceeds, and lodging as a soft mud between the valves and the stone. Mr. Hudson, who watched some Pholades at work in a tide-pool in the chalk, observed the periodic ejection of the cloud of chalk powder, and noticed the heaps of the same material deposited about the mouth of each burrow. The discharges were made with no regularity as to time. Mrs. Merrifield records a curious fact:—“A lady watching the operations of some Pholades which were at work in a basin of sea-water, perceived that two of them were boring at such an angle that their tunnels would meet. Curious to ascertain what they would do in this case, she continued her observations, and found thatthe larger and stronger Pholas bored straight through the weaker one, as if it had been merely a piece of chalk rock.”SPINOUS COCKLE.SPINOUS COCKLE.(Cardium edule.)“What,”says Mr. Gosse,“is that object that lies on yonder stretch of sand, over which the shallow water ripples, washing the sand around it and presently leaving it dry? It looks like a stone; but there is a fine scarlet knob on it, which all of a sudden has disappeared. Let us watch the movement of the receding wave, and run out to it. It is a fine example of the great spinous cockle (Cardium rusticum) for which all these sandy beaches that form the bottom of the great sea-bed of Torbay are celebrated. Indeed, the species[pg 205]is scarcely known elsewhere, so that it is often designated in books as the Paignton cockle. A right savourybonne boucheit is, when artistically dressed. Old Dr. Turton—a great authority in his day for Devonshire natural history, especially on matters relating to shells and shell-fish—says that the cottagers about Paignton well know the‘red-noses,’as they call the great cockles, and search for them at low spring tides, when they may be seen lying in the sand with the fringed siphons appearing just above the surface. They gather them in baskets and panniers, and after cleansing them a few hours in cold spring-water, fry the animals in a batter made of crumbs of bread. The creatures have not changed their habits nor their habitats, for they are still to be seen in the old spots just as they were a century ago; nor have they lost their reputation; they are, indeed, promoted to the gratification of more refined palates now, for the cottagers, knowing on which side their bread is buttered, collect the sapid cockles for the fashionables of Torquay, and content themselves with the humbler and smaller species (Cardium edule), which rather affects the muddy flats of estuaries than sand beaches, though not uncommon here. This latter, though much inferior in sapidity to the great spinous sort, forms a far more important item in the category of human food, from its very general distribution, its extreme abundance, and the ease with which it is collected. Wherever the receding tide leaves an area of exposed mud, the common cockle is sure to be found, and hundreds of men, women, and children may be seen plodding and groping over the sinking surface, with naked feet and bent backs, picking up the shell-fish by thousands, to be boiled and eaten for home consumption, or to be cried through the lanes and alleys of the neighbouring towns by stentorian boys who vociferate all day long,‘Here’s your fine cockles, here! Here they are! Here they are! Twopence a quart!’”It is on the north-western coast of Scotland, however, that the greatest abundance of these mollusca occurs, and there they form not a luxury but even a necessary of life to the poor semi-barbarous population. The inhabitants of these rocky regions enjoy an unenviable notoriety for being habitually dependent on this mean diet.“Where the river meets the sea at Tongue,”says Macculloch, in his“Highland and Island Homes of Scotland,”“there is a considerable ebb, and the long sandbanks are productive of cockles in an abundance which is almost unexampled. At that time (a year of scarcity) they presented every day at low water a singular spectacle, being crowded with men, women, and children, who were busily digging for these shell fish as long as the tide permitted. It was not unusual to see thirty or forty horses from the surrounding[pg 206]country, which had been brought down for the purpose of carrying away loads of them to distances of many miles. This was a well-known season of scarcity, and, without this resource, I believe it is not too much to say that many individuals must have died for want.”One of the easiest forms of collecting is from thedébris, as it were, of fishermen’s nets and baskets; but it is exceedingly difficult to induce trawlers to bring home any of their“rubbish.”Money, that in general“makes the mare to go”in any direction you wish, seems to have lost its stimulating power when the duty to be performed, thequid pro quo, is the putting a shovelful of“rubbish”into a bucket of water instead of jerking it overboard. No, they haven’t got time. You try to work on their friendship; you sit and chat with them, and think you have succeeded in worming yourself into their good graces sufficiently to induce them to undertake the not very onerous task of bringing in a tub of“rubbish.”The thing is not, however, utterly hopeless. Occasionally Mr. Gosse had a tub of“rubbish”brought to him; but much more generally worthless than otherwise. The boys are sometimes more open to advances than the men, especially if the master carries his own son with him, in which case the lad has a little more opportunity to turn a penny for himself than when he is friendless.“If ever,”says Gosse,“you should be disposed to try your hand on a bucket of trawler’s‘rubbish,’I strongly recommend you, in the preliminary point of‘catching your hare,’to begin with the cabin-boy.“The last basketful I overhauled made an immense heap when turned out upon a board, but was sadly disappointing upon examination. It consisted almost entirely of one or two kinds of hydroid zoophytes, and these of the commonest description. It does not follow hence, however, that an intelligent and sharp-eyed person would not have succeeded in obtaining a far greater variety; a score of species were doubtless brushed overboard when this trash was bundled into the basket; but being small, or requiring to be picked out singly, they were neglected, whereas the long and tangled threads of thePlumularia falcatacould be caught up in a moment like an armful of pea-haulm in a field, its value being estimated, as usual with the uninitiated, by quantity rather than by quality, by bulk rather than variety.”THE WEEVER FISH. (Trachinus communis.)THE WEEVER FISH. (Trachinus communis.)Mr. Gosse found on several occasions when examining the contents of shrimpers’ nets, a pretty little flat-fish, a constant inhabitant of sandy beaches and pools, and often found in company with shrimps, some of which it hardly exceeded in size, although sometimes reaching a maximum growth of four or five inches. Small as it is, it is allied to the magnificent turbot. The naturalist above mentioned took it home, and observed its habits at leisure.“In a white saucer,”says he,“it was a charming little object, though rather difficult to examine, because, the instant the eye with the lens was brought near, it flounced in alarm, and often leaped out upon the table. When its fit of terror was over, however, it became still, and would allow me to push it hither and thither, merely waving the edges of its dorsal and ventral fins rapidly as it yielded to the impulse.”This is the Top-knot, so called from an elongation of the dorsal fin. The little Sand Launce, with its pearly lustrous sides, is a commonly-found fish on the shore. It has a remarkable projection of the lower jaws, a kind of spade, as it were, by the aid of which it manages to scoop out a bed in the wet sand, and so lie hidden. The Lesser Weever, called by English fishermen Sting-bull, Sting-fish, and Sea-cat, because of its power of inflicting severe inflammatory[pg 207]wounds, a little fish of four or five inches long, is another denizen of the sands. So also the young of the Skate. The Wrasse, the Globy, the Blenny, and many other small fish, are met with in the pools and caverns of our shores.Of crabs, prawns, and crustaceans, of shell-fish and rock fish, and the mollusca generally, these pages have already given a sufficient account. They are even more at home in the sea than on the shore.THE DEVIL’S FRYING PAN, COAST OF CORNWALL.THE DEVIL’S FRYING PAN, COAST OF CORNWALL.

English Appreciation of the Sea-side—Its Variety and Interest—Heavy Weather—The Green Waves—On the Cliffs—The Sea from there—Madame de Gasparin’s Reveries—Description of a Tempest—The Voice of God—Calm—A Great Medusa off the Coast—Night on the Sea—Boating Excursion—In a Cavern—Colonies of Sea-anemones—Rock Pools—Southey’s Description—Treasures for the Aquarium—A Rat Story—Rapid Influx of Tide and its Dangers—Melancholy Fate of a Family—Life Under Water.“In hollows of the tide-worn reef,Left at low water glistening in the sun,Pellucid pools, and rocks in miniature,With their small fry of fishes, crushed shells,Rich mosses, tree-like sea-weed, sparkling pebbles,Enchant the eye, and tempt the eager handTo violate the fairy paradise.”

“In hollows of the tide-worn reef,Left at low water glistening in the sun,Pellucid pools, and rocks in miniature,With their small fry of fishes, crushed shells,Rich mosses, tree-like sea-weed, sparkling pebbles,Enchant the eye, and tempt the eager handTo violate the fairy paradise.”

“In hollows of the tide-worn reef,

Left at low water glistening in the sun,

Pellucid pools, and rocks in miniature,

With their small fry of fishes, crushed shells,

Rich mosses, tree-like sea-weed, sparkling pebbles,

Enchant the eye, and tempt the eager hand

To violate the fairy paradise.”

