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diff --git a/695-h/695-h.htm b/695-h/695-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a222d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/695-h/695-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5620 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Glaucus, by Charles Kingsley</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Glaucus, by Charles Kingsley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Glaucus + The Wonders of the Shore + + +Author: Charles Kingsley + + + +Release Date: November 14, 2014 [eBook #695] +[This file was first posted on October 22, 1996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLAUCUS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1890 Macmillan and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image135" href="images/p135b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Plate 1: Actinia Mesembryanthemum" +title= +"Plate 1: Actinia Mesembryanthemum" + src="images/p135s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>GLAUCUS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OR</span><br /> +THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE</h1> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +CHARLES KINGSLEY</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall"><i>WITH +COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS</i></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">London<br /> +MACMILLAN AND CO.<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AND NEW YORK</span><br /> +1890</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>The Right of Translation and +Reproduction is Reserved</i></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Richard Clay +and Sons, Limited</span>,<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">LONDON AND BUNGAY.</span></p> +<p><i>First Edition</i> (Fcap. 8vo), May 1855. <i>Second +Edition</i>, August 1855. <i>Third Edition</i>, 1856. +<i>Fourth Edition</i> (with Coloured Illustrations), 1859. +<i>Fifth Edition</i> (Crown 8vo), 1873. <i>Reprinted</i> +1878, 1879, 1881, 1884, 1887, 1890.</p> +<h2>Dedication.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Miss Grenfell</span>,</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">cannot</span> forego the pleasure of +dedicating this little book to you; excepting of course the +opening exhortation (needless enough in your case) to those who +have not yet discovered the value of Natural History. +Accept it as a memorial of pleasant hours spent by us already, +and as an earnest, I trust, of pleasant hours to be spent +hereafter (perhaps, too, beyond this life in the nobler world to +come), in examining together the works of our Father in +heaven.</p> +<p>Your grateful and faithful brother-in-law,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">C. KINGSLEY.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Bideford</span>,<br /> + <i>April</i> 24, 1855.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>The basis of this little book +was an Article which appeared in the</i><br /> +<i>North British Review for November</i> 1854.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Beyond</span> the shadow of +the ship,<br /> +I watch’d the water snakes:<br /> +They moved in tracks of shining white,<br /> +And when they rear’d, the elfish light<br /> +Fell off in hoary flakes.</p> +<p>* * * *</p> +<p>O happy living things! no tongue<br /> +Their beauty might declare:<br /> +A spring of love gush’d from my heart,<br /> +And I bless’d them unware.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">Coleridge’s</span> <i>Ancient +Mariner</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p style="text-align: center">WOOD +ENGRAVINGS.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="GutSmall">FIG.</span></p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>1.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Nymphon Abyssorum, <span class="smcap">Norman</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image81">81</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>2.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Caprella spinosissima, <span +class="smcap">Norman</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image83">83</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>3.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Pentacrinus asteria, <span +class="smcap">Linnæus</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image85">85</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p style="text-align: center">COLOURED +PLATES.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="GutSmall">PLATE</span></p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>1.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Flustra Lineata</span>; (<i>a</i>) +enlarged with polypes protruding. 2. <span +class="smcap">Flustra Foliacea</span>. 3. <span +class="smcap">Valkeria Cuscuta</span>; (<i>a</i>) natural size; +(<i>b</i>) two tentacles; (<i>c</i>) tentacles bent inwards; +(<i>d</i>) enlarged, showing the gradual eversion of the +animal. 4. <span class="smcap">Crisia Denticulata</span>; +(<i>a</i>) natural size. 5. <span class="smcap">Gemellaria +Lorioata</span>; (<i>a</i>) natural size. 6. <span +class="smcap">Sertularia Rosea</span>; (<i>a</i>) natural +size. 7. <span class="smcap">Cellularia Ciliata</span>; +(<i>a</i>) natural size; (<i>b</i>) one of the bird’s +heads; (<i>c</i>) cell and bird’s head, much +enlarged. 8. <span class="smcap">Campanularia +Syringa</span>; (<i>a</i>) natural size. 9. <span +class="smcap">Campanularia Volubilis</span>, enlarged. 10. +<span class="smcap">Serialaria Lendigera</span>. 11. <span +class="smcap">Notamia Bursaria</span>; (<i>a</i>) natural size; +(<i>b</i>) two pairs of polype cells with the tobacco pipe +appendages</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image73">73</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>2.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Cardium Rusticum</span>, (<span +class="smcap">tuberculatum</span>). 2. <span +class="smcap">Pagurus Bernhardi</span>, in a Periwinkle Shell</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image65">65</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>3.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Nemerties Borlasii</span>. 2. +<span class="smcap">Sabella</span>? 3. Sand-tube of <span +class="smcap">Terebella Conchilega</span> (<i>See Plate</i> +8)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image136">136</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>4.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Synapta Digitata</span>; (<i>a</i>) +Ditto separating and throwing out capsuliferous threads. 2. +<span class="smcap">Thalassima Neptuni</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image109">109</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>5.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Balanophyllea Regia</span>, +expanded; (<i>a</i>) Ditto, contracted; (<i>b</i>) Ditto coral; +(<i>c</i>) Ditto, tentacle enlarged; 2. <span +class="smcap">Caryophyllea Smithii</span> partly expanded; +(<i>a</i>) Ditto, section of bony plates; (<i>b</i>) Ditto, +tentacle. 3. <span class="smcap">Sagartia Anguicoma</span> +closed; (<i>a</i>) Ditto, basal disc showing radiating +septa. 4. <span class="smcap">Synapta Digitata</span> +(<i>See Plate</i> 4); (<i>a</i>, <i>b</i>) Ditto, fingered +tentacles enlarged; (<i>c</i>) Ditto, Spiculæ; (<i>d</i>) +Ditto, anchor lying on its transparent anchor-plate. 5. S. +<span class="smcap">Vittata</span>? perforated anchor-plate; +(<i>a</i>) Spicula</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image117">117</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>6.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Actinia Mesembryanthemum</span>, +partially expanded; (<i>a</i>) Ditto, closed. 2. <span +class="smcap">Bunodes Crassicornis</span>. 3. <span +class="smcap">Caryophyllea Smithii</span> <i>Front</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image135">135</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>7.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Echinus Miliaris</span>, creeping +over Modiola barbata. 2. Ditto, creeping up the +glass. 3. Hiding under stones</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image168">168</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>8.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Littorina Littorea</span> (<i>See +Plate</i> 9); (<i>a</i>) operculum; (<i>b</i>) pallet; (<i>c</i>) +part of pallet, magnified. 2. <span class="smcap">Nassa +Reticulata</span> (<i>See Plate</i> 11); (<i>a</i>) egg capsules; +(<i>b</i>, <i>c</i>) fry; (<i>d</i>) shell of fry; (<i>e</i>) +pallet, magnified. 3. <span class="smcap">Patella +Vulgaris</span>; (<i>a</i>) palate, natural size; (<i>b</i>, +<i>c</i>) Ditto, enlarged. 4. <span class="smcap">Echinus +Miliaris</span> (<i>See Plate</i> 7); (<i>a</i>) teeth and +digesting mill; (<i>b</i>) suckers, enlarged; (<i>c</i>) spine +and socket; (<i>d</i>) shell denuded; (<i>e</i>) +Pedicellaria. 5. <span class="smcap">Nemertes +Borlasii</span> (<i>See Plate</i> 3); (<i>a</i>) head, enlarged; +(<i>b</i>) head expanded swallowing a Terebella</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image201">201</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>9.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Cucumaria Hyndmanni</span>. +2. <span class="smcap">Littorina Littorea</span>. 3. <span +class="smcap">Siphunculus Bernhardus</span> in shell of <span +class="smcap">Turritella</span>, with living <span +class="smcap">Balani</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image114">114</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>10.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Serpula +Contortuplicata</span>. 2. <span class="smcap">Hinnites +Pusio</span>. 3. <span class="smcap">Doris +Repanda</span>. 4. <span class="smcap">Eolis +Pellucida</span>. 5. <span class="smcap">Pholadidæa +Papyracea</span>. 6. <span class="smcap">Pholas +Parva</span>. 7. <span class="smcap">Fissurella +Græca</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image129">129</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>11.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Syngnathus +Lumbriciformis</span>. 2. <span class="smcap">Saxicava +Rugosa</span>; (<i>a</i>) Shell of <span class="smcap">Saxicava +Rugosa</span>. 3. <span class="smcap">Nassa +Reticulata</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image163">163</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>12.</p> +</td> +<td><p>1. <span class="smcap">Peachia Hastata</span>. 2. +<span class="smcap">Uraster Rubens</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image92">92</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2>GLAUCUS;<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OR,</span><br /> +THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">You</span> are going down, perhaps, by +railway, to pass your usual six weeks at some watering-place +along the coast, and as you roll along think more than once, and +that not over-cheerfully, of what you shall do when you get +there. You are half-tired, half-ashamed, of making one more +in the ignoble army of idlers, who saunter about the cliffs, and +sands, and quays; to whom every wharf is but a “wharf of +Lethe,” by which they rot “dull as the oozy +weed.” You foreknow your doom by sad +experience. A great deal of dressing, a lounge in the +club-room, a stare out of the window with the telescope, an +attempt to take a bad sketch, a walk up one parade and down +another, interminable reading of the silliest of novels, over +which you fall asleep on a bench in the sun, and probably have +your umbrella stolen; a purposeless fine-weather sail in a yacht, +accompanied by many ineffectual attempts to catch a mackerel, and +the consumption of many cigars; while your boys deafen your ears, +and endanger your personal safety, by blazing away at innocent +gulls and willocks, who go off to die slowly; a sport which you +feel to be wanton, and cowardly, and cruel, and yet cannot find +in your heart to stop, because “the lads have nothing else +to do, and at all events it keeps them out of the +billiard-room;” and after all, and worst of all, at night a +soulless <i>réchauffé</i> of third-rate London +frivolity: this is the life-in-death in which thousands spend the +golden weeks of summer, and in which you confess with a sigh that +you are going to spend them.</p> +<p>Now I will not be so rude as to apply to you the old +hymn-distich about one who</p> +<blockquote><p>“—finds some mischief still<br /> +For idle hands to do:”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>but does it not seem to you, that there must surely be many a +thing worth looking at earnestly, and thinking over earnestly, in +a world like this, about the making of the least part whereof God +has employed ages and ages, further back than wisdom can guess or +imagination picture, and upholds that least part every moment by +laws and forces so complex and so wonderful, that science, when +it tries to fathom them, can only learn how little it can +learn? And does it not seem to you that six weeks’ +rest, free from the cares of town business and the whirlwind of +town pleasure, could not be better spent than in examining those +wonders a little, instead of wandering up and down like the many, +still wrapt up each in his little world of vanity and +self-interest, unconscious of what and where they really are, as +they gaze lazily around at earth and sea and sky, and have</p> +<blockquote><p> “No speculation in those +eyes<br /> +Which they do glare withal”?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Why not, then, try to discover a few of the Wonders of the +Shore? For wonders there are there around you at every step, +stranger than ever opium-eater dreamed, and yet to be seen at no +greater expense than a very little time and trouble.</p> +<p>Perhaps you smile, in answer, at the notion of becoming a +“Naturalist:” and yet you cannot deny that there must +be a fascination in the study of Natural History, though what it +is is as yet unknown to you. Your daughters, perhaps, have +been seized with the prevailing “Pteridomania,” and +are collecting and buying ferns, with Ward’s cases wherein +to keep them (for which you have to pay), and wrangling over +unpronounceable names of species (which seem to be different in +each new Fern-book that they buy), till the Pteridomania seems to +you somewhat of a bore: and yet you cannot deny that they find an +enjoyment in it, and are more active, more cheerful, more +self-forgetful over it, than they would have been over novels and +gossip, crochet and Berlin-wool. At least you will confess +that the abomination of “Fancy-work”—that +standing cloak for dreamy idleness (not to mention the injury +which it does to poor starving needlewomen)—has all but +vanished from your drawing-room since the +“Lady-ferns” and “Venus’s hair” +appeared; and that you could not help yourself looking now and +then at the said “Venus’s hair,” and agreeing +that Nature’s real beauties were somewhat superior to the +ghastly woollen caricatures which they had superseded.</p> +<p>You cannot deny, I say, that there is a fascination in this +same Natural History. For do not you, the London merchant, +recollect how but last summer your douce and portly head-clerk +was seized by two keepers in the act of wandering in Epping +Forest at dead of night, with a dark lantern, a jar of strange +sweet compound, and innumerable pocketfuls of pill-boxes; and +found it very difficult to make either his captors or you believe +that he was neither going to burn wheat-ricks, nor poison +pheasants, but was simply “sugaring the trees for +moths,” as a blameless entomologist? And when, in +self-justification, he took you to his house in Islington, and +showed you the glazed and corked drawers full of delicate +insects, which had evidently cost him in the collecting the spare +hours of many busy years, and many a pound, too, out of his small +salary, were you not a little puzzled to make out what spell +there could be in those “useless” moths, to draw out +of his warm bed, twenty miles down the Eastern Counties Railway, +and into the damp forest like a deer-stealer, a sober +white-headed Tim Linkinwater like him, your very best man of +business, given to the reading of Scotch political economy, and +gifted with peculiarly clear notions on the currency +question?</p> +<p>It is puzzling, truly. I shall be very glad if these +pages help you somewhat toward solving the puzzle.</p> +<p>We shall agree at least that the study of Natural History has +become now-a-days an honourable one. A Cromarty stonemason +was till lately—God rest his noble soul!—the most +important man in the City of Edinburgh, by dint of a work on +fossil fishes; and the successful investigator of the minutest +animals takes place unquestioned among men of genius, and, like +the philosopher of old Greece, is considered, by virtue of his +science, fit company for dukes and princes. Nay, the study +is now more than honourable; it is (what to many readers will be +a far higher recommendation) even fashionable. Every +well-educated person is eager to know something at least of the +wonderful organic forms which surround him in every sunbeam and +every pebble; and books of Natural History are finding their way +more and more into drawing-rooms and school-rooms, and exciting +greater thirst for a knowledge which, even twenty years ago, was +considered superfluous for all but the professional student.</p> +<p>What a change from the temper of two generations since, when +the naturalist was looked on as a harmless enthusiast, who went +“bug-hunting,” simply because he had not spirit to +follow a fox! There are those alive who can recollect an +amiable man being literally bullied out of the New Forest, +because he dared to make a collection (at this moment, we +believe, in some unknown abyss of that great Avernus, the British +Museum) of fossil shells from those very Hordwell Cliffs, for +exploring which there is now established a society of subscribers +and correspondents. They can remember, too, when, on the +first appearance of Bewick’s “British Birds,” +the excellent sportsman who brought it down to the Forest was +asked, Why on earth he had bought a book about “cock +sparrows”? and had to justify himself again and again, +simply by lending the book to his brother sportsmen, to convince +them that there were rather more than a dozen sorts of birds (as +they then held) indigenous to Hampshire. But the book, +perhaps, which turned the tide in favour of Natural History, +among the higher classes at least, in the south of England, was +White’s “History of Selborne.” A +Hampshire gentleman and sportsman, whom everybody knew, had taken +the trouble to write a book about the birds and the weeds in his +own parish, and the every-day things which went on under his +eyes, and everyone else’s. And all gentlemen, from +the Weald of Kent to the Vale of Blackmore, shrugged their +shoulders mysteriously, and said, “Poor fellow!” till +they opened the book itself, and discovered to their surprise +that it read like any novel. And then came a burst of +confused, but honest admiration; from the young squire’s +“Bless me! who would have thought that there were so many +wonderful things to be seen in one’s own park!” to +the old squire’s more morally valuable “Bless me! +why, I have seen that and that a hundred times, and never thought +till now how wonderful they were!”</p> +<p>There were great excuses, though, of old, for the contempt in +which the naturalist was held; great excuses for the pitying tone +of banter with which the Spectator talks of “the +ingenious” Don Saltero (as no doubt the Neapolitan +gentleman talked of Ferrante Imperato the apothecary, and his +museum); great excuses for Voltaire, when he classes the +collection of butterflies among the other “bizarreries de +l’esprit humain.” For, in the last generation, +the needs of the world were different. It had no time for +butterflies and fossils. While Buonaparte was hovering on +the Boulogne coast, the pursuits and the education which were +needed were such as would raise up men to fight him; so the +coarse, fierce, hard-handed training of our grandfathers came +when it was wanted, and did the work which was required of it, +else we had not been here now. Let us be thankful that we +have had leisure for science; and show now in war that our +science has at least not unmanned us.</p> +<p>Moreover, Natural History, if not fifty years ago, certainly a +hundred years ago, was hardly worthy of men of practical common +sense. After, indeed, Linné, by his invention of +generic and specific names, had made classification possible, and +by his own enormous labours had shown how much could be done when +once a method was established, the science has grown rapidly +enough. But before him little or nothing had been put into +form definite enough to allure those who (as the many always +will) prefer to profit by others’ discoveries, than to +discover for themselves; and Natural History was attractive only +to a few earnest seekers, who found too much trouble in +disencumbering their own minds of the dreams of bygone +generations (whether facts, like cockatrices, basilisks, and +krakens, the breeding of bees out of a dead ox, and of geese from +barnacles; or theories, like those of elements, the <i>vis +plastrix</i> in Nature, animal spirits, and the other musty +heirlooms of Aristotleism and Neo-platonism), to try to make a +science popular, which as yet was not even a science at +all. Honour to them, nevertheless. Honour to Ray and +his illustrious contemporaries in Holland and France. +Honour to Seba and Aldrovandus; to Pomet, with his +“Historie of Drugges;” even to the ingenious Don +Saltero, and his tavern-museum in Cheyne Walk. Where all +was chaos, every man was useful who could contribute a single +spot of organized standing ground in the shape of a fact or a +specimen. But it is a question whether Natural History +would have ever attained its present honours, had not Geology +arisen, to connect every other branch of Natural History with +problems as vast and awful as they are captivating to the +imagination. Nay, the very opposition with which Geology +met was of as great benefit to the sister sciences as to +itself. For, when questions belonging to the most sacred +hereditary beliefs of Christendom were supposed to be affected by +the verification of a fossil shell, or the proving that the +Maestricht “homo diluvii testis” was, after all, a +monstrous eft, it became necessary to work upon Conchology, +Botany, and Comparative Anatomy, with a care and a reverence, a +caution and a severe induction, which had been never before +applied to them; and thus gradually, in the last half-century, +the whole choir of cosmical sciences have acquired a soundness, +severity, and fulness, which render them, as mere intellectual +exercises, as valuable to a manly mind as Mathematics and +Metaphysics.</p> +<p>But how very lately have they attained that firm and +honourable standing ground! It is a question whether, even +twenty years ago, Geology, as it then stood, was worth troubling +one’s head about, so little had been really proved. +And heavy and uphill was the work, even within the last fifteen +years, of those who stedfastly set themselves to the task of +proving and of asserting at all risks, that the Maker of the coal +seam and the diluvial cave could not be a “Deus quidam +deceptor,” and that the facts which the rock and the silt +revealed were sacred, not to be warped or trifled with for the +sake of any cowardly and hasty notion that they contradicted His +other messages. When a few more years are past, Buckland +and Sedgwick, Murchison and Lyell, Delabêche and Phillips, +Forbes and Jamieson, and the group of brave men who accompanied +and followed them, will be looked back to as moral benefactors of +their race; and almost as martyrs, also, when it is remembered +how much misunderstanding, obloquy, and plausible folly they had +to endure from well-meaning fanatics like Fairholme or Granville +Penn, and the respectable mob at their heels who tried (as is the +fashion in such cases) to make a hollow compromise between fact +and the Bible, by twisting facts just enough to make them fit the +fancied meaning of the Bible, and the Bible just enough to make +it fit the fancied meaning of the facts. But there were a +few who would have no compromise; who laboured on with a noble +recklessness, determined to speak the thing which they had seen, +and neither more nor less, sure that God could take better care +than they of His own everlasting truth. And now they have +conquered: the facts which were twenty years ago denounced as +contrary to Revelation, are at last accepted not merely as +consonant with, but as corroborative thereof; and sound practical +geologists—like Hugh Miller, in his “Footprints of +the Creator,” and Professor Sedgwick, in the invaluable +notes to his “Discourse on the Studies of +Cambridge”—have wielded in defence of Christianity +the very science which was faithlessly and cowardly expected to +subvert it.</p> +<p>But if you seek, reader, rather for pleasure than for wisdom, +you can find it in such studies, pure and undefiled.</p> +<p>Happy, truly, is the naturalist. He has no time for +melancholy dreams. The earth becomes to him transparent; +everywhere he sees significancies, harmonies, laws, chains of +cause and effect endlessly interlinked, which draw him out of the +narrow sphere of self-interest and self-pleasing, into a pure and +wholesome region of solemn joy and wonder. He goes up some +Snowdon valley; to him it is a solemn spot (though unnoticed by +his companions), where the stag’s-horn clubmoss ceases to +straggle across the turf, and the tufted alpine clubmoss takes +its place: for he is now in a new world; a region whose climate +is eternally influenced by some fresh law (after which he vainly +guesses with a sigh at his own ignorance), which renders life +impossible to one species, possible to another. And it is a +still more solemn thought to him, that it was not always so; that +æons and ages back, that rock which he passed a thousand +feet below was fringed, not as now with fern and blue bugle, and +white bramble-flowers, but perhaps with the alp-rose and the +“gemsen-kraut” of Mont Blanc, at least with Alpine +Saxifrages which have now retreated a thousand feet up the +mountain side, and with the blue Snow-Gentian, and the Canadian +Sedum, which have all but vanished out of the British +Isles. And what is it which tells him that strange +story? Yon smooth and rounded surface of rock, polished, +remark, across the strata and against the grain; and furrowed +here and there, as if by iron talons, with long parallel +scratches. It was the crawling of a glacier which polished +that rock-face; the stones fallen from Snowdon peak into the +half-liquid lake of ice above, which ploughed those +furrows. Æons and æons ago, before the time +when Adam first</p> +<blockquote><p>“Embraced his Eve in happy hour,<br /> +And every bird in Eden burst<br /> +In carol, every bud in flower,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>those marks were there; the records of the “Age of +ice;” slight, truly; to be effaced by the next farmer who +needs to build a wall; but unmistakeable, boundless in +significance, like Crusoe’s one savage footprint on the +sea-shore; and the naturalist acknowledges the finger-mark of +God, and wonders, and worships.