The sea-side is nowhere more thoroughly appreciated than in our own rock and water girt island, as the popularity of so many of our coast watering-places fully attests. The wonders[pg 191]of the shore are so many and varied that they would require volumes like the present to do them full justice. Here, then, the subject can only be briefly discussed.51

“The sea-side,”says Gosse, a writer who is both artist and scientist in his powers of description,“is never dull. Other places soon tire us; we cannot always be admiring scenery, though ever so beautiful, and nobody stands gazing into a field or on a hedgerow bank, though studded with the most lovely flowers, by the half-hour together. But we can and do stand watching the sea, and feel reluctant to leave it: the changes of the tide and the ever rolling, breaking, and retiring waves are so much like the phenomena of life, that we look on with an interest and expectation akin to that with which we watch the proceedings of living beings.”The sea-shore, in all its varied aspects, has beauties and characteristics all its own.

“How grandly,”says the same writer,“those heavy waves are rolling in upon this long shingle-beach. Onward they come, with an even, deliberate march that tells of power, out of that lowering sky that broods over the southern horizon. Onward they come! onward! onward! each following its precursor in serried ranks, ever coming nearer and nearer, ever looming larger and larger, like the resistless legions of a great invading army, sternly proud in its conscious strength; and ever and anon, as one and another dark billow breaks in a crest of foam, we may fancy we see the standards and ensigns of the threatening host waving here and there above the mass.

“Still they drive in, and each in turn curls over its green head, and rushes up the sloping beach in a long-drawn sheet of the purest, whitest foam. The drifted snow itself is not more purely spotlessly white than is that sheet of foaming water. How it seethes and sparkles! how it boils and bubbles! how it rings and hisses! The wind sings shrilly out of the driving clouds, now sinking to a moan, now rising to a roar; but we cannot hear it, for its tones are drowned in the ceaseless rushing of the mighty waves upon the beach and the rattle of the recoiling pebbles. Along the curvature of the shore the shrill, hoarse voice runs, becoming softer and mellower as it recedes; while the echo of the bounding cliffs confines and repeats and mingles it with the succeeding ones till all are blended on the ear in one deafening roar.

“But let us climb these slippery rocks, and picking our way cautiously over yonder craggy ledges, leaping the chasms that yawn between and reveal the hissing waters below, let us strive to attain the vantage-ground of that ridge which we see some fifty feet above the beach. It is perilous work this scrambling over rocks, alternately slimy with treacherous seaweed, and bristling with sharp needle-points of honeycombed limestone; now climbing a precipice, with the hands clutching these same rough points, and the toes finding a precarious hold in their interstices; now descending to a ledge awfully overhung; now creeping along a narrow shelf by working each foot on a few inches at a time, while the fingers nervously cling to the stony precipice, and the mind strives to forget the rugged depths below, and what would happen if—ah! that‘if!’let us cast it to the winds. Another long stride across a gulf, a bound upward, and here we are.

“Yes, here we stand on the bluff, looking out to seaward in the very eye of the wind. We might have supposed it a tolerably smooth slope of stone when we looked at[pg 192]the point from the sea, or from the various parts of the shore where we can see this promontory. But very different is it on a close acquaintance. It is a wilderness of craggy points and huge castellated masses of compact limestone marble, piled one on another in the most magnificent confusion. We have secured a comfortable berth, where, wedged in between two of these masses, we can without danger lean and look wistfully down upon the very theatre of the elemental war. Is not this a sight worth the toil and trouble and peril of the ascent? The rock below is fringed with great insular peaks and blocks, bristling up amidst the sea, of various sizes and of the most fantastic and singular forms, which the sea at high water would mostly cover, though now the far-receding tide exposes their horrid[pg 193]points, and the brown leprous coating of barnacles with which their lower sides are covered is broadly seen between the swelling seas.

ON THE SEA-SHORE: CALM AND STORM.ON THE SEA-SHORE: CALM AND STORM.

ON THE SEA-SHORE: CALM AND STORM.

“Heavily rolls in the long deep swell of the ocean from the south-west; and as it approaches, with its huge undulations driven up into foaming crests before the howling gale, each mighty wave breasts up against these rocks, as when an army of veteran legions assaults an impregnable fortress. Impregnable, indeed! for having spent its fury in a rising wall of mingled water and foam, it shoots up perpendicularly to an immense elevation, as if it would scale the heights it could not overthrow, only to be the next moment a broken ruin of water murmuring and shrieking in the moats below. The insular blocks and peaks receive the incoming surge in an overwhelming flood, which immediately, as the spent wave recedes, pours off through the interstices in a hundred beautiful jets and cascades; while in the narrow straits and passages the rushing sea boils and whirls about in curling sheets of snowy whiteness, curdling the surface; or where it breaks away, of the most delicate pea-green hue, the tint produced by the bubbles seen through the water as they crowd to the air from the depths where they were formed—the evidence of the unseen conflict fiercely raging between earth and sea far below.

“The shrieking gusts, as the gale rises yet higher and more furious, whip off the crests of the breaking billows, and bear the spray like a shower of salt sleet to the height where we stand; while the foam, as it forms and accumulates around the base of the headland, is seized by the same power in broad masses and carried against the sides of the projecting rocks, flying hither and thither like fleeces of wool, and adhering like so much mortar to the face of the precipice, till it covers great spaces, to the height of many fathoms above the highest range of the tide. The gulls flit wailing through the storm, now breasting the wind, and beating the air with their long wings as they make slow headway; then yielding the vain essay, they turn and are whirled away, till, recovering themselves, they come up again with a sweep, only to be discomfited. Their white forms, now seen against the leaden-grey sky, now lost amidst the snowy foam, then coming into strong relief against the black rock; their piping screams now sounding close against the ear, then blending with the sounds of the elements, combine to add a wildness to the scene which was already sufficiently savage.

“But the spring-tide is nearly at its lowest; a rocky path leads down from our eminence to a recess in the precipice, whence in these conditions access may be obtained to a sea cavern that we may possibly find entertainment in exploring.”

Madame de Gasparin, in her visit to Italy, thus describes her impressions of a thunderstorm, the reveries of an enthusiastic poet-traveller.52She says:—“Last night a storm burst over Chiaveri. Three tempests in one! and we in the very centre of the action.

“The thunder, marching on for a long time with that solemn roll which reveals the depths of the skies, suddenly explodes with a crash; the lightnings fall straight and serried—no longer a series of fantastic zig-zags, but a very focus of electric light. Sometimes the brilliancy flashes out behind the castle, and the outline of its square tower, black as ink,[pg 194]is thrown upon the palazzi opposite to it. Sometimes the fire kindles in the east, and the square, the houses, the fortress, are all lighted up by a flame of unbearable white, which scorches the eyes. The air is rent by the winds in fury, the boom of the waves resounds through an undertone of wild complaint. Angels of destruction are passing by this night; one hears the hiss of their swords. What is human life? A nothing. What is man himself? A worm. In hours like these the boldest among us calls his ways to remembrance.

“I can understand seriousness; I have no patience with fear.

“There was a time when, during heavy storms, my mother was wont to say to me:‘Come!’We used to go out in the full fury of the tempest.‘Listen,’my mother would say;‘it is the voice of God!’Then she made me join my hands; she prayed, and peace descended into my soul.”

And again of a storm elsewhere Madame de Gasparin says:—“The mighty voice fills the air with clamour. Not another word; there it is in its frenzy.

“There it is, stretching out to the furthest horizons. The clouds which are driving along alternately dye it grey or black; then the mists are rent, they let the sun pass through, and the intense blue is lit up to the very depths of immensity.

“Near the shore squadrons of green waves of baleful perfidious hue—heavy opaque masses, uplifted by a convulsive throb, shone athwart by a pale ray—roll over and break with thundering noise; and foaming cataracts, precipitated in torrents, dash up, then, suddenly quieted, come and lave the shore with their clear waters.

“Terrible in its rage this sea! full of spite, like a wicked fairy. Howling to the four quarters of the sky, heedlessly breaking proud ships to pieces, intoxicated with cries, calamities, frenzied with might; and then, as in irony, tracing magic circles, enclosing, inundating you, and thrilling with pleasure, running back, leaving the sand strewn with rainbowed bubbles.

“We stand motionless, mere nothings in presence of this brute force. But our soul thrills, feeling herself greater than the sea, stronger than the waves—she who can lay hold on God.

* * * * * * *

“But a ray or light has shone out....

“And now that the sun is lavishingly scattering diamonds over the sea, now that the wrath of the waves breaks into sparkling laughter, let us run on the shore, and defy the spray.

“And so, sometimes flying from, and sometimes braving the wind, we rush into the uproar, we push on to that mass of rocks upon which the waves are crashing. Swelling at a distance, they rear themselves up—they are giants! Hardly have they reached the rocks than they crumble away, and the silly foam throws its flakes on the pine-trees holding on to the mountain side. This is succeeded by a heavenly calm.”

“The peaceful main,One molten mirror, one illumined plane,Clear as the blue, sublime, o’er-arching sky.”

“The peaceful main,

One molten mirror, one illumined plane,

Clear as the blue, sublime, o’er-arching sky.”