</p> +<p>Happy, especially, is the sportsman who is also a naturalist: +for as he roves in pursuit of his game, over hills or up the beds +of streams where no one but a sportsman ever thinks of going, he +will be certain to see things noteworthy, which the mere +naturalist would never find, simply because he could never guess +that they were there to be found. I do not speak merely of +the rare birds which may be shot, the curious facts as to the +habits of fish which may be observed, great as these pleasures +are. I speak of the scenery, the weather, the geological +formation of the country, its vegetation, and the living habits +of its denizens. A sportsman, out in all weathers, and +often dependent for success on his knowledge of “what the +sky is going to do,” has opportunities for becoming a +meteorologist which no one beside but a sailor possesses; and one +has often longed for a scientific gamekeeper or huntsman, who, by +discovering a law for the mysterious and seemingly capricious +phenomena of “scent,” might perhaps throw light on a +hundred dark passages of hygrometry. The fisherman, +too,—what an inexhaustible treasury of wonder lies at his +feet, in the subaqueous world of the commonest mountain +burn! All the laws which mould a world are there busy, if +he but knew it, fattening his trout for him, and making them rise +to the fly, by strange electric influences, at one hour rather +than at another. Many a good geognostic lesson, too, both +as to the nature of a country’s rocks, and as to the laws +by which strata are deposited, may an observing man learn as he +wades up the bed of a trout-stream; not to mention the strange +forms and habits of the tribes of water-insects. Moreover, +no good fisherman but knows, to his sorrow, that there are plenty +of minutes, ay, hours, in each day’s fishing in which he +would be right glad of any employment better than trying to</p> +<blockquote><p>“Call spirits from the vasty +deep,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>who will not</p> +<blockquote><p>“Come when you do call for them.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>What to do, then? You are sitting, perhaps, in your +coracle, upon some mountain tarn, waiting for a wind, and waiting +in vain.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Keine luft an keine seite,<br /> +Todes-stille fürchterlich;”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>as Göthe has it—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Und der schiffer sieht bekümmert<br /> +Glatte fläche rings umher.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>You paddle to the shore on the side whence the wind ought to +come, if it had any spirit in it; tie the coracle to a stone, +light your cigar, lie down on your back upon the grass, grumble, +and finally fall asleep. In the meanwhile, probably, the +breeze has come on, and there has been half-an-hour’s +lively fishing curl; and you wake just in time to see the last +ripple of it sneaking off at the other side of the lake, leaving +all as dead-calm as before.</p> +<p>Now how much better, instead of falling asleep, to have walked +quietly round the lake side, and asked of your own brains and of +Nature the question, “How did this lake come here? +What does it mean?”</p> +<p>It is a hole in the earth. True, but how was the hole +made? There must have been huge forces at work to form such +a chasm. Probably the mountain was actually opened from +within by an earthquake; and when the strata fell together again, +the portion at either end of the chasm, being perhaps crushed +together with greater force, remained higher than the centre, and +so the water lodged between them. Perhaps it was formed +thus. You will at least agree that its formation must have +been a grand sight enough, and one during which a spectator would +have had some difficulty in keeping his footing.</p> +<p>And when you learn that this convulsion probably took plus at +the bottom of an ocean hundreds of thousands of years ago, you +have at least a few thoughts over which to ruminate, which will +make you at once too busy to grumble, and ashamed to grumble.</p> +<p>Yet, after all, I hardly think the lake was formed in this +way, and suspect that it may have been dry for ages after it +emerged from the primeval waves, and Snowdonia was a palm-fringed +island in a tropic sea. Let us look the place over more +fully.</p> +<p>You see the lake is nearly circular; on the side where we +stand the pebbly beach is not six feet above the water, and +slopes away steeply into the valley behind us, while before us it +shelves gradually into the lake; forty yards out, as you know, +there is not ten feet water; and then a steep bank, the edge +whereof we and the big trout know well, sinks suddenly to unknown +depths. On the opposite side, that flat-topped wall of rock +towers up shoreless into the sky, seven hundred feet +perpendicular; the deepest water of all we know is at its very +foot. Right and left, two shoulders of down slope into the +lake. Now turn round and look down the gorge. Remark +that this pebble bank on which we stand reaches some fifty yards +downward: you see the loose stones peeping out everywhere. +We may fairly suppose that we stand on a dam of loose stones, a +hundred feet deep.</p> +<p>But why loose stones?—and if so, what matter? and what +wonder? There are rocks cropping out everywhere down the +hill-side.</p> +<p>Because if you will take up one of these stones and crack it +across, you will see that it is not of the same stuff as those +said rocks. Step into the next field and see. That +rock is the common Snowdon slate, which we see everywhere. +The two shoulders of down, right and left, are slate, too; you +can see that at a glance. But the stones of the pebble bank +are a close-grained, yellow-spotted rock. They are Syenite; +and (you may believe me or not, as you will) they were once upon +a time in the condition of a hasty pudding heated to some 800 +degrees of Fahrenheit, and in that condition shoved their way up +somewhere or other through these slates. But where? whence +on earth did these Syenite pebbles come? Let us walk round to the +cliff on the opposite side and see. It is worth while; for +even if my guess be wrong, there is good spinning with a brass +minnow round the angles of the rocks.</p> +<p>Now see. Between the cliff-foot and the sloping down is +a crack, ending in a gully; the nearer side is of slate, and the +further side, the cliff itself, is—why, the whole cliff is +composed of the very same stone as the pebble ridge.</p> +<p>Now, my good friend, how did these pebbles get three hundred +yards across the lake? Hundreds of tons, some of them three +feet long: who carried them across? The old Cymry were not +likely to amuse themselves by making such a breakwater up here in +No-man’s-land, two thousand feet above the sea: but +somebody or something must have carried them; for stones do not +fly, nor swim either.</p> +<p>Shot out of a volcano? As you seem determined to have a +prodigy, it may as well be a sufficiently huge one.</p> +<p>Well—these stones lie altogether; and a volcano would +have hardly made so compact a shot, not being in the habit of +using Eley’s wire cartridges. Our next hope of a +solution lies in John Jones, who carried up the coracle. +Hail him, and ask him what is on the top of that cliff . . . So, +“Plainshe and pogshe, and another Llyn.” Very +good. Now, does it not strike you that this whole cliff has +a remarkably smooth and plastered look, like a hare’s run +up an earthbank? And do you not see that it is polished +thus only over the lake? that as soon as the cliff abuts on the +downs right and left, it forms pinnacles, caves, broken angular +boulders? Syenite usually does so in our damp climate, from +the “weathering” effect of frost and rain: why has it +not done so over the lake? On that part something (giants +perhaps) has been scrambling up or down on a very large scale, +and so rubbed off every corner which was inclined to come away, +till the solid core of the rock was bared. And may not +those mysterious giants have had a hand in carrying the stones +across the lake? . . . Really, I am not altogether jesting. +Think a while what agent could possibly have produced either one +or both of these effects?</p> +<p>There is but one; and that, if you have been an Alpine +traveller—much more if you have been a Chamois +hunter—you have seen many a time (whether you knew it or +not) at the very same work.</p> +<p>Ice? Yes; ice; Hrymir the frost-giant, and no one +else. And if you will look at the facts, you will see how +ice may have done it. Our friend John Jones’s report +of plains and bogs and a lake above makes it quite possible that +in the “Ice age” (Glacial Epoch, as the +big-word-mongers call it) there was above that cliff a great +neve, or snowfield, such as you have seen often in the Alps at +the head of each glacier. Over the face of this cliff a +glacier has crawled down from that neve, polishing the face of +the rock in its descent: but the snow, having no large and deep +outlet, has not slid down in a sufficient stream to reach the +vale below, and form a glacier of the first order; and has +therefore stopped short on the other side of the lake, as a +glacier of the second order, which ends in an ice-cliff hanging +high up on the mountain side, and kept from further progress by +daily melting. If you have ever gone up the Mer de Glace to +the Tacul, you saw a magnificent specimen of this sort on your +right hand, just opposite the Tacul, in the Glacier de +Trelaporte, which comes down from the Aiguille de Charmoz.</p> +<p>This explains our pebble-ridge. The stones which the +glacier rubbed off the cliff beneath it it carried forward, +slowly but surely, till they saw the light again in the face of +the ice-cliff, and dropped out of it under the melting of the +summer sun, to form a huge dam across the ravine; till, the +“Ice age” past, a more genial climate succeeded, and +neve and glacier melted away: but the “moraine” of +stones did not, and remains to this day, as the dam which keeps +up the waters of the lake.</p> +<p>There is my explanation. If you can find a better, do: +but remember always that it must include an answer +to—“How did the stones get across the +lake?”</p> +<p>Now, reader, we have had no abstruse science here, no long +words, not even a microscope or a book: and yet we, as two plain +sportsmen, have gone back, or been led back by fact and common +sense, into the most awful and sublime depths, into an epos of +the destruction and re-creation of a former world.</p> +<p>This is but a single instance; I might give hundreds. +This one, nevertheless, may have some effect in awakening you to +the boundless world of wonders which is all around you, and make +you ask yourself seriously, “What branch of Natural History +shall I begin to investigate, if it be but for a few weeks, this +summer?”</p> +<p>To which I answer, Try “the Wonders of the +Shore.” There are along every sea-beach more strange +things to be seen, and those to be seen easily, than in any other +field of observation which you will find in these islands. +And on the shore only will you have the enjoyment of finding new +species, of adding your mite to the treasures of science.</p> +<p>For not only the English ferns, but the natural history of all +our land species, are now well-nigh exhausted. Our home +botanists and ornithologists are spending their time now, +perforce, in verifying a few obscure species, and bemoaning +themselves, like Alexander, that there are no more worlds left to +conquer. For the geologist, indeed, and the entomologist, +especially in the remoter districts, much remains to be done, but +only at a heavy outlay of time, labour, and study; and the +dilettante (and it is for dilettanti, like myself, that I +principally write) must be content to tread in the tracks of +greater men who have preceded him, and accept at second or third +hand their foregone conclusions.</p> +<p>But this is most unsatisfactory; for in giving up discovery, +one gives up one of the highest enjoyments of Natural +History. There is a mysterious delight in the discovery of +a new species, akin to that of seeing for the first time, in +their native haunts, plants or animals of which one has till then +only read. Some, surely, who read these pages have +experienced that latter delight; and, though they might find it +hard to define whence the pleasure arose, know well that it was a +solid pleasure, the memory of which they would not give up for +hard cash. Some, surely, can recollect, at their first +sight of the Alpine Soldanella, the Rhododendron, or the black +Orchis, growing upon the edge of the eternal snow, a thrill of +emotion not unmixed with awe; a sense that they were, as it were, +brought face to face with the creatures of another world; that +Nature was independent of them, not merely they of her; that +trees were not merely made to build their houses, or herbs to +feed their cattle, as they looked on those wild gardens amid the +wreaths of the untrodden snow, which had lifted their gay flowers +to the sun year after year since the foundation of the world, +taking no heed of man, and all the coil which he keeps in the +valleys far below.</p> +<p>And even, to take a simpler instance, there are those who will +excuse, or even approve of, a writer for saying that, among the +memories of a month’s eventful tour, those which stand out +as beacon-points, those round which all the others group +themselves, are the first wolf-track by the road-side in the +Kyllwald; the first sight of the blue and green Roller-birds, +walking behind the plough like rooks in the tobacco-fields of +Wittlich; the first ball of Olivine scraped out of the volcanic +slag-heaps of the Dreisser-Weiher; the first pair of the Lesser +Bustard flushed upon the downs of the Mosel-kopf; the first sight +of the cloud of white Ephemeræ, fluttering in the dusk like +a summer snowstorm between us and the black cliffs of the +Rheinstein, while the broad Rhine beneath flashed blood-red in +the blaze of the lightning and the fires of the +Mausenthurm—a lurid Acheron above which seemed to hover ten +thousand unburied ghosts; and last, but not least, on the lip of +the vast Mosel-kopf crater—just above the point where the +weight of the fiery lake has burst the side of the great +slag-cup, and rushed forth between two cliffs of clink-stone +across the downs, in a clanging stream of fire, damming up +rivulets, and blasting its path through forests, far away toward +the valley of the Moselle—the sight of an object for which +was forgotten for the moment that battle-field of the Titans at +our feet, and the glorious panorama, Hundsruck and Taunus, +Siebengebirge and Ardennes, and all the crater peaks around; and +which was—smile not, reader—our first yellow +foxglove.</p> +<p>But what is even this to the delight of finding a new +species?—of rescuing (as it seems to you) one more thought +of the Divine mind from Hela, and the realms of the unknown, +unclassified, uncomprehended? As it seems to you: though in +reality it only seems so, in a world wherein not a sparrow falls +to the ground unnoticed by our Father who is in heaven.</p> +<p>The truth is, the pleasure of finding new species is too +great; it is morally dangerous; for it brings with it the +temptation to look on the thing found as your own possession, all +but your own creation; to pride yourself on it, as if God had not +known it for ages since; even to squabble jealously for the right +of having it named after you, and of being recorded in the +Transactions of I-know-not-what Society as its first +discoverer:—as if all the angels in heaven had not been +admiring it, long before you were born or thought of.</p> +<p>But to be forewarned is to be forearmed; and I seriously +counsel you to try if you cannot find something new this summer +along the coast to which you are going. There is no reason +why you should not be so successful as a friend of mine who, with +a very slight smattering of science, and very desultory research, +obtained in one winter from the Torbay shores three entirely new +species, beside several rare animals which had escaped all +naturalists since the lynx-eye of Colonel Montagu discerned them +forty years ago.</p> +<p>And do not despise the creatures because they are +minute. No doubt we should most of us prefer discovering +monstrous apes in the tropical forests of Borneo, or stumbling +upon herds of gigantic Ammon sheep amid the rhododendron thickets +of the Himalaya: but it cannot be; and “he is a +fool,” says old Hesiod, “who knows not how much +better half is than the whole.” Let us be content +with what is within our reach. And doubt not that in these +tiny creatures are mysteries more than we shall ever fathom.</p> +<p>The zoophytes and microscopic animalcules which people every +shore and every drop of water, have been now raised to a rank in +the human mind more important, perhaps, than even those gigantic +monsters whose models fill the lake at the Crystal Palace. +The research which has been bestowed, for the last century, upon +these once unnoticed atomies has well repaid itself; for from no +branch of physical science has more been learnt of the +<i>scientia scientiarum</i>, the priceless art of learning; no +branch of science has more utterly confounded a wisdom of the +wise, shattered to pieces systems and theories, and the idolatry +of arbitrary names, and taught man to be silent while his Maker +speaks, than this apparent pedantry of zoophytology, in which our +old distinctions of “animal,” +“vegetable,” and “mineral” are trembling +in the balance, seemingly ready to vanish like their +fellows—“the four elements” of fire, earth, +air, and water. No branch of science has helped so much to +sweep away that sensuous idolatry of mere size, which tempts man +to admire and respect objects in proportion to the number of feet +or inches which they occupy in space. No branch of science, +moreover, has been more humbling to the boasted rapidity and +omnipotence of the human reason, or has more taught those who +have eyes to see, and hearts to understand, how weak and wayward, +staggering and slow, are the steps of our fallen race (rapid and +triumphant enough in that broad road of theories which leads to +intellectual destruction) whensoever they tread the narrow path +of true science, which leads (if I may be allowed to transfer our +Lord’s great parable from moral to intellectual matters) to +Life; to the living and permanent knowledge of living things and +of the laws of their existence. Humbling, truly, to one who +looks back to the summer of 1754, when good Mr. Ellis, the wise +and benevolent West Indian merchant, read before the Royal +Society his paper proving the animal nature of corals, and +followed it up the year after by that “Essay toward a +Natural History of the Corallines, and other like Marine +Productions of the British Coasts,” which forms the +groundwork of all our knowledge on the subject to this day. +The chapter in Dr. G. Johnston’s “British +Zoophytes,” p. 407, or the excellent little +<i>résumé</i> thereof in Dr. Landsborough’s +book on the same subject, is really a saddening one, as one sees +how loth were, not merely dreamers like, Marsigli or Bonnet, but +sound-headed men like Pallas and Linné, to give up the old +sense-bound fancy, that these corals were vegetables, and their +polypes some sort of living flowers. Yet, after all, there +are excuses for them. Without our improved microscopes, and +while the sciences of comparative anatomy and chemistry were yet +infantile, it was difficult to believe what was the truth; and +for this simple reason: that, as usual, the truth, when +discovered, turned out far more startling and prodigious than the +dreams which men had hastily substituted for it; more strange +than Ovid’s old story that the coral was soft under the +sea, and hardened by exposure to air; than Marsigli’s +notion, that the coral-polypes were its flowers; than Dr. +Parsons’ contemptuous denial, that these complicated forms +could be “the operations of little, poor, helpless, +jelly-like animals, and not the work of more sure +vegetation;” than Baker the microscopist’s detailed +theory of their being produced by the crystallization of the +mineral salts in the sea-water, just as he had seen “the +particles of mercury and copper in aquafortis assume tree-like +forms, or curious delineations of mosses and minute shrubs on +slates and stones, owing to the shooting of salts intermixed with +mineral particles:”—one smiles at it now: yet these +men were no less sensible than we; and if we know better, it is +only because other men, and those few and far between, have +laboured amid disbelief, ridicule, and error; needing again and +again to retrace their steps, and to unlearn more than they +learnt, seeming to go backwards when they were really progressing +most: and now we have entered into their labours, and find them, +as I have just said, more wondrous than all the poetic dreams of +a Bonnet or a Darwin. For who, after all, to take a few +broad instances (not to enlarge on the great root-wonder of a +number of distinct individuals connected by a common life, and +forming a seeming plant invariable in each species), would have +dreamed of the “bizarreries” which these very +zoophytes present in their classification?</p> +<p>You go down to any shore after a gale of wind, and pick up a +few delicate little sea-ferns. You have two in your hand, +which probably look to you, even under a good pocket magnifier, +identical or nearly so. <a name="citation37"></a><a +href="#footnote37" class="citation">[37]</a> But you are +told to your surprise, that however like the dead horny +polypidoms which you hold may be, the two species of animal which +have formed them are at least as far apart in the scale of +creation as a quadruped is from a fish. You see in some +Musselburgh dredger’s boat the phosphorescent sea-pen +(unknown in England), a living feather, of the look and +consistency of a cock’s comb; or the still stranger +sea-rush (<i>Virgularia mirabilis</i>), a spine a foot long, with +hundreds of rosy flowerets arranged in half-rings round it from +end to end; and you are told that these are the congeners of the +great stony Venus’s fan which hangs in seamen’s +cottages, brought home from the West Indies. And ere you +have done wondering, you hear that all three are congeners of the +ugly, shapeless, white “dead man’s hand,” which +you may pick up after a storm on any shore. You have a +beautiful madrepore or brain-stone on your mantel-piece, brought +home from some Pacific coral-reef. You are to believe that +its first cousins are the soft, slimy sea-anemones which you see +expanding their living flowers in every rock-pool—bags of +sea-water, without a trace of bone or stone. You must +believe it; for in science, as in higher matters, he who will +walk surely, must “walk by faith and not by +sight.”</p> +<p>These are but a few of the wonders which the classification of +marine animals affords; and only drawn from one class of them, +though almost as common among every other family of that +submarine world whereof Spenser sang—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Oh, what an endless work have I in hand,<br +/> + To count the sea’s abundant progeny!<br /> +Whose fruitful seed far passeth those in land,<br /> + And also those which won in th’ azure sky,<br +/> + For much more earth to tell the stars on high,<br /> +Albe they endless seem in estimation,<br /> + Than to recount the sea’s posterity;<br /> +So fertile be the flouds in generation,<br /> +So huge their numbers, and so numberless their nation.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But these few examples will be sufficient to account both for +the slow pace at which the knowledge of sea-animals has +progressed, and for the allurement which men of the highest +attainments have found, and still find, in it. And when to +this we add the marvels which meet us at every step in the +anatomy and the reproduction of these creatures, and in the +chemical and mechanical functions which they fulfil in the great +economy of our planet, we cannot wonder at finding that books +which treat of them carry with them a certain charm of romance, +and feed the play of fancy, and that love of the marvellous which +is inherent in man, at the same time that they lead the reader to +more solemn and lofty trains of thought, which can find their +full satisfaction only in self-forgetful worship, and that hymn +of praise which goes up ever from land and sea, as well as from +saints and martyrs and the heavenly host, “O all ye works +of the Lord, and ye, too, spirits and souls of the righteous, +praise Him, and magnify Him for ever!”</p> +<p>I have said, that there were excuses for the old contempt of +the study of Natural History. I have said, too, it may be +hoped, enough to show that contempt to be now ill-founded. +But still, there are those who regard it as a mere amusement, and +that as a somewhat effeminate one; and think that it can at best +help to while away a leisure hour harmlessly, and perhaps +usefully, as a substitute for coarser sports, or for the reading +of novels. Those, however, who have followed it out, +especially on the sea-shore, know better. They can tell +from experience, that over and above its accessory charms of pure +sea-breezes, and wild rambles by cliff and loch, the study itself +has had a weighty moral effect upon their hearts and +spirits. There are those who can well understand how the +good and wise John Ellis, amid all his philanthropic labours for +the good of the West Indies, while he was spending his intellect +and fortune in introducing into our tropic settlements the +bread-fruit, the mangosteen, and every plant and seed which he +hoped might be useful for medicine, agriculture, and commerce, +could yet feel himself justified in devoting large portions of +his ever well-spent time to the fighting the battle of the +corallines against Parsons and the rest, and even in measuring +pens with Linné, the prince of naturalists.