“Down we gazed,”says Gosse, in one of his charming sea-side works,“on the smooth sea, becoming more and more mirror-like every moment, as the slight afternoon breeze died away into a calm, and allowing us from our vantage height to see far down into its depths.[pg 195]Presently I was gratified with the sight of one and then another of that enormous Medusa, the Great Rhizostome, urging its diagonal course at the shining surface. Its great bluish-white disc, like a globe of fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, moves foremost by alternate contractions and expansions, which remind one of the pulse of an enormous heart, especially as at each stroke a volume of fluid is shot out of the cavity, by the impact of which on the surrounding water the huge body is driven vigorously forward. Meanwhile the compound peduncle, with its eight arms that hang down to the depth of two feet below, is dragged after the disc, its weight and the resistance of the water to its bulk combining to give that slanting direction which this great Medusa always assumes when in motion. We watched the great unwieldy creatures a long time, even till evening had faded into night, and were left almost the only wanderers on the hill. But what a night it was! So calm, so balmy, so solemnly still and noiseless; even the wash of the ripple at the foot of the cliff was hushed. There was no moon, but many stars were twinkling and blinking, and in the north-west a strong flush of light filled the sky, which was rapidly creeping along over the north cliffs. Then those cliffs themselves, all distinctness of feature lost in the darkness, stood like a great black wall in front of us, which being reflected in the placid sea so truly that no difference could be traced between substance and shadow, the dark mass, doubled in height, seemed to rise from a line only a few hundred yards off; and thus everything looked strange and unnatural and unrecognisable, although our reason told us the cause.

“Let us now scramble down the cliff-side path, tangled with briers and ferns, where the swelling buds of the hawthorn and honeysuckle are already bursting, while the blackbird mellowly whistles in the fast-greening thicket, and the lark joyously greets the mounting sun above us. Yonder on the shingle lies a boat newly painted in white and green for the attraction of young ladies of maritime aspirations; she is hauled up high and dry, but the sinewy arms of an honest boatman, who, hearing footsteps, has come out of his little grotto under the rock to reconnoitre, will soon drag her down to the sea’s margin, and‘for the sum of a shilling an hour,’will pull us over the smooth and pond-like sea whithersoever we may choose to direct him.

“‘Jump aboard, please, sir. Jump in, ladies. Jump in, little master.’And now, as we take our seats on the clean canvas cushions astern, the boat’s bottom scrapes along with a harsh grating noise over the white shingle-pebbles, and we are afloat.

“First to the caverns just outside yonder lofty point. The lowness of the tide will enable us to take the boat into them, and the calmness of the sea will preclude much danger of her striking upon the rocks, especially as the watchful boatman will be on the alert, boat-hook in hand, to keep her clear. Now we lie in the gloom of the lofty arch, gently heaving and sinking and swaying on the slight swell, which, however smooth at the surface, is always perceptible when you are in a boat among rocks, and which invests such an approach with a danger that a landsman does not at all appreciate.

“Yet the water, despite the swell, is glassy, and invites the gaze down into its crystalline depths, where the little fishes are playing and hovering over the dark weeds.

“The sides of the cavern rise around us in curved planes, washed smooth and slippery by the dashing of the waves of ages, and gradually merge into the massive angles and projections and groins of the broken roof, whence a tuft or two of what looks like samphire depends.[pg 196]But notice the colonies of the smooth anemone or beadlet (Actinia mesembryanthemum) clustered about the sides, many of them adhering to the stone walls several feet above the water. Those have been left uncovered for hours, and are none the worse for it. They are closed, the many tentacles being concealed by the involution of the upper part of the body, so that they look like balls or hemispheres, or semi-ovals of flesh; or like ripe fruits, so plump and glossy and succulent and high-coloured, that we are tempted to stretch forth the willing hand to pluck and eat. Some are greengages, some Orleans plums, some magnum-bonums, so varied are their rich hues; but look beneath the water, and you see them not less numerous, but of quite another guise. These are all widely expanded; the tentacles are thrown out in an arch over the circumference, leaving a broad flat disc, just like a many-petalled flower of gorgeous hues; indeed, we may fancy that here we see the blossoms and there the ripened fruit. Do not omit, however, to notice the beads of pearly blue that stud the margin all around at the base of the over-arching tentacles. These have been supposed by some to be eyes; the suggestion, however, rests upon no anatomical ground, and is, I am afraid, worthless, though I cannot tell you what purpose they do serve.”

SEA ANEMONES.SEA ANEMONES.1, 2, 3.A. sulcata. 4.Phymactis sanctæ Helenæ. 5.Actinia capensis. 6.A. Peruviana. 7.A. sanctæ Catherinæ. 8.A. amethystina. 9, 10.Anthea cereus.

SEA ANEMONES.1, 2, 3.A. sulcata. 4.Phymactis sanctæ Helenæ. 5.Actinia capensis. 6.A. Peruviana. 7.A. sanctæ Catherinæ. 8.A. amethystina. 9, 10.Anthea cereus.

Southey must have had the deep rocky pools of the Devonshire coast in his mind’s eye when he wrote—

“It was a garden still beyond all price,Even yet it was a place of Paradise.* * * *And here were coral bowers,And grots of madrepores,And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eyeAs e’er was mossy bedWhereon the wood-nymphs lieWith languid limbs in summer’s sultry hours.Here, too, were living flowers,Which like a bud compacted,Their purple cups contracted,And now, in open blossom spread,Stretched like green anthers many a seeking head;And arborets of jointed stone were there,And plants of fibres fine as silkworm’s thread;Yea, beautiful as mermaid’s golden hair,Upon the waves dispread.”

“It was a garden still beyond all price,

Even yet it was a place of Paradise.

* * * *

And here were coral bowers,

And grots of madrepores,

And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eye

As e’er was mossy bed

Whereon the wood-nymphs lie

With languid limbs in summer’s sultry hours.

Here, too, were living flowers,

Which like a bud compacted,

Their purple cups contracted,

And now, in open blossom spread,

Stretched like green anthers many a seeking head;

And arborets of jointed stone were there,

And plants of fibres fine as silkworm’s thread;

Yea, beautiful as mermaid’s golden hair,

Upon the waves dispread.”

It is among the rock-tide pools that some of the most prized treasures of the aquarium may be obtained. There are the little shrubberies of pink coralline, Southey’s“arborets of jointed stone”; there are the crimson banana-leaves of theDelesseria, the purple tufts of Polysiphoniæ and Ceramia, the broad emerald green leaves ofUlva, and the wavy, featheryPtitolaandDasya. Then everywhere is to be found the lovelyChondrus crispus, with its expanding fan-shaped fronds cut into segments, every segment of every frond reflecting a lovely iridescent azure.

DELESSERIA.DELESSERIA.

DELESSERIA.

ULVA.ULVA.

ULVA.

Mr. Gosse was reclining one evening on the turf, looking down on a Devonshire cove that formed the extremity of a great cavern. Though it was low tide, the sea did not recede sufficiently to admit of any access to the cove from the shore. Presently he saw a large rat come deliberately foraging down to the water’s edge, peep under every stone, go hither and thither very methodically, pass into the crevices, exploring them in succession. At length he came out of a hole in the rock, with some white object in his mouth as big as a walnut, and ran slowly off with it by a way the observer had not seen him go before, till he could follow him no longer with his eyes because of the projections of the precipice. What could he possibly have found? He evidently knew what he was about. From his retirement into the cavern, when the sea had quite insulated it, the sagacious little animal had doubtless his retreat in its recesses, far up, of course, out of the reach of the sea, where he would be snugly lodged when the waves dashed and broke wildly through the cove, kindling millions of fitful lamps among the clustering polypes below.

The influx of the tide is frequently, as we all know, very rapid on the sands, and cuts off the communication between rocky islets and the shore in rather a treacherous fashion. Mr. Gosse, in giving an account of such influx on a part of the Devonshire coast says:—

“In the evening we strolled down to look at the place, and were beguiled into staying till it was quite late by the interest which attached to the coming-in of the tide. There was a[pg 198]breeze from the southward, which hove the sea against the opposite entrance of the cavern to that on which we were standing; and the funnel-shaped cliffs on that side concentrated the successive waves, which drove through a sort of‘bore,’and covered with turbulent water large tracts which but a few moments before were dry. We were pushed from stone to stone, and from spot to spot, like a retreating enemy before a successful army; but we lingered, wishing to see the junction of the waters and the insulation of the rock. It is at this point that the advance is so treacherous. There was an isthmus of some twenty feet wide of dry sand, when my wife, who had seen the process before, said,‘It will be all over by the time you have counted a hundred.’Before I had reached fifty it was a wide wash of water.”

A melancholy fate overtook a large family party near here some years ago. They had walked over the sands to Fern Cliff, and made their picnic in a cavern close by, forgetful of the silent march of the tide. When they discovered their isolation escape was cut off, and the overhanging rock forbade all chance of climbing. They were all drowned, and the bodies picked up one by one, as the sea washed them in.

All the species of anemone found on the rocks above the water are to be seen below it, and all displaying their beauties in an incomparably more charming fashion. The whole submerged wall is nothing else than a parterre of most brilliant flowers, taken bodily and set on end.“The eye is bewildered with their number and variety, and knows not which to look at first. Here are the rosy anemones (Sagartia rosea), with a firm fleshy column of rich sienna-brown, paler towards the base, and with the upper part studded with indistinct spots, marking the situation of certain organs which have an adhesive power. The disc is of a pale neutral tint, with a crimson mouth in the centre, and a circumference of crowded tentacles of the most lovely rose-purple, the rich hue of that lovely flower that bears the name of General Jacqueminot. In those specimens that are most widely opened this tentacular fringe forms a blossom whose petals overhang the concealed column, expanding to the width of an inch or more; but there are others in which the expansion is less complete in different degrees, and these all give distinct phases of loveliness. We find a few among the rest which, with the characteristically-coloured tentacles, have the column and disc of a creamy white; and one in which the disc is of a brilliant orange, inclining to scarlet. Most lovely little creatures are they all! Commingling with these charming roses there are others which attain a larger size, occurring in even greater abundance. They are frequently an inch and a half in diameter when expanded, and some are even larger than this. You may know them at once by observing that the outer row of tentacles, and occasionally also some of the others, are of a scarlet hue, which, when examined minutely, is seen to be produced by a sort of core of that rich hue pervading the pellucid tentacle. The species is commonly known as the scarlet-fringed anemone (Sagartia miniata). The inner rows of tentacles, which individually are larger than those of the outer rows, are pale, marked at the base with strong bars of black. The disc is very variable in hue, but the column is for the most part of the same rich brown as we saw in the rosy. Yet, though these are characteristic colours, there are specimens which diverge exceedingly from them, and some approach so near the roses as to be scarcely distinguishable from them.”The loveliness of these submarine gardens cannot be over-rated.