</p> +<p>There are those who can sympathise with the gallant old Scotch +officer mentioned by some writer on sea-weeds, who, desperately +wounded in the breach at Badajos, and a sharer in all the toils +and triumphs of the Peninsular war, could in his old age show a +rare sea-weed with as much triumph as his well-earned medals, and +talk over a tiny spore-capsule with as much zest as the records +of sieges and battles. Why not? That temper which +made him a good soldier may very well have made him a good +naturalist also. The late illustrious geologist, Sir +Roderick Murchison, was also an old Peninsular officer. I +doubt not that with him, too, the experiences of war may have +helped to fit him for the studies of peace. Certainly, the +best naturalist, as far as logical acumen, as well as earnest +research, is concerned, whom England has ever seen, was the +Devonshire squire, Colonel George Montagu, of whom the late E. +Forbes well says, that “had he been educated a +physiologist” (and not, as he was, a soldier and a +sportsman), “and made the study of Nature his aim and not +his amusement, his would have been one of the greatest names in +the whole range of British science.” I question, +nevertheless, whether he would not have lost more than he would +have gained by a different training. It might have made him +a more learned systematizer; but would it have quickened in him +that “seeing” eye of the true soldier and sportsman, +which makes Montagu’s descriptions indelible word-pictures, +instinct with life and truth? “There is no +question,” says E. Forbes, after bewailing the vagueness of +most naturalists, “about the identity of any animal Montagu +described. . . . He was a forward-looking philosopher; he spoke +of every creature as if one exceeding like it, yet different from +it, would be washed up by the waves next tide. Consequently +his descriptions are permanent.” Scientific men will +recognize in this the highest praise which can be bestowed, +because it attributes to him the highest faculty—The Art of +Seeing; but the study and the book would not have given +that. It is God’s gift wheresoever educated: but its +true school-room is the camp and the ocean, the prairie and the +forest; active, self-helping life, which can grapple with Nature +herself: not merely with printed-books about her. Let no +one think that this same Natural History is a pursuit fitted only +for effeminate or pedantic men. I should say, rather, that +the qualifications required for a perfect naturalist are as many +and as lofty as were required, by old chivalrous writers, for the +perfect knight-errant of the Middle Ages: for (to sketch an +ideal, of which I am happy to say our race now affords many a +fair realization) our perfect naturalist should be strong in +body; able to haul a dredge, climb a rock, turn a boulder, walk +all day, uncertain where he shall eat or rest; ready to face sun +and rain, wind and frost, and to eat or drink thankfully +anything, however coarse or meagre; he should know how to swim +for his life, to pull an oar, sail a boat, and ride the first +horse which comes to hand; and, finally, he should be a +thoroughly good shot, and a skilful fisherman; and, if he go far +abroad, be able on occasion to fight for his life.</p> +<p>For his moral character, he must, like a knight of old, be +first of all gentle and courteous, ready and able to ingratiate +himself with the poor, the ignorant, and the savage; not only +because foreign travel will be often otherwise impossible, but +because he knows how much invaluable local information can be +only obtained from fishermen, miners, hunters, and tillers of the +soil. Next, he should be brave and enterprising, and withal +patient and undaunted; not merely in travel, but in +investigation; knowing (as Lord Bacon might have put it) that the +kingdom of Nature, like the kingdom of heaven, must be taken by +violence, and that only to those who knock long and earnestly +does the great mother open the doors of her sanctuary. He +must be of a reverent turn of mind also; not rashly discrediting +any reports, however vague and fragmentary; giving man credit +always for some germ of truth, and giving Nature credit for an +inexhaustible fertility and variety, which will keep him his life +long always reverent, yet never superstitious; wondering at the +commonest, but not surprised by the most strange; free from the +idols of size and sensuous loveliness; able to see grandeur in +the minutest objects, beauty, in the most ungainly; estimating +each thing not carnally, as the vulgar do, by its size or its +pleasantness to the senses, but spiritually, by the amount of +Divine thought revealed to Man therein; holding every phenomenon +worth the noting down; believing that every pebble holds a +treasure, every bud a revelation; making it a point of conscience +to pass over nothing through laziness or hastiness, lest the +vision once offered and despised should be withdrawn; and looking +at every object as if he were never to behold it again.</p> +<p>Moreover, he must keep himself free from all those +perturbations of mind which not only weaken energy, but darken +and confuse the inductive faculty; from haste and laziness, from +melancholy, testiness, pride, and all the passions which make men +see only what they wish to see. Of solemn and scrupulous +reverence for truth; of the habit of mind which regards each fact +and discovery, not as our own possession, but as the possession +of its Creator, independent of us, our tastes, our needs, or our +vain-glory, I hardly need to speak; for it is the very essence of +a nature’s faculty—the very tenure of his existence: +and without truthfulness science would be as impossible now as +chivalry would have been of old.</p> +<p>And last, but not least, the perfect naturalist should have in +him the very essence of true chivalry, namely, self-devotion; the +desire to advance, not himself and his own fame or wealth, but +knowledge and mankind. He should have this great virtue; +and in spite of many shortcomings (for what man is there who +liveth and sinneth not?), naturalists as a class have it to a +degree which makes them stand out most honourably in the midst of +a self-seeking and mammonite generation, inclined to value +everything by its money price, its private utility. The +spirit which gives freely, because it knows that it has received +freely; which communicates knowledge without hope of reward, +without jealousy and rivalry, to fellow-students and to the +world; which is content to delve and toil comparatively unknown, +that from its obscure and seemingly worthless results others may +derive pleasure, and even build up great fortunes, and change the +very face of cities and lands, by the practical use of some stray +talisman which the poor student has invented in his +laboratory;—this is the spirit which is abroad among our +scientific men, to a greater degree than it ever has been among +any body of men for many a century past; and might well be copied +by those who profess deeper purposes and a more exalted calling, +than the discovery of a new zoophyte, or the classification of a +moorland crag.</p> +<p>And it is these qualities, however imperfectly they may be +realized in any individual instance, which make our scientific +men, as a class, the wholesomest and pleasantest of companions +abroad, and at home the most blameless, simple, and cheerful, in +all domestic relations; men for the most part of manful heads, +and yet of childlike hearts, who have turned to quiet study, in +these late piping times of peace, an intellectual health and +courage which might have made them, in more fierce and troublous +times, capable of doing good service with very different +instruments than the scalpel and the microscope.</p> +<p>I have been sketching an ideal: but one which I seriously +recommend to the consideration of all parents; for, though it be +impossible and absurd to wish that every young man should grow up +a naturalist by profession, yet this age offers no more wholesome +training, both moral and intellectual, than that which is given +by instilling into the young an early taste for outdoor physical +science. The education of our children is now more than +ever a puzzling problem, if by education we mean the development +of the whole humanity, not merely of some arbitrarily chosen part +of it. How to feed the imagination with wholesome food, and +teach it to despise French novels, and that sugared slough of +sentimental poetry, in comparison with which the old fairy-tales +and ballads were manful and rational; how to counteract the +tendency to shallowed and conceited sciolism, engendered by +hearing popular lectures on all manner of subjects, which can +only be really learnt by stern methodic study; how to give habits +of enterprise, patience, accurate observation, which the +counting-house or the library will never bestow; above all, how +to develop the physical powers, without engendering brutality and +coarseness—are questions becoming daily more and more +puzzling, while they need daily more and more to be solved, in an +age of enterprise, travel, and emigration, like the +present. For the truth must be told, that the great +majority of men who are now distinguished by commercial success, +have had a training the directly opposite to that which they are +giving to their sons. They are for the most part men who +have migrated from the country to the town, and had in their +youth all the advantages of a sturdy and manful hill-side or +sea-side training; men whose bodies were developed, and their +lungs fed on pure breezes, long before they brought to work in +the city the bodily and mental strength which they had gained by +loch and moor. But it is not so with their sons. +Their business habits are learnt in the counting-house; a good +school, doubtless, as far as it goes: but one which will expand +none but the lowest intellectual faculties; which will make them +accurate accountants, shrewd computers and competitors, but never +the originators of daring schemes, men able and willing to go +forth to replenish the earth and subdue it. And in the +hours of relaxation, how much of their time is thrown away, for +want of anything better, on frivolity, not to say on secret +profligacy, parents know too well; and often shut their eyes in +very despair to evils which they know not how to cure. A +frightful majority of our middle-class young men are growing up +effeminate, empty of all knowledge but what tends directly to the +making of a fortune; or rather, to speak correctly, to the +keeping up the fortunes which their fathers have made for them; +while of the minority, who are indeed thinkers and readers, how +many women as well as men have we seen wearying their souls with +study undirected, often misdirected; craving to learn, yet not +knowing how or what to learn; cultivating, with unwholesome +energy, the head at the expense of the body and the heart; +catching up with the most capricious self-will one mania after +another, and tossing it away again for some new phantom; gorging +the memory with facts which no one has taught them to arrange, +and the reason with problems which they have no method for +solving; till they fret themselves in a chronic fever of the +brain, which too often urge them on to plunge, as it were, to +cool the inward fire, into the ever-restless seas of doubt or of +superstition. It is a sad picture. There are many who +may read these pages whose hearts will tell them that it is a +true one. What is wanted in these cases is a methodic and +scientific habit of mind; and a class of objects on which to +exercise that habit, which will fever neither the speculative +intellect nor the moral sense; and those physical science will +give, as nothing else can give it.</p> +<p>Moreover, to revert to another point which we touched just +now, man has a body as well as a mind; and with the vast majority +there will be no <i>mens sana</i> unless there be a <i>corpus +sanum</i> for it to inhabit. And what outdoor training to +give our youths is, as we have already said, more than ever +puzzling. This difficulty is felt, perhaps, less in +Scotland than in England. The Scotch climate compels +hardiness; the Scotch bodily strength makes it easy; and +Scotland, with her mountain-tours in summer, and her frozen lochs +in winter, her labyrinth of sea-shore, and, above all, that +priceless boon which Providence has bestowed on her, in the +contiguity of her great cities to the loveliest scenery, and the +hills where every breeze is health, affords facilities for +healthy physical life unknown to the Englishman, who has no +Arthur’s Seat towering above his London, no Western Islands +sporting the ocean firths beside his Manchester. Field +sports, with the invaluable training which they give, if not</p> +<blockquote><p>“The reason firm,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>yet still</p> +<blockquote><p> “The +temperate will,<br /> +Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>have become impossible for the greater number: and athletic +exercises are now, in England at least, becoming more and more +artificialized and expensive; and are confined more and +more—with the honourable exception of the football games in +Battersea Park—to our Public Schools and the two elder +Universities. All honour, meanwhile, to the Volunteer +movement, and its moral as well as its physical effects. +But it is only a comparatively few of the very sturdiest who are +likely to become effective Volunteers, and so really gain the +benefits of learning to be soldiers. And yet the young man +who has had no substitute for such occupations will cut but a +sorry figure in Australia, Canada, or India; and if he stays at +home, will spend many a pound in doctors’ bills, which +could have been better employed elsewhere. “Taking a +walk”—as one would take a pill or a +draught—seems likely soon to become the only form of +outdoor existence possible for too many inhabitants of the +British Isles. But a walk without an object, unless in the +most lovely and novel of scenery, is a poor exercise; and as a +recreation, utterly nil. I never knew two young lads go out +for a “constitutional,” who did not, if they were +commonplace youths, gossip the whole way about things better left +unspoken; or, if they were clever ones, fall on arguing and +brainsbeating on politics or metaphysics from the moment they +left the door, and return with their wits even more heated and +tired than they were when they set out. I cannot help +fancying that Milton made a mistake in a certain celebrated +passage; and that it was not “sitting on a hill +apart,” but tramping four miles out and four miles in along +a turnpike-road, that his hapless spirits discoursed</p> +<blockquote><p>“Of fate, free-will, foreknowledge +absolute,<br /> +And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Seriously, if we wish rural walks to do our children any good, +we must give them a love for rural sights, an object in every +walk; we must teach them—and we can teach them—to +find wonder in every insect, sublimity in every hedgerow, the +records of past worlds in every pebble, and boundless fertility +upon the barren shore; and so, by teaching them to make full use +of that limited sphere in which they now are, make them faithful +in a few things, that they may be fit hereafter to be rulers over +much.