[pg 199]CHAPTER XVIII.By the Sea-shore(continued).A Submerged Forest—Grandeur of Devonshire Cliffs—Castellated Walls—A Natural Palace—Collection of Sea-weeds—The Title a Miserable Misnomer—The Bladder Wrack—Practical Uses—The Harvest-time for Collectors—The Huge Laminaria—Good for Knife-handles—Marine Rope—The Red-Seeded Group—Munchausen’s Gin Tree Beaten—The Coralline a Vegetable—Beautiful Varieties—Irish Moss—The Green Seeds—Hints on Preserving Sea-weeds—The Boring Pholas—How they Drill—Sometimes through each other—The Spinous Cockle—The“Red-noses”—Hundreds of Peasantry Saved from Starvation—“Rubbish,”and the difficulty of obtaining it—Results of a Basketful—The Contents of a Shrimper’s Net—Miniature Fish of the Shore.Mr. Gosse tells us in his“Tenby,”of a veritable submerged forest near Amroth. Pieces of soft and decayed wood constantly come to the surface, and are called by the peasantry“sea turf.”It is very commonly perforated by the shells ofPholas candida, being ensconed therein as closely as they can lie without mutual invasion. Other pieces are quite solid, resisting the knife like the good old oak timbers of a ship. Occasionally, during storms, whole trunks and roots and branches are torn away, come floating to the surface of the sea, and are cast on the shore. Some of them have been found“at the recess of the autumnal spring tides, which have marks of the axe still fresh upon them, proving that the encroachment of the sea has been effected since the country was inhabited by civilised man.”Several kinds of trees, including elm, willow, alder, poplar, and oak, have been found among the large fragments cast up. An account of the encroachments of the sea on various parts of our coasts would fill a large volume.Mr. Gosse well describes some of the Devonshire coast scenery.“Now,”says he,“we are under Lidstep Head, a promontory in steepness and height rivalling its‘proud’opponents. I never before saw cliffs like these. The stratification is absolutely perpendicular, and as straight as a line, taking the appearance at every turn of enormous towers, castles, and abbeys, in which the fissures bear the closest resemblance to loopholes and doors. Great areas open enclosed as if with vast walls. The sea surface was particularly smooth, and we ventured to pull into one of these, exactly as if into a ruined castle or vast abbey; chamber opening beyond chamber, bounded and divided by what I must callwallsof rock, enormous in height, and as straight as the architect’s plumb would have made them, with the smooth sea for the floor. If the tide had been high, instead of being low-water of a spring tide, we might have rowed all about this great enclosed court; but as it was, the huge square upright rocks were appearing above water, like massive altars and tables. The sea was perfectly clear, and we could look down to the foundations of the precipices where the purple-ringed Medusæ were playing. Altogether, it was a place of strange grandeur; we felt as if we were in a palace of the sea genii, as if we were where we ought not to be, and when a gull shrieked over our heads, and uttered his short, hollow, mocking laugh, we started and looked at one another as though something uncanny had challenged us, though the sun was shining broadly over the tops of those Cyclopean walls.“We left this natural palace with regret; but the tide was near its lowest ebb, and I wished to be on the rocks for whatever might be obtainable in natural history. The lads, therefore, gave way, and we swiftly shot past this coast of extraordinary sublimity.[pg 200]Presently we came to the Droch, where a more majestic cavern than any we had yet seen appears. Up on a beach of yellow sand its immense span is reared with a secondary entrance; the arch of uniting stone is thrown across with a beautiful lightness, and appears as if hewn with the mason’s chisel. Dark domes are seen within, far up in the lofty vaulted roof, and pools of still, clear glassy water mirror the rude walls. This is certainly a glorious cave.”Easiest of all maritime objects to collect are the so-called“sea-weeds,”which the Rev. J. G. Wood rightly terms a“miserable appellation,”to be employed under protest. They are in reality beautiful sea-plants of oft-times delicate form and colour; and even the larger and commoner varieties have much of interest about them, some having actual uses. One of the first to strike the eye on almost any beach is the common bladder-wrack (Fucus vesiculosus), that dark olive-brown sea-weed familiar to all visitors to our coasts. It is distinguished by its air-vessels, which explode when trodden on or otherwise roughly compressed, and which are the delight of all youngsters at the sea-side. This slimy and slippery weed makes rock-walking perilous in a moderate degree, a fact which does not generally stop young British maidens and their companions from slipping about over its tangled masses. A larger species (Fucus serratus) sometimes grows to a length of six feet. It is used as manure, and even as food for cattle; while it is excellent to pack lobsters, crabs, &c., if they have to be sent inland. These and kindredalgæ, the generic term for sea-weed, are known asMelanosperms, or black-seeded, so called from the dark olive tint of the seeds or spores from which they spring, and with which they abound.BLADDER WRACK.BLADDER WRACK.(Fucus vesiculosus.)The best time for the collector who would reap a harvest is at spring-tides, when, Mr. Wood tells us, an hour or two’s careful investigation of the beach will sometimes produce as good results as several days’ hard work with the dredge.“It is better to go down to the shore about half an hour or so before the lowest tide, so as to follow the receding waters and to save time.”The naturalist or amateur collector then finds at these low tides a new set of vegetation, contrasting with the more delicate forms left higher on the beach, as forest-trees with ferns and herbage. Huge plants, some of them measuring eleven feet in length, of the oar-weed (Laminaria digitata), are lying about in profusion. It is known by its scientific name on account of the flat thin-fingered fronds it bears. Its stem is used for handles to knives and other implements, so tough and strong is it. One good stem will furnish a dozen handles, and when dry it is as hard as horn.[pg 201]LAMINARIA.LAMINARIA.Among the same group is to be found a most singular rope-like marine plant, hardly thicker than an ordinary pin at the base, where it adheres to the rock, but swelling to the size of a large swan’s-quill in the centre. When grasped by the hand it feels as though oiled, being naturally slimy, and covered by innumerable fine hairs. It is found from the length of one to twenty, thirty, and even forty feet. It may be mentioned that sea-weeds have no true roots, but adhere by discs or suckers. They derive their nourishment from the sea-water, not from the rock or soil.Another sub-class ofalgæare named theRhodosperms, or red-seeded, and they are among the most beautiful known to collectors. They are delicate, and some turn brown when exposed to too much light. Above low water-mark may be found growing largish masses of a dense, reddish, thread-like foliage, sometimes adhering to the rock, and sometimes to the stems of the greatLaminaria. This is one of a large genus,Polysiphonia(“many-tubed”) the specific name beingUrceolata, or pitchered—it is actually covered with little jars, or receptacles of coloured liquid.“That popular author and extensive traveller, Baron Munchausen,”says Mr. Wood,“tells us that he met with a tree that bore a fruit filled with the best of gin. Had he travelled along our own sea-coasts, or, indeed, along any sea-coasts, and inspected the vegetation of the waves there, he would have found a plant that might have furnished him with the groundwork of a story respecting a jointed tree composed of wine-bottles, each joint being a separate bottle filled with claret. It is true that the plant is not very large, as it seldom exceeds nine or ten inches in height, but if examined through a microscope it might be enlarged to any convenient size.”The scientific name of this marine plant signifies the“jointed juice-branch.”It may be found adhering to rocks, or large seaweed, and really resembles a jointed series of miniature red wine bottles.The common coralline (Corallina officinalis) is also one of the red sea-weeds, although long thought to be a true coral. It is a curious plant; it deposits in its own substance so large an amount of carbonate of lime that when the vegetable part of its nature dies the chalky part remains. When alive it is of a dark purple colour, which fades when removed from[pg 202]the water, and the white stony skeleton alone remains. It is, however, a true vegetable, as may be seen by dissolving away the chalky portions in acid; there is then left a vegetable framework precisely like that of other algæ belonging to the same sub-class. It is a small plant, rarely exceeding a height of five or so inches, but it grows in luxuriant patches wherever it can find a suitable spot.A beautiful marine plant is theDelesseria sanguinea, with its beautiful scarlet leaves, the branches being five or six inches in length. It has a very“ancient and fish-like smell,”once noticed not to be forgotten. Then again every one will remember in the little seaweed bouquets and landscapes on card sold at the fashionable seaside watering-places, a gay, bright, pinky-red kind, which is sure to be remarked for its charming beauty. This is thePlocamium coccineum, which is found to be even more beautiful under the microscope, for it is there seen that even the tiniest branchlets, themselves hardly thicker than a hair, have each their rows of finer branches.Some seaweeds are eaten, as for example the so-called“Carrageen,”or Irish moss, which is used in both jelly and size, and is one of theRhodospermalgæ. To preserve it for esculent purposes it is washed in fresh water and allowed to dry; it becomes then horny and stiff. If boiled it subsides into a thick jelly, which is considered nutritious, and is used by both invalids and epicures. Calico-printers use it for size. It is used, boiled in milk, to fatten calves.A pretty little seaweed,Griffithsia selacea, has the property of staining paper a fine pinkish-scarlet hue when its membrane bursts. Contact with fresh water will usually cause the membrane to yield, and then the colouring-matter is exuded with a slight crackling noise.TheChlorosperms, or green-seeded algæ, have the power of pouring out large quantities of oxygen under certain conditions, and are therefore very valuable in the aquarium. Among them are the sea-lettuce, before mentioned, the common sea grass, and a large number of smaller and more delicate forms.“If,”says Mr. Wood,“the naturalist wishes to dry and preserve the algæ which he finds, he may generally do so without much difficulty, although some plants give much more trouble than others. It is necessary that they should be well washed in fresh water, in order to get rid of the salt, which, being deliquescent,53would attract the moisture on a damp day, or in a damp situation, and soon ruin the entire collection. When they are thoroughly washed the finest specimens should be separated from the rest and placed in a wide, shallow vessel, filled with clear fresh water. Portions of white card, cut to the requisite size, should then be slipped under the specimen, which can be readily arranged as they float over the immersed card. The fingers alone ought to answer every purpose, but a camel’s-hair brush and a needle will often be useful. When the specimen is properly arranged the card is lifted from the water, carrying upon it the piece of seaweed. There is little difficulty in getting the plants to adhere to the paper, as most of the algæ are furnished with a gelatinous substance which acts like glue and fixes them firmly down.”If not, the[pg 203]use of hot water will generally accomplish the desired end. Animal glue or gum-water cannot he recommended.Every visitor to the sea-shore has observed rocks drilled with innumerable holes, almost as though by art. A few good blows with a stout hammer on the chisel-head serve to split off a great slice of the coarse red sandstone. The holes run through its substance, but they are all empty, or filled only with the black fœtid mud which the sea has deposited in their cavities. These are too superficial; they are all deserted; the stone lies too high above low-water mark; we must seek a lower level. Try here, where the lowest spring-tide only just leaves the rocks bare. See! now we have uncovered the operators. Here lie snugly ensconced within the tubular perforations, great mollusca, with ample ivory-like shells, which yet cannot half contain the whiter flesh of their ampler bodies, and the long stout yellow siphons that project from one extremity, reaching far up the hole towards the surface of the rock.We lift one from its cavity, all helpless and unresisting, yet manifesting its indignation at the untimely disturbance by successive spasmodic contractions of those rough yellow siphons, each accompanied with a forciblejet d’eau, a polite squirt of sea-water into our faces; while at each contraction in length, the base swells out till the compressed valves of the sharp shell threaten to pierce through its substance.Strange as it seems, these animals have bored these holes in the stone, and they are capable of boring in far harder rock than this, even in compact limestone. The actual mode in which this operation is performed long puzzled philosophers. Some maintained that the animal secreted an acid which had the power of dissolving not only various kinds of stone, but also wood, amber, wax, and other substances in which the excavations are occasionally made. But it is hard to imagine a solvent of substances so various, and to know how the animal’s own shells were preserved from its action, while, confessedly, no such acid had ever been detected by the most careful tests. Others maintain that the rough points which stud the shell enable it to serve as a rasp, which the animal, by rotating on its axis, uses to wear away the stone or other material; but it was difficult to understand how it was that the shell itself was not worn away in the abrasion.Actual observation in the aquarium has, however, proved that the second hypothesis is the true one. M. Cailliaud in France, and Mr. Robertson in England, have demonstrated that the Pholas uses its shell as a rasp, wearing away the stone with the asperities with which the anterior parts of the valves are furnished. Between these gentlemen a somewhat hot contention was maintained for the honour of priority in this valuable discovery. M. Cailliaud himself used the valves of the dead shell, and imitating the natural conditions as well as he could, actually bored an imitative hole, by making them rotate. Mr. Robertson at Brighton exhibited to the public living Pholades in the act of boring in masses of chalk. He describes it as“a living combination of three instruments, viz., a hydraulic apparatus, a rasp, and a syringe.”But the first and last of these powers can be considered only as an accessory to the removing of the detritus out of the way when once the hole was bored, the rasp being the real power. If you examine these living shells you will see that the fore part, where the foot protrudes, is set with stony points arranged in transverse and longitudinal rows; the former being the result of elevated ridges radiating from the hinge,[pg 204]the latter that of the edges of successive growths of the shell. These points have the most accurate resemblance to those set on a steel rasp in a blacksmith’s shop. It is interesting to know that the shell is preserved from being itself permanently worn away by the fact that it is composed of arragonite, a substance much harder than those in which the Pholas burrows. Yet we see by comparing specimens one with another, that such a destructive action does in time take place, for some have the rasping points much more worn than others, many of the older ones being nearly smooth.PHOLADES IN A BLOCK OF GNEISS.PHOLADES IN A BLOCK OF GNEISS.The animal turns in its burrow from side to side when at work, adhering to the interior by the foot, and therefore only partially rotating to and fro. The substance is abraded in the form of fine powder, which is periodically ejected from the mouth of the hole by the contraction of the branchial siphon, a good deal of the more unpalpable portions being deposited by the current as it proceeds, and lodging as a soft mud between the valves and the stone. Mr. Hudson, who watched some Pholades at work in a tide-pool in the chalk, observed the periodic ejection of the cloud of chalk powder, and noticed the heaps of the same material deposited about the mouth of each burrow. The discharges were made with no regularity as to time. Mrs. Merrifield records a curious fact:—“A lady watching the operations of some Pholades which were at work in a basin of sea-water, perceived that two of them were boring at such an angle that their tunnels would meet. Curious to ascertain what they would do in this case, she continued her observations, and found thatthe larger and stronger Pholas bored straight through the weaker one, as if it had been merely a piece of chalk rock.”SPINOUS COCKLE.SPINOUS COCKLE.(Cardium edule.)“What,”says Mr. Gosse,“is that object that lies on yonder stretch of sand, over which the shallow water ripples, washing the sand around it and presently leaving it dry? It looks like a stone; but there is a fine scarlet knob on it, which all of a sudden has disappeared. Let us watch the movement of the receding wave, and run out to it. It is a fine example of the great spinous cockle (Cardium rusticum) for which all these sandy beaches that form the bottom of the great sea-bed of Torbay are celebrated. Indeed, the species[pg 205]is scarcely known elsewhere, so that it is often designated in books as the Paignton cockle. A right savourybonne boucheit is, when artistically dressed. Old Dr. Turton—a great authority in his day for Devonshire natural history, especially on matters relating to shells and shell-fish—says that the cottagers about Paignton well know the‘red-noses,’as they call the great cockles, and search for them at low spring tides, when they may be seen lying in the sand with the fringed siphons appearing just above the surface. They gather them in baskets and panniers, and after cleansing them a few hours in cold spring-water, fry the animals in a batter made of crumbs of bread. The creatures have not changed their habits nor their habitats, for they are still to be seen in the old spots just as they were a century ago; nor have they lost their reputation; they are, indeed, promoted to the gratification of more refined palates now, for the cottagers, knowing on which side their bread is buttered, collect the sapid cockles for the fashionables of Torquay, and content themselves with the humbler and smaller species (Cardium edule), which rather affects the muddy flats of estuaries than sand beaches, though not uncommon here. This latter, though much inferior in sapidity to the great spinous sort, forms a far more important item in the category of human food, from its very general distribution, its extreme abundance, and the ease with which it is collected. Wherever the receding tide leaves an area of exposed mud, the common cockle is sure to be found, and hundreds of men, women, and children may be seen plodding and groping over the sinking surface, with naked feet and bent backs, picking up the shell-fish by thousands, to be boiled and eaten for home consumption, or to be cried through the lanes and alleys of the neighbouring towns by stentorian boys who vociferate all day long,‘Here’s your fine cockles, here! Here they are! Here they are! Twopence a quart!’”It is on the north-western coast of Scotland, however, that the greatest abundance of these mollusca occurs, and there they form not a luxury but even a necessary of life to the poor semi-barbarous population. The inhabitants of these rocky regions enjoy an unenviable notoriety for being habitually dependent on this mean diet.“Where the river meets the sea at Tongue,”says Macculloch, in his“Highland and Island Homes of Scotland,”“there is a considerable ebb, and the long sandbanks are productive of cockles in an abundance which is almost unexampled. At that time (a year of scarcity) they presented every day at low water a singular spectacle, being crowded with men, women, and children, who were busily digging for these shell fish as long as the tide permitted. It was not unusual to see thirty or forty horses from the surrounding[pg 206]country, which had been brought down for the purpose of carrying away loads of them to distances of many miles. This was a well-known season of scarcity, and, without this resource, I believe it is not too much to say that many individuals must have died for want.”One of the easiest forms of collecting is from thedébris, as it were, of fishermen’s nets and baskets; but it is exceedingly difficult to induce trawlers to bring home any of their“rubbish.”Money, that in general“makes the mare to go”in any direction you wish, seems to have lost its stimulating power when the duty to be performed, thequid pro quo, is the putting a shovelful of“rubbish”into a bucket of water instead of jerking it overboard. No, they haven’t got time. You try to work on their friendship; you sit and chat with them, and think you have succeeded in worming yourself into their good graces sufficiently to induce them to undertake the not very onerous task of bringing in a tub of“rubbish.”The thing is not, however, utterly hopeless. Occasionally Mr. Gosse had a tub of“rubbish”brought to him; but much more generally worthless than otherwise. The boys are sometimes more open to advances than the men, especially if the master carries his own son with him, in which case the lad has a little more opportunity to turn a penny for himself than when he is friendless.“If ever,”says Gosse,“you should be disposed to try your hand on a bucket of trawler’s‘rubbish,’I strongly recommend you, in the preliminary point of‘catching your hare,’to begin with the cabin-boy.“The last basketful I overhauled made an immense heap when turned out upon a board, but was sadly disappointing upon examination. It consisted almost entirely of one or two kinds of hydroid zoophytes, and these of the commonest description. It does not follow hence, however, that an intelligent and sharp-eyed person would not have succeeded in obtaining a far greater variety; a score of species were doubtless brushed overboard when this trash was bundled into the basket; but being small, or requiring to be picked out singly, they were neglected, whereas the long and tangled threads of thePlumularia falcatacould be caught up in a moment like an armful of pea-haulm in a field, its value being estimated, as usual with the uninitiated, by quantity rather than by quality, by bulk rather than variety.”THE WEEVER FISH. (Trachinus communis.)THE WEEVER FISH. (Trachinus communis.)Mr. Gosse found on several occasions when examining the contents of shrimpers’ nets, a pretty little flat-fish, a constant inhabitant of sandy beaches and pools, and often found in company with shrimps, some of which it hardly exceeded in size, although sometimes reaching a maximum growth of four or five inches. Small as it is, it is allied to the magnificent turbot. The naturalist above mentioned took it home, and observed its habits at leisure.“In a white saucer,”says he,“it was a charming little object, though rather difficult to examine, because, the instant the eye with the lens was brought near, it flounced in alarm, and often leaped out upon the table. When its fit of terror was over, however, it became still, and would allow me to push it hither and thither, merely waving the edges of its dorsal and ventral fins rapidly as it yielded to the impulse.”This is the Top-knot, so called from an elongation of the dorsal fin. The little Sand Launce, with its pearly lustrous sides, is a commonly-found fish on the shore. It has a remarkable projection of the lower jaws, a kind of spade, as it were, by the aid of which it manages to scoop out a bed in the wet sand, and so lie hidden. The Lesser Weever, called by English fishermen Sting-bull, Sting-fish, and Sea-cat, because of its power of inflicting severe inflammatory[pg 207]wounds, a little fish of four or five inches long, is another denizen of the sands. So also the young of the Skate. The Wrasse, the Globy, the Blenny, and many other small fish, are met with in the pools and caverns of our shores.Of crabs, prawns, and crustaceans, of shell-fish and rock fish, and the mollusca generally, these pages have already given a sufficient account. They are even more at home in the sea than on the shore.THE DEVIL’S FRYING PAN, COAST OF CORNWALL.THE DEVIL’S FRYING PAN, COAST OF CORNWALL.

A Submerged Forest—Grandeur of Devonshire Cliffs—Castellated Walls—A Natural Palace—Collection of Sea-weeds—The Title a Miserable Misnomer—The Bladder Wrack—Practical Uses—The Harvest-time for Collectors—The Huge Laminaria—Good for Knife-handles—Marine Rope—The Red-Seeded Group—Munchausen’s Gin Tree Beaten—The Coralline a Vegetable—Beautiful Varieties—Irish Moss—The Green Seeds—Hints on Preserving Sea-weeds—The Boring Pholas—How they Drill—Sometimes through each other—The Spinous Cockle—The“Red-noses”—Hundreds of Peasantry Saved from Starvation—“Rubbish,”and the difficulty of obtaining it—Results of a Basketful—The Contents of a Shrimper’s Net—Miniature Fish of the Shore.

Mr. Gosse tells us in his“Tenby,”of a veritable submerged forest near Amroth. Pieces of soft and decayed wood constantly come to the surface, and are called by the peasantry“sea turf.”It is very commonly perforated by the shells ofPholas candida, being ensconed therein as closely as they can lie without mutual invasion. Other pieces are quite solid, resisting the knife like the good old oak timbers of a ship. Occasionally, during storms, whole trunks and roots and branches are torn away, come floating to the surface of the sea, and are cast on the shore. Some of them have been found“at the recess of the autumnal spring tides, which have marks of the axe still fresh upon them, proving that the encroachment of the sea has been effected since the country was inhabited by civilised man.”Several kinds of trees, including elm, willow, alder, poplar, and oak, have been found among the large fragments cast up. An account of the encroachments of the sea on various parts of our coasts would fill a large volume.

Mr. Gosse well describes some of the Devonshire coast scenery.“Now,”says he,“we are under Lidstep Head, a promontory in steepness and height rivalling its‘proud’opponents. I never before saw cliffs like these. The stratification is absolutely perpendicular, and as straight as a line, taking the appearance at every turn of enormous towers, castles, and abbeys, in which the fissures bear the closest resemblance to loopholes and doors. Great areas open enclosed as if with vast walls. The sea surface was particularly smooth, and we ventured to pull into one of these, exactly as if into a ruined castle or vast abbey; chamber opening beyond chamber, bounded and divided by what I must callwallsof rock, enormous in height, and as straight as the architect’s plumb would have made them, with the smooth sea for the floor. If the tide had been high, instead of being low-water of a spring tide, we might have rowed all about this great enclosed court; but as it was, the huge square upright rocks were appearing above water, like massive altars and tables. The sea was perfectly clear, and we could look down to the foundations of the precipices where the purple-ringed Medusæ were playing. Altogether, it was a place of strange grandeur; we felt as if we were in a palace of the sea genii, as if we were where we ought not to be, and when a gull shrieked over our heads, and uttered his short, hollow, mocking laugh, we started and looked at one another as though something uncanny had challenged us, though the sun was shining broadly over the tops of those Cyclopean walls.

“We left this natural palace with regret; but the tide was near its lowest ebb, and I wished to be on the rocks for whatever might be obtainable in natural history. The lads, therefore, gave way, and we swiftly shot past this coast of extraordinary sublimity.[pg 200]Presently we came to the Droch, where a more majestic cavern than any we had yet seen appears. Up on a beach of yellow sand its immense span is reared with a secondary entrance; the arch of uniting stone is thrown across with a beautiful lightness, and appears as if hewn with the mason’s chisel. Dark domes are seen within, far up in the lofty vaulted roof, and pools of still, clear glassy water mirror the rude walls. This is certainly a glorious cave.”

Easiest of all maritime objects to collect are the so-called“sea-weeds,”which the Rev. J. G. Wood rightly terms a“miserable appellation,”to be employed under protest. They are in reality beautiful sea-plants of oft-times delicate form and colour; and even the larger and commoner varieties have much of interest about them, some having actual uses. One of the first to strike the eye on almost any beach is the common bladder-wrack (Fucus vesiculosus), that dark olive-brown sea-weed familiar to all visitors to our coasts. It is distinguished by its air-vessels, which explode when trodden on or otherwise roughly compressed, and which are the delight of all youngsters at the sea-side. This slimy and slippery weed makes rock-walking perilous in a moderate degree, a fact which does not generally stop young British maidens and their companions from slipping about over its tangled masses. A larger species (Fucus serratus) sometimes grows to a length of six feet. It is used as manure, and even as food for cattle; while it is excellent to pack lobsters, crabs, &c., if they have to be sent inland. These and kindredalgæ, the generic term for sea-weed, are known asMelanosperms, or black-seeded, so called from the dark olive tint of the seeds or spores from which they spring, and with which they abound.

BLADDER WRACK.BLADDER WRACK.(Fucus vesiculosus.)

BLADDER WRACK.(Fucus vesiculosus.)

The best time for the collector who would reap a harvest is at spring-tides, when, Mr. Wood tells us, an hour or two’s careful investigation of the beach will sometimes produce as good results as several days’ hard work with the dredge.“It is better to go down to the shore about half an hour or so before the lowest tide, so as to follow the receding waters and to save time.”The naturalist or amateur collector then finds at these low tides a new set of vegetation, contrasting with the more delicate forms left higher on the beach, as forest-trees with ferns and herbage. Huge plants, some of them measuring eleven feet in length, of the oar-weed (Laminaria digitata), are lying about in profusion. It is known by its scientific name on account of the flat thin-fingered fronds it bears. Its stem is used for handles to knives and other implements, so tough and strong is it. One good stem will furnish a dozen handles, and when dry it is as hard as horn.

LAMINARIA.LAMINARIA.

LAMINARIA.

Among the same group is to be found a most singular rope-like marine plant, hardly thicker than an ordinary pin at the base, where it adheres to the rock, but swelling to the size of a large swan’s-quill in the centre. When grasped by the hand it feels as though oiled, being naturally slimy, and covered by innumerable fine hairs. It is found from the length of one to twenty, thirty, and even forty feet. It may be mentioned that sea-weeds have no true roots, but adhere by discs or suckers. They derive their nourishment from the sea-water, not from the rock or soil.

Another sub-class ofalgæare named theRhodosperms, or red-seeded, and they are among the most beautiful known to collectors. They are delicate, and some turn brown when exposed to too much light. Above low water-mark may be found growing largish masses of a dense, reddish, thread-like foliage, sometimes adhering to the rock, and sometimes to the stems of the greatLaminaria. This is one of a large genus,Polysiphonia(“many-tubed”) the specific name beingUrceolata, or pitchered—it is actually covered with little jars, or receptacles of coloured liquid.

“That popular author and extensive traveller, Baron Munchausen,”says Mr. Wood,“tells us that he met with a tree that bore a fruit filled with the best of gin. Had he travelled along our own sea-coasts, or, indeed, along any sea-coasts, and inspected the vegetation of the waves there, he would have found a plant that might have furnished him with the groundwork of a story respecting a jointed tree composed of wine-bottles, each joint being a separate bottle filled with claret. It is true that the plant is not very large, as it seldom exceeds nine or ten inches in height, but if examined through a microscope it might be enlarged to any convenient size.”The scientific name of this marine plant signifies the“jointed juice-branch.”It may be found adhering to rocks, or large seaweed, and really resembles a jointed series of miniature red wine bottles.

The common coralline (Corallina officinalis) is also one of the red sea-weeds, although long thought to be a true coral. It is a curious plant; it deposits in its own substance so large an amount of carbonate of lime that when the vegetable part of its nature dies the chalky part remains. When alive it is of a dark purple colour, which fades when removed from[pg 202]the water, and the white stony skeleton alone remains. It is, however, a true vegetable, as may be seen by dissolving away the chalky portions in acid; there is then left a vegetable framework precisely like that of other algæ belonging to the same sub-class. It is a small plant, rarely exceeding a height of five or so inches, but it grows in luxuriant patches wherever it can find a suitable spot.

A beautiful marine plant is theDelesseria sanguinea, with its beautiful scarlet leaves, the branches being five or six inches in length. It has a very“ancient and fish-like smell,”once noticed not to be forgotten. Then again every one will remember in the little seaweed bouquets and landscapes on card sold at the fashionable seaside watering-places, a gay, bright, pinky-red kind, which is sure to be remarked for its charming beauty. This is thePlocamium coccineum, which is found to be even more beautiful under the microscope, for it is there seen that even the tiniest branchlets, themselves hardly thicker than a hair, have each their rows of finer branches.

Some seaweeds are eaten, as for example the so-called“Carrageen,”or Irish moss, which is used in both jelly and size, and is one of theRhodospermalgæ. To preserve it for esculent purposes it is washed in fresh water and allowed to dry; it becomes then horny and stiff. If boiled it subsides into a thick jelly, which is considered nutritious, and is used by both invalids and epicures. Calico-printers use it for size. It is used, boiled in milk, to fatten calves.

A pretty little seaweed,Griffithsia selacea, has the property of staining paper a fine pinkish-scarlet hue when its membrane bursts. Contact with fresh water will usually cause the membrane to yield, and then the colouring-matter is exuded with a slight crackling noise.

TheChlorosperms, or green-seeded algæ, have the power of pouring out large quantities of oxygen under certain conditions, and are therefore very valuable in the aquarium. Among them are the sea-lettuce, before mentioned, the common sea grass, and a large number of smaller and more delicate forms.

“If,”says Mr. Wood,“the naturalist wishes to dry and preserve the algæ which he finds, he may generally do so without much difficulty, although some plants give much more trouble than others. It is necessary that they should be well washed in fresh water, in order to get rid of the salt, which, being deliquescent,53would attract the moisture on a damp day, or in a damp situation, and soon ruin the entire collection. When they are thoroughly washed the finest specimens should be separated from the rest and placed in a wide, shallow vessel, filled with clear fresh water. Portions of white card, cut to the requisite size, should then be slipped under the specimen, which can be readily arranged as they float over the immersed card. The fingers alone ought to answer every purpose, but a camel’s-hair brush and a needle will often be useful. When the specimen is properly arranged the card is lifted from the water, carrying upon it the piece of seaweed. There is little difficulty in getting the plants to adhere to the paper, as most of the algæ are furnished with a gelatinous substance which acts like glue and fixes them firmly down.”If not, the[pg 203]use of hot water will generally accomplish the desired end. Animal glue or gum-water cannot he recommended.

Every visitor to the sea-shore has observed rocks drilled with innumerable holes, almost as though by art. A few good blows with a stout hammer on the chisel-head serve to split off a great slice of the coarse red sandstone. The holes run through its substance, but they are all empty, or filled only with the black fœtid mud which the sea has deposited in their cavities. These are too superficial; they are all deserted; the stone lies too high above low-water mark; we must seek a lower level. Try here, where the lowest spring-tide only just leaves the rocks bare. See! now we have uncovered the operators. Here lie snugly ensconced within the tubular perforations, great mollusca, with ample ivory-like shells, which yet cannot half contain the whiter flesh of their ampler bodies, and the long stout yellow siphons that project from one extremity, reaching far up the hole towards the surface of the rock.

We lift one from its cavity, all helpless and unresisting, yet manifesting its indignation at the untimely disturbance by successive spasmodic contractions of those rough yellow siphons, each accompanied with a forciblejet d’eau, a polite squirt of sea-water into our faces; while at each contraction in length, the base swells out till the compressed valves of the sharp shell threaten to pierce through its substance.

Strange as it seems, these animals have bored these holes in the stone, and they are capable of boring in far harder rock than this, even in compact limestone. The actual mode in which this operation is performed long puzzled philosophers. Some maintained that the animal secreted an acid which had the power of dissolving not only various kinds of stone, but also wood, amber, wax, and other substances in which the excavations are occasionally made. But it is hard to imagine a solvent of substances so various, and to know how the animal’s own shells were preserved from its action, while, confessedly, no such acid had ever been detected by the most careful tests. Others maintain that the rough points which stud the shell enable it to serve as a rasp, which the animal, by rotating on its axis, uses to wear away the stone or other material; but it was difficult to understand how it was that the shell itself was not worn away in the abrasion.

Actual observation in the aquarium has, however, proved that the second hypothesis is the true one. M. Cailliaud in France, and Mr. Robertson in England, have demonstrated that the Pholas uses its shell as a rasp, wearing away the stone with the asperities with which the anterior parts of the valves are furnished. Between these gentlemen a somewhat hot contention was maintained for the honour of priority in this valuable discovery. M. Cailliaud himself used the valves of the dead shell, and imitating the natural conditions as well as he could, actually bored an imitative hole, by making them rotate. Mr. Robertson at Brighton exhibited to the public living Pholades in the act of boring in masses of chalk. He describes it as“a living combination of three instruments, viz., a hydraulic apparatus, a rasp, and a syringe.”But the first and last of these powers can be considered only as an accessory to the removing of the detritus out of the way when once the hole was bored, the rasp being the real power. If you examine these living shells you will see that the fore part, where the foot protrudes, is set with stony points arranged in transverse and longitudinal rows; the former being the result of elevated ridges radiating from the hinge,[pg 204]the latter that of the edges of successive growths of the shell. These points have the most accurate resemblance to those set on a steel rasp in a blacksmith’s shop. It is interesting to know that the shell is preserved from being itself permanently worn away by the fact that it is composed of arragonite, a substance much harder than those in which the Pholas burrows. Yet we see by comparing specimens one with another, that such a destructive action does in time take place, for some have the rasping points much more worn than others, many of the older ones being nearly smooth.

PHOLADES IN A BLOCK OF GNEISS.PHOLADES IN A BLOCK OF GNEISS.

PHOLADES IN A BLOCK OF GNEISS.

The animal turns in its burrow from side to side when at work, adhering to the interior by the foot, and therefore only partially rotating to and fro. The substance is abraded in the form of fine powder, which is periodically ejected from the mouth of the hole by the contraction of the branchial siphon, a good deal of the more unpalpable portions being deposited by the current as it proceeds, and lodging as a soft mud between the valves and the stone. Mr. Hudson, who watched some Pholades at work in a tide-pool in the chalk, observed the periodic ejection of the cloud of chalk powder, and noticed the heaps of the same material deposited about the mouth of each burrow. The discharges were made with no regularity as to time. Mrs. Merrifield records a curious fact:—“A lady watching the operations of some Pholades which were at work in a basin of sea-water, perceived that two of them were boring at such an angle that their tunnels would meet. Curious to ascertain what they would do in this case, she continued her observations, and found thatthe larger and stronger Pholas bored straight through the weaker one, as if it had been merely a piece of chalk rock.”

SPINOUS COCKLE.SPINOUS COCKLE.(Cardium edule.)

SPINOUS COCKLE.(Cardium edule.)

“What,”says Mr. Gosse,“is that object that lies on yonder stretch of sand, over which the shallow water ripples, washing the sand around it and presently leaving it dry? It looks like a stone; but there is a fine scarlet knob on it, which all of a sudden has disappeared. Let us watch the movement of the receding wave, and run out to it. It is a fine example of the great spinous cockle (Cardium rusticum) for which all these sandy beaches that form the bottom of the great sea-bed of Torbay are celebrated. Indeed, the species[pg 205]is scarcely known elsewhere, so that it is often designated in books as the Paignton cockle. A right savourybonne boucheit is, when artistically dressed. Old Dr. Turton—a great authority in his day for Devonshire natural history, especially on matters relating to shells and shell-fish—says that the cottagers about Paignton well know the‘red-noses,’as they call the great cockles, and search for them at low spring tides, when they may be seen lying in the sand with the fringed siphons appearing just above the surface. They gather them in baskets and panniers, and after cleansing them a few hours in cold spring-water, fry the animals in a batter made of crumbs of bread. The creatures have not changed their habits nor their habitats, for they are still to be seen in the old spots just as they were a century ago; nor have they lost their reputation; they are, indeed, promoted to the gratification of more refined palates now, for the cottagers, knowing on which side their bread is buttered, collect the sapid cockles for the fashionables of Torquay, and content themselves with the humbler and smaller species (Cardium edule), which rather affects the muddy flats of estuaries than sand beaches, though not uncommon here. This latter, though much inferior in sapidity to the great spinous sort, forms a far more important item in the category of human food, from its very general distribution, its extreme abundance, and the ease with which it is collected. Wherever the receding tide leaves an area of exposed mud, the common cockle is sure to be found, and hundreds of men, women, and children may be seen plodding and groping over the sinking surface, with naked feet and bent backs, picking up the shell-fish by thousands, to be boiled and eaten for home consumption, or to be cried through the lanes and alleys of the neighbouring towns by stentorian boys who vociferate all day long,‘Here’s your fine cockles, here! Here they are! Here they are! Twopence a quart!’”It is on the north-western coast of Scotland, however, that the greatest abundance of these mollusca occurs, and there they form not a luxury but even a necessary of life to the poor semi-barbarous population. The inhabitants of these rocky regions enjoy an unenviable notoriety for being habitually dependent on this mean diet.“Where the river meets the sea at Tongue,”says Macculloch, in his“Highland and Island Homes of Scotland,”“there is a considerable ebb, and the long sandbanks are productive of cockles in an abundance which is almost unexampled. At that time (a year of scarcity) they presented every day at low water a singular spectacle, being crowded with men, women, and children, who were busily digging for these shell fish as long as the tide permitted. It was not unusual to see thirty or forty horses from the surrounding[pg 206]country, which had been brought down for the purpose of carrying away loads of them to distances of many miles. This was a well-known season of scarcity, and, without this resource, I believe it is not too much to say that many individuals must have died for want.”

One of the easiest forms of collecting is from thedébris, as it were, of fishermen’s nets and baskets; but it is exceedingly difficult to induce trawlers to bring home any of their“rubbish.”Money, that in general“makes the mare to go”in any direction you wish, seems to have lost its stimulating power when the duty to be performed, thequid pro quo, is the putting a shovelful of“rubbish”into a bucket of water instead of jerking it overboard. No, they haven’t got time. You try to work on their friendship; you sit and chat with them, and think you have succeeded in worming yourself into their good graces sufficiently to induce them to undertake the not very onerous task of bringing in a tub of“rubbish.”

The thing is not, however, utterly hopeless. Occasionally Mr. Gosse had a tub of“rubbish”brought to him; but much more generally worthless than otherwise. The boys are sometimes more open to advances than the men, especially if the master carries his own son with him, in which case the lad has a little more opportunity to turn a penny for himself than when he is friendless.“If ever,”says Gosse,“you should be disposed to try your hand on a bucket of trawler’s‘rubbish,’I strongly recommend you, in the preliminary point of‘catching your hare,’to begin with the cabin-boy.

“The last basketful I overhauled made an immense heap when turned out upon a board, but was sadly disappointing upon examination. It consisted almost entirely of one or two kinds of hydroid zoophytes, and these of the commonest description. It does not follow hence, however, that an intelligent and sharp-eyed person would not have succeeded in obtaining a far greater variety; a score of species were doubtless brushed overboard when this trash was bundled into the basket; but being small, or requiring to be picked out singly, they were neglected, whereas the long and tangled threads of thePlumularia falcatacould be caught up in a moment like an armful of pea-haulm in a field, its value being estimated, as usual with the uninitiated, by quantity rather than by quality, by bulk rather than variety.”

THE WEEVER FISH. (Trachinus communis.)THE WEEVER FISH. (Trachinus communis.)

THE WEEVER FISH. (Trachinus communis.)

Mr. Gosse found on several occasions when examining the contents of shrimpers’ nets, a pretty little flat-fish, a constant inhabitant of sandy beaches and pools, and often found in company with shrimps, some of which it hardly exceeded in size, although sometimes reaching a maximum growth of four or five inches. Small as it is, it is allied to the magnificent turbot. The naturalist above mentioned took it home, and observed its habits at leisure.“In a white saucer,”says he,“it was a charming little object, though rather difficult to examine, because, the instant the eye with the lens was brought near, it flounced in alarm, and often leaped out upon the table. When its fit of terror was over, however, it became still, and would allow me to push it hither and thither, merely waving the edges of its dorsal and ventral fins rapidly as it yielded to the impulse.”This is the Top-knot, so called from an elongation of the dorsal fin. The little Sand Launce, with its pearly lustrous sides, is a commonly-found fish on the shore. It has a remarkable projection of the lower jaws, a kind of spade, as it were, by the aid of which it manages to scoop out a bed in the wet sand, and so lie hidden. The Lesser Weever, called by English fishermen Sting-bull, Sting-fish, and Sea-cat, because of its power of inflicting severe inflammatory[pg 207]wounds, a little fish of four or five inches long, is another denizen of the sands. So also the young of the Skate. The Wrasse, the Globy, the Blenny, and many other small fish, are met with in the pools and caverns of our shores.

Of crabs, prawns, and crustaceans, of shell-fish and rock fish, and the mollusca generally, these pages have already given a sufficient account. They are even more at home in the sea than on the shore.

THE DEVIL’S FRYING PAN, COAST OF CORNWALL.THE DEVIL’S FRYING PAN, COAST OF CORNWALL.

THE DEVIL’S FRYING PAN, COAST OF CORNWALL.

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