</p> +<p>I may seem to exaggerate the advantages of such studies; but +the question after all is one of experience: and I have had +experience enough and to spare that what I say is true. I +have seen the young man of fierce passions, and uncontrollable +daring, expend healthily that energy which threatened daily to +plunge him into recklessness, if not into sin, upon hunting out +and collecting, through rock and bog, snow and tempest, every +bird and egg of the neighbouring forest. I have seen the +cultivated man, craving for travel and for success in life, pent +up in the drudgery of London work, and yet keeping his spirit +calm, and perhaps his morals all the more righteous, by spending +over his microscope evenings which would too probably have +gradually been wasted at the theatre. I have seen the young +London beauty, amid all the excitement and temptation of luxury +and flattery, with her heart pure and her mind occupied in a +boudoir full of shells and fossils, flowers and sea-weeds; +keeping herself unspotted from the world, by considering the +lilies of the field, how they grow. And therefore it is +that I hail with thankfulness every fresh book of Natural +History, as a fresh boon to the young, a fresh help to those who +have to educate them.</p> +<p>The greatest difficulty in the way of beginners is (as in most +things) how “to learn the art of learning.” +They go out, search, find less than they expected, and give the +subject up in disappointment. It is good to begin, +therefore, if possible, by playing the part of +“jackal” to some practised naturalist, who will show +the tyro where to look, what to look for, and, moreover, what it +is that he has found; often no easy matter to discover. +Forty years ago, during an autumn’s work of +dead-leaf-searching in the Devon woods for poor old Dr. Turton, +while he was writing his book on British land-shells, the present +writer learnt more of the art of observing than he would have +learnt in three years’ desultory hunting on his own +account; and he has often regretted that no naturalist has +established shore-lectures at some watering-place, like those up +hill and down dale field-lectures which, in pleasant bygone +Cambridge days, Professor Sedgwick used to give to young +geologists, and Professor Henslow to young botanists.</p> +<p>In the meanwhile, to show you something of what may be seen by +those who care to see, let me take you, in imagination, to a +shore where I was once at home, and for whose richness I can +vouch, and choose our season and our day to start forth, on some +glorious September or October morning, to see what last +night’s equinoctial gale has swept from the populous +shallows of Torbay, and cast up, high and dry, on Paignton +sands.</p> +<p>Torbay is a place which should be as much endeared to the +naturalist as to the patriot and to the artist. We cannot +gaze on its blue ring of water, and the great limestone bluffs +which bound it to the north and south, without a glow passing +through our hearts, as we remember the terrible and glorious +pageant which passed by in the glorious July days of 1588, when +the Spanish Armada ventured slowly past Berry Head, with +Elizabeth’s gallant pack of Devon captains (for the London +fleet had not yet joined) following fast in its wake, and dashing +into the midst of the vast line, undismayed by size and numbers, +while their kin and friends stood watching and praying on the +cliffs, spectators of Britain’s Salamis. The white +line of houses, too, on the other side of the bay, is Brixham, +famed as the landing-place of William of Orange; the stone on the +pier-head, which marks his first footsteps on British ground, is +sacred in the eyes of all true English Whigs; and close by stands +the castle of the settler of Newfoundland, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, +Raleigh’s half-brother, most learned of all +Elizabeth’s admirals in life, most pious and heroic in +death. And as for scenery, though it can boast of neither +mountain peak nor dark fiord, and would seem tame enough in the +eyes of a western Scot or Irishman, yet Torbay surely has a soft +beauty of its own. The rounded hills slope gently to the +sea, spotted with squares of emerald grass, and rich red fallow +fields, and parks full of stately timber trees. Long lines +of tall elms run down to the very water’s edge, their +boughs unwarped by any blast; here and there apple orchards are +bending under their loads of fruit, and narrow strips of +water-meadow line the glens, where the red cattle are already +lounging in richest pastures, within ten yards of the rocky +pebble beach. The shore is silent now, the tide far out: +but six hours hence it will be hurling columns of rosy foam high +into the sunlight, and sprinkling passengers, and cattle, and +trim gardens which hardly know what frost and snow may be, but +see the flowers of autumn meet the flowers of spring, and the old +year linger smilingly to twine a garland for the new.</p> +<p>No wonder that such a spot as Torquay, with its delicious +Italian climate, and endless variety of rich woodland, flowery +lawn, fantastic rock-cavern, and broad bright tide-sand, +sheltered from every wind of heaven except the soft south-east, +should have become a favourite haunt, not only for invalids, but +for naturalists. Indeed, it may well claim the honour of +being the original home of marine zoology and botany in England, +as the Firth of Forth, under the auspices of Sir J. G. Dalyell, +has been for Scotland. For here worked Montagu, Turton, and +Mrs. Griffith, to whose extraordinary powers of research English +marine botany almost owes its existence, and who survived to an +age long beyond the natural term of man, to see, in her cheerful +and honoured old age, that knowledge become popular and general +which she pursued for many a year unassisted and alone. +Here, too, the scientific succession is still maintained by Mr. +Pengelly and Mr. Gosse, the latter of whom by his delightful and, +happily, well-known books has done more for the study of marine +zoology than any other living man. Torbay, moreover, from +the variety of its rocks, aspects, and sea-floors, where +limestones alternate with traps, and traps with slates, while at +the valley-mouth the soft sandstones and hard conglomerates of +the new red series slope down into the tepid and shallow waves, +affords an abundance and variety of animal and vegetable life, +unequalled, perhaps, in any other part of Great Britain. It +cannot boast, certainly, of those strange deep-sea forms which +Messrs. Alder, Goodsir, and Laskey dredge among the lochs of the +western Highlands, and the sub-marine mountain glens of the +Zetland sea; but it has its own varieties, its own ever-fresh +novelties: and in spite of all the research which has been +lavished on its shores, a naturalist cannot, I suspect, work +there for a winter without discovering forms new to science, or +meeting with curiosities which have escaped all observers, since +the lynx eye of Montagu espied them full fifty years ago.</p> +<p>Follow us, then, reader, in imagination, out of the gay +watering-place, with its London shops and London equipages, along +the broad road beneath the sunny limestone cliff, tufted with +golden furze; past the huge oaks and green slopes of Tor Abbey; +and past the fantastic rocks of Livermead, scooped by the waves +into a labyrinth of double and triple caves, like Hindoo temples, +upborne on pillars banded with yellow and white and red, a +week’s study, in form and colour and chiaro-oscuro, for any +artist; and a mile or so further along a pleasant road, with +land-locked glimpses of the bay, to the broad sheet of sand which +lies between the village of Paignton and the sea—sands +trodden a hundred times by Montagu and Turton, perhaps, by +Dillwyn and Gaertner, and many another pioneer of science. +And once there, before we look at anything else, come down +straight to the sea marge; for yonder lies, just left by the +retiring tide, a mass of life such as you will seldom see +again. It is somewhat ugly, perhaps, at first sight; for +ankle-deep are spread, for some ten yards long by five broad, +huge dirty bivalve shells, as large as the hand, each with its +loathly grey and black siphons hanging out, a confused mass of +slimy death. Let us walk on to some cleaner heap, and leave +these, the great Lutraria Elliptica, which have been lying buried +by thousands in the sandy mud, each with the point of its long +siphon above the surface, sucking in and driving out again the +salt water on which it feeds, till last night’s +ground-swell shifted the sea-bottom, and drove them up hither to +perish helpless, but not useless, on the beach.</p> +<p>See, close by is another shell bed, quite as large, but comely +enough to please any eye. What a variety of forms and +colours are there, amid the purple and olive wreaths of wrack, +and bladder-weed, and tangle (ore-weed, as they call it in the +south), and the delicate green ribbons of the Zostera (the only +English flowering plant which grows beneath the sea). What +are they all? What are the long white razors? What +are the delicate green-grey scimitars? What are the tapering +brown spires? What the tufts of delicate yellow plants like +squirrels’ tails, and lobsters’ horns, and tamarisks, +and fir-trees, and all other finely cut animal and vegetable +forms? What are the groups of grey bladders, with something +like a little bud at the tip? What are the hundreds of +little pink-striped pears? What those tiny babies’ +heads, covered with grey prickles instead of hair? The +great red star-fish, which Ulster children call “the bad +man’s hands;” and the great whelks, which the youth +of Musselburgh know as roaring buckies, these we have seen +before; but what, oh what, are the red capsicums?—</p> +<p>Yes, what are the red capsicums? and why are they poking, +snapping, starting, crawling, tumbling wildly over each other, +rattling about the huge mahogany cockles, as big as a +child’s two fists, out of which they are protruded? +Mark them well, for you will perhaps never see them again. +They are a Mediterranean species, or rather three species, left +behind upon these extreme south-western coasts, probably at the +vanishing of that warmer ancient epoch, which clothed the Lizard +Point with the Cornish heath, and the Killarney mountains with +Spanish saxifrages, and other relics of a flora whose home is now +the Iberian peninsula and the sunny cliffs of the Riviera. +Rare on every other shore, even in the west, it abounds in Torbay +at certain, or rather uncertain, times, to so prodigious an +amount, that the dredge, after five minutes’ scrape, will +sometimes come up choked full of this great cockle only. +You will see hundreds of them in every cove for miles this day; a +seeming waste of life, which would be awful, in our eyes, were +not the Divine Ruler, as His custom is, making this destruction +the means of fresh creation, by burying them in the sands, as +soon as washed on shore, to fertilize the strata of some future +world. It is but a shell-fish truly; but the great Cuvier +thought it remarkable enough to devote to its anatomy elaborate +descriptions and drawings, which have done more perhaps than any +others to illustrate the curious economy of the whole class of +bivalve, or double-shelled, mollusca. (Plate II. Fig. +3.)</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image65" href="images/p65b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Plate 2: 1. Cardium Rusticum, (tuberculatum). 2. Pagurus +Bernhardi, in a Periwinkle Shell" +title= +"Plate 2: 1. Cardium Rusticum, (tuberculatum). 2. Pagurus +Bernhardi, in a Periwinkle Shell" + src="images/p65s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>That red capsicum is the foot of the animal contained in the +cockleshell. By its aid it crawls, leaps, and burrows in +the sand, where it lies drinking in the salt water through one of +its siphons, and discharging it again through the other. +Put the shell into a rock pool, or a basin of water, and you will +see the siphons clearly. The valves gape apart some +three-quarters of an inch. The semi-pellucid orange +“mantle” fills the intermediate space. Through +that mantle, at the end from which the foot curves, the siphons +protrude; two thick short tubes joined side by side, their lips +fringed with pearly cirri, or fringes; and very beautiful they +are. The larger is always open, taking in the water, which +is at once the animal’s food and air, and which, flowing +over the delicate inner surface of the mantle, at once oxygenates +its blood, and fills its stomach with minute particles of decayed +organized matter. The smaller is shut. Wait a minute, +and it will open suddenly and discharge a jet of clear water, +which has been robbed, I suppose, of its oxygen and its organic +matter. But, I suppose, your eyes will be rather attracted +by that same scarlet and orange foot, which is being drawn in and +thrust out to a length of nearly four inches, striking with its +point against any opposing object, and sending the whole shell +backwards with a jerk. The point, you see, is sharp and +tongue-like; only flattened, not horizontally, like a tongue, but +perpendicularly, so as to form, as it was intended, a perfect +sand-plough, by which the animal can move at will, either above +or below the surface of the sand. <a name="citation67"></a><a +href="#footnote67" class="citation">[67]</a></p> +<p>But for colour and shape, to what shall we compare it? +To polished cornelian, says Mr. Gosse. I say, to one of the +great red capsicums which hang drying in every Covent-garden +seedsman’s window. Yet is either simile better than +the guess of a certain lady, who, entering a room wherein a +couple of Cardium tuberculatum were waltzing about a plate, +exclaimed, “Oh dear! I always heard that my pretty +red coral came out of a fish, and here it is all +alive!”</p> +<p>“C. tuberculatum,” says Mr. Gosse (who described +it from specimens which I sent him in 1854), “is far the +finest species. The valves are more globose and of a warmer +colour; those that I have seen are even more +spinous.” Such may have been the case in those I +sent: but it has occurred to me now and then to dredge specimens +of C. aculeatum, which had escaped that rolling on the sand fatal +in old age to its delicate spines, and which equalled in colour, +size, and perfectness the noble one figured in poor dear old Dr. +Turton’s “British Bivalves.” Besides, +aculeatum is a far thinner and more delicate shell. And a +third species, C. echinatum, with curves more graceful and +continuous, is to be found now and then with the two +former. In it, each point, instead of degenerating into a +knot, as in tuberculatum, or developing from delicate flat +briar-prickles into long straight thorns, as in aculeatum, is +close-set to its fellow, and curved at the point transversely to +the shell, the whole being thus horrid with hundreds of strong +tenterhooks, making his castle impregnable to the raveners of the +deep. For we can hardly doubt that these prickles are meant +as weapons of defence, without which so savoury a morsel as the +mollusc within (cooked and eaten largely on some parts of our +south coast) would be a staple article of food for sea-beasts of +prey. And it is noteworthy, first, that the defensive +thorns which are permanent on the two thinner species, aculeatum +and echinatum, disappear altogether on the thicker one, +tuberculatum, as old age gives him a solid and heavy globose +shell; and next, that he too, while young and tender, and liable +therefore to be bored through by whelks and such murderous +univalves, does actually possess the same briar-prickles, which +his thinner cousins keep throughout life. Nevertheless, +prickles, in all three species, are, as far as we can see, +useless in Torbay, where no wolf-fish (Anarrhichas lupus) or +other owner of shell-crushing jaws wanders, terrible to lobster +and to cockle. Originally intended, as we suppose, to face +the strong-toothed monsters of the Mediterranean, these +foreigners have wandered northward to shores where their armour +is not now needed; and yet centuries of idleness and security +have not been able to persuade them to lay it by. +This—if my explanation is the right one—is but one +more case among hundreds in which peculiarities, useful doubtless +to their original possessors, remain, though now useless, in +their descendants. Just so does the tame ram inherit the +now superfluous horns of his primeval wild ancestors, though he +fights now—if he fights at all—not with his horns, +but with his forehead.</p> +<p>Enough of Cardium tuberculatum. Now for the other +animals of the heap; and first, for those long white +razors. They, as well as the grey scimitars, are Solens, +Razor-fish (Solen siliqua and S. ensis), burrowers in the sand by +that foot which protrudes from one end, nimble in escaping from +the Torquay boys, whom you will see boring for them with a long +iron screw, on the sands at low tide. They are very good to +eat, these razor-fish; at least, for those who so think them; and +abound in millions upon all our sandy shores. <a +name="citation70"></a><a href="#footnote70" +class="citation">[70]</a></p> +<p>Now for the tapering brown spires. They are +Turritellæ, snail-like animals (though the form of the +shell is different), who crawl and browse by thousands on the +beds of Zostera, or grass wrack, which you see thrown about on +the beach, and which grows naturally in two or three fathoms +water. Stay: here is one which is “more than +itself.” On its back is mounted a cluster of +barnacles (Balanus Porcatus), of the same family as those which +stud the tide-rocks in millions, scratching the legs of hapless +bathers. Of them, I will speak presently; for I may have a +still more curious member of the family to show you. But +meanwhile, look at the mouth of the shell; a long grey worm +protrudes from it, which is not the rightful inhabitant. He +is dead long since, and his place has been occupied by one +Sipunculus Bernhardi; a wight of low degree, who connects +“radiate” with annulate forms—in plain English, +sea-cucumbers (of which we shall see some soon) with +sea-worms. But however low in the scale of comparative +anatomy, he has wit enough to take care of himself; mean ugly +little worm as he seems. For finding the mouth of the +Turritella too big for him, he has plastered it up with sand and +mud (Heaven alone knows how), just as a wry-neck plasters up a +hole in an apple-tree when she intends to build therein, and has +left only a round hole, out of which he can poke his +proboscis. A curious thing is this proboscis, when seen +through the magnifier. You perceive a ring of tentacles +round the mouth, for picking up I know not what; and you will +perceive, too, if you watch it, that when he draws it in, he +turns mouth, tentacles and all, inwards, and so down into his +stomach, just as if you were to turn the finger of a glove inward +from the tip till it passed into the hand; and so performs, every +time he eats, the clown’s as yet ideal feat, of jumping +down his own throat. <a name="citation72"></a><a +href="#footnote72" class="citation">[72]</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image73" href="images/p73b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Plate 1: Flustra Lineata etc." +title= +"Plate 1: Flustra Lineata etc." + src="images/p73s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>So much have we seen on one little shell. But there is +more to see close to it. Those yellow plants which I +likened to squirrels’ tails and lobsters’ horns, and +what not, are zoophytes of different kinds. Here is +Sertularia argentea (true squirrel’s tail); here, S. +filicula, as delicate as tangled threads of glass; here, +abietina; here, rosacea. The lobsters’ horns are +Antennaria antennina; and mingled with them are Plumulariæ, +always to be distinguished from Sertulariæ by polypes +growing on one side of the branch, and not on both. Here is +falcata, with its roots twisted round a sea-weed. Here is +cristata, on the same weed; and here is a piece of the beautiful +myriophyllum, which has been battered in its long journey out of +the deep water about the ore rock. For all these you must +consult Johnson’s “Zoophytes,” and for a dozen +smaller species, which you would probably find tangled among +them, or parasitic on the sea-weed. Here are Flustræ, +or sea-mats. This, which smells very like Verbena, is +Flustra coriacea (Pl. I. Fig. 2). That scurf on the frond +of ore-weed is F. lineata (Pl. Fig. 1). The glass bells +twined about this Sertularia are Campanularia syringa (Pl. I. +Fig. 9); and here is a tiny plant of Cellularia ciliata (Pl. I. +Fig. 8). Look at it through the field-glass; for it is +truly wonderful. Each polype cell is edged with whip-like +spines, and on the back of some of them is—what is it, but +a live vulture’s head, snapping and snapping—what +for?</p> +<p>Nay, reader, I am here to show you what can be seen: but as +for telling you what can be known, much more what cannot, I +decline; and refer you to Johnson’s +“Zoophytes,” wherein you will find that several +species of polypes carry these same birds’ heads: but +whether they be parts of the polype, and of what use they are, no +man living knoweth.</p> +<p>Next, what are the striped pears? They are sea-anemones, +and of a species only lately well known, Sagartia viduata, the +snake-locked anemone (Pl. V. Fig. 3 <a name="citation74"></a><a +href="#footnote74" class="citation">[74]</a>). They have +been washed off the loose stones to which they usually adhere by +the pitiless roll of the ground-swell; however, they are not so +far gone, but that if you take one of them home, and put it in a +jar of water, it will expand into a delicate compound flower, +which can neither be described nor painted, of long pellucid +tentacles, hanging like a thin bluish cloud over a disk of +mottled brown and grey.</p> +<p>Here, adhering to this large whelk, is another, but far larger +and coarser. It is Sagartia parasitica, one of our largest +British species; and most singular in this, that it is almost +always (in Torbay, at least,) found adhering to a whelk: but +never to a live one; and for this reason. The live whelk +(as you may see for yourself when the tide is out) burrows in the +sand in chase of hapless bivalve shells, whom he bores through +with his sharp tongue (always, cunning fellow, close to the +hinge, where the fish is), and then sucks out their life. +Now, if the anemone stuck to him, it would be carried under the +sand daily, to its own disgust. It prefers, therefore, the +dead whelk, inhabited by a soldier crab, Pagurus Bernhardi (Pl. +II. Fig. 2), of which you may find a dozen anywhere as the +tide goes out; and travels about at the crab’s expense, +sharing with him the offal which is his food. Note, +moreover, that the soldier crab is the most hasty and blundering +of marine animals, as active as a monkey, and as subject to +panics as a horse; wherefore the poor anemone on his back must +have a hard life of it; being knocked about against rocks and +shells, without warning, from morn to night and night to +morn. Against which danger, kind Nature, ever <i>maxima in +minimis</i>, has provided by fitting him with a stout leather +coat, which she has given, I believe, to no other of his +family.</p> +<p>Next, for the babies’ heads, covered with prickles, +instead of hair. They are sea-urchins, Amphidotus cordatus, +which burrow by thousands in the sand. These are of that +Spatangoid form, which you will often find fossil in the chalk, +and which shepherd boys call snakes’ heads. We shall +soon find another sort, an Echinus, and have time to talk over +these most strange (in my eyes) of all living animals.</p> +<p>There are a hundred more things to be talked of here: but we +must defer the examination of them till our return; for it wants +an hour yet of the dead low spring-tide; and ere we go home, we +will spend a few minutes at least on the rocks at Livermead, +where awaits us a strong-backed quarryman, with a strong-backed +crowbar, as is to be hoped (for he snapped one right across there +yesterday, falling miserably on his back into a pool thereby), +and we will verify Mr. Gosse’s observation, that—</p> +<p>“When once we have begun to look with curiosity on the +strange things that ordinary people pass over without notice, our +wonder is continually excited by the variety of phase, and often +by the uncouthness of form, under which some of the meaner +creatures are presented to us. And this is very specially +the case with the inhabitants of the sea. We can scarcely +poke or pry for an hour among the rocks, at low-water mark, or +walk, with an observant downcast eye, along the beach after a +gale, without finding some oddly-fashioned, suspicious-looking +being, unlike any form of life that we have seen before. +The dark concealed interior of the sea becomes thus invested with +a fresh mystery; its vast recesses appear to be stored with all +imaginable forms; and we are tempted to think there must be +multitudes of living creatures whose very figure and structure +have never yet been suspected.</p> +<blockquote><p>“‘O sea! old sea! who yet knows +half<br /> +Of thy wonders or thy pride!’”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">Gosse’s</span> <i>Aquarium</i>, pp. 226, +227.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>These words have more than fulfilled themselves since they +were written. Those Deep-Sea dredgings, of which a detailed +account will be found in Dr. Wyville Thomson’s new and most +beautiful book, “The Depths of the Sea,” have +disclosed, of late years, wonders of the deep even more strange +and more multitudinous than the wonders of the shore. The +time is past when we thought ourselves bound to believe, with +Professor Edward Forbes, that only some hundred fathoms down, the +inhabitants of the sea-bottom “become more and more +modified, and fewer and fewer, indicating our approach towards an +abyss where life is either extinguished, or exhibits but a few +sparks to mark it’s lingering presence.”</p> +<p>Neither now need we indulge in another theory which had a +certain grandeur in it, and was not so absurd as it looks at +first sight,—namely, that, as Dr. Wyville Thomson puts it, +picturesquely enough, “in going down the sea water became, +under the pressure, gradually heavier and heavier, and that all +the loose things floated at different levels, according to their +specific weight,—skeletons of men, anchors and shot and +cannon, and last of all the broad gold pieces lost in the wreck +of many a galleon off the Spanish Main; the whole forming a kind +of ‘false bottom’ to the ocean, beneath which there +lay all the depth of clear still water, which was heavier than +molten gold.”</p> +<p>The facts are; first that water, being all but incompressible, +is hardly any heavier, and just as liquid, at the greatest depth, +than at the surface; and that therefore animals can move as +freely in it in deep as in shallow water; and next, that as the +fluids inside the body of a sea animal must be at the same +pressure as that of the water outside it, the two pressures must +balance each other; and the body, instead of being crushed in, +may be unconscious that it is living under a weight of two or +three miles of water. But so it is; as we gather our +curiosities at low-tide mark, or haul the dredge a mile or two +out at sea, we may allow our fancy to range freely out to the +westward, and down over the subaqueous cliffs of the +hundred-fathom line, which mark the old shore of the British +Isles, or rather of a time when Britain and Ireland were part of +the continent, through water a mile, and two, and three miles +deep, into total darkness, and icy cold, and a pressure which, in +the open air, would crush any known living creature to a jelly; +and be certain that we shall find the ocean-floor teeming +everywhere with multitudinous life, some of it strangely like, +some strangely unlike, the creatures which we see along the +shore.</p> +<p>Some strangely like. You may find, for instance, among +the sea-weed, here and there, a little black sea-spider, a +Nymphon, who has this peculiarity, that possessing no body at all +to speak of, he carries his needful stomach in long branches, +packed inside his legs. The specimens which you will find +will probably be half an inch across the legs. An almost +exactly similar Nymphon has been dredged from the depths of the +Arctic and Antarctic oceans, nearly two feet across.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image81" href="images/p81b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Nymphon Abyssorum, Norman" +title= +"Nymphon Abyssorum, Norman" + src="images/p81s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>You may find also a quaint little shrimp, <i>Caprella</i>, +clinging by its hind claws to sea-weed, and waving its gaunt +grotesque body to and fro, while it makes mesmeric passes with +its large fore claws,—one of the most ridiculous of +Nature’s many ridiculous forms. Those which you will +find will be some quarter of an inch in length; but in the cold +area of the North Atlantic, their cousins, it is now found, are +nearly three inches long, and perch in like manner, not on +sea-weeds, for there are none so deep, but on branching +sponges.</p> +<p>These are but two instances out of many of forms which were +supposed to be peculiar to shallow shores repeating themselves at +vast depths: thus forcing on us strange questions about changes +in the distribution and depth of the ancient seas; and forcing +us, also, to reconsider the old rules by which rocks were +distinguished as deep-sea or shallow-sea deposits according to +the fossils found in them.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image83" href="images/p83b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Caprella spinosissima, Norman" +title= +"Caprella spinosissima, Norman" + src="images/p83s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>As for the new forms, and even more important than them, the +ancient forms, supposed to have been long extinct, and only known +as fossils, till they were lately rediscovered alive in the +nether darkness,—for them you must consult Dr. Wyville +Thomson’s book, and the notices of the +“Challenger’s” dredgings which appear from time +to time in the columns of “Nature;” for want of space +forbids my speaking of them here.</p> +<p>But if you have no time to read “The Depths of the +Sea,” go at least to the British Museum, or if you be a +northern man, to the admirable public museum at Liverpool; ask to +be shown the deep-sea forms; and there feast your curiosity and +your sense of beauty for an hour. Look at the Crinoids, or +stalked star-fishes, the “Lilies of living stone,” +which swarmed in the ancient seas, in vast variety, and in such +numbers that whole beds of limestone are composed of their +disjointed fragments; but which have vanished out of our modern +seas, we know not why, till, a few years since, almost the only +known living species was the exquisite and rare Pentacrinus +asteria, from deep water off the Windward Isles of the West +Indies.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image85" href="images/p85b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Pentacrinus asteria, Linnæus" +title= +"Pentacrinus asteria, Linnæus" + src="images/p85s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Of this you will see a specimen or two both at Liverpool and +in the British Museum; and near them, probably, specimens of the +new-old Crinoids, discovered of late years by Professor Sars, Mr. +Gwyn Jeffreys, Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Wyville Thomson, and the other +deep-sea disciples of the mythic Glaucus, the fisherman, who, +enamoured of the wonders of the sea, plunged into the blue abyss +once and for all, and became himself “the blue old man of +the sea.”</p> +<p>Next look at the corals, and Gorgonias, and all the sea-fern +tribe of branching polypidoms, and last, but not least, at the +glass sponges; first at the Euplectella, or Venus’s +flower-basket, which lives embedded in the mud of the seas of the +Philippines, supported by a glass frill “standing up round +it like an Elizabethan ruff.” Twenty years ago there +was but one specimen in Europe: now you may buy one for a pound +in any curiosity shop. I advise you to do so, and to +keep—as I have seen done—under a glass case, as a +delight to your eyes, one of the most exquisite, both for form +and texture, of natural objects.</p> +<p>Then look at the Hyalonemas, or glass-rope ocean floor by a +twisted wisp of strong flexible flint needles, somewhat on the +principle of a screw-pile. So strange and complicated is +their structure, that naturalists for a long while could +literally make neither head nor tail of them, as long as they had +only Japanese specimens to study, some of which the Japanese +dealers had, of malice prepense, stuck upside down into +Pholas-borings in stones. Which was top and which bottom; +which the thing itself, and which special parasites growing on +it; whether it was a sponge, or a zoophyte, or something else; at +one time even whether it was natural, or artificial and a +make-up,—could not be settled, even till a year or two +since. But the discovery of the same, or a similar, species +in abundance from the Butt of the Lows down to Setubal on the +Portuguese coast, where the deep-water shark fishers call it +“sea-whip,” has given our savants specimens enough to +make up their minds—that they really know little or nothing +about it, and probably will never know.</p> +<p>And do not forget, lastly, to ask, whether at Liverpool or at +the British Museum, for the Holtenias and their +congeners,—hollow sponges built up of glassy spicules, and +rooted in the mud by glass hairs, in some cases between two and +three feet long, as flexible and graceful as tresses of +snow-white silk.</p> +<p>Look at these, and a hundred kindred forms, and then see how +nature is not only “maxima in minimis”—greatest +in her least, but often “pulcherrima in +abditis”—fairest in her most hidden works; and how +the Creative Spirit has lavished, as it were, unspeakable +artistic skill on lowly-organized creature, never till now beheld +by man, and buried, not only in foul mud, but in their own +unsightly heap of living jelly.</p> +<p>But so it was from the beginning;—and this planet was +not made for man alone. Countless ages before we appeared +on earth the depths of the old chalk-ocean teemed with forms as +beautiful and perfect as those, their lineal descendants, which +the dredge now brings up from the Atlantic sea-floor; and if +there were—as my reason tells me that there must have +been—final moral causes for their existence, the only ones +which we have a right to imagine are these—that all, down +to the lowest Rhizopod, might delight themselves, however dimly, +in existing; and that the Lord might delight Himself in them.</p> +<p>Thus, much—alas! how little—about the wonders of +the deep. We, who are no deep-sea dredgers, must return +humbly to the wonders of the shore. And first, as after +descending the gap in the sea-wall we walk along the ribbed floor +of hard yellow sand, let me ask you to give a sharp look-out for +a round grey disc, about as big as a penny-piece, peeping out on +the surface. No; that is not it, that little lump: open it, +and you will find within one of the common little Venus +gallina.—The closet collectors have given it some new name +now, and no thanks to them: they are always changing the names, +instead of studying the live animals where Nature has put them, +in which case they would have no time for word-inventing. +Nay, I verify suspect that the names grow, like other things; at +least, they get longer and longer and more jaw-breaking every +year. The little bivalve, however, finding itself left by +the tide, has wisely shut up its siphons, and, by means of its +foot and its edges, buried itself in a comfortable bath of cool +wet sand, till the sea shall come back, and make it safe to crawl +and lounge about on the surface, smoking the sea-water instead of +tobacco. Neither is that depression what we seek. +Touch it, and out poke a pair of astonished and inquiring horns: +it is a long-armed crab, who saw us coming, and wisely shovelled +himself into the sand by means of his nether-end. Corystes +Cassivelaunus is his name, which he is said to have acquired from +the marks on his back, which are somewhat like a human +face. “Those long antennæ,” says my +friend, Mr. Lloyd <a name="citation90"></a><a href="#footnote90" +class="citation">[90]</a>—I have not verified the fact, but +believe it, as he knows a great deal about crabs, and I know next +to nothing—“form a tube through which a current of +water passes into the crab’s gills, free from the +surrounding sand.” Moreover, it is only the male who +has those strangely long fore-arms and claws; the female +contenting herself with limbs of a more moderate length. +Neither is that, though it might be, the hole down which what we +seek has vanished: but that burrow contains one of the long white +razors which you saw cast on shore at Paignton. The boys +close by are boring for them with iron rods armed with a screw, +and taking them in to sell in Torquay market, as excellent +food. But there is one, at last—a grey disc pouting +up through the sand. Touch it, and it is gone down, quick +as light. We must dig it out, and carefully, for it is a +delicate monster. At last, after ten minutes’ careful +work, we have brought up, from a foot depth or +more—what? A thick, dirty, slimy worm, without head +or tail, form or colour. A slug has more artistic beauty +about him. Be it so. At home in the aquarium (where, +alas! he will live but for a day or two, under the new irritation +of light) he will make a very different figure. That is one +of the rarest of British sea-animals, Peachia hastata (Pl. XII. +Fig. 1), which differs from most other British Actiniæ in +this, that instead of having like them a walking disc, it has a +free open lower end, with which (I know not how) it buries itself +upright in the sand, with its mouth just above the surface. +The figure on the left of the plate represents a curious cluster +of papillæ which project from one side of the mouth, and +are the opening of the oviduct. But his value consists, not +merely in his beauty (though that, really, is not small), but in +his belonging to what the long word-makers call an +“interosculant” group,—a party of genera and +species which connect families scientifically far apart, filling +up a fresh link in the great chain, or rather the great network, +of zoological classification. For here we have a simple, +and, as it were, crude form; of which, if we dared to indulge in +reveries, we might say that the Creative Mind realized it before +either Actiniæ or Holothurians, and then went on to perfect +the idea contained in it in two different directions; dividing it +into two different families, and making on its model, by adding +new organs, and taking away old ones, in one direction the whole +family of Actiniæ (sea-anemones), and in a quite opposite +one the Holothuriæ, those strange sea-cucumbers, with their +mouth-fringe of feathery gills, of which you shall see some +anon. Thus there has been, in the Creative Mind, as it gave +life to new species, a development of the idea on which older +species were created, in order—we may fancy—that +every mesh of the great net might gradually be supplied, and +there should be no gaps in the perfect variety of Nature’s +forms. This development is one which we must believe to be +at least possible, if we allow that a Mind presides over the +universe, and not a mere brute necessity, a Law (absurd misnomer) +without a Lawgiver; and to it (strangely enough coinciding here +and there with the Platonic doctrine of Eternal Ideas existing in +the Divine Mind) all fresh inductive discovery seems to point +more and more.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image92" href="images/p92b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"1. Peachia Hastata. 2. Uraster Rubens" +title= +"1. Peachia Hastata. 2. Uraster Rubens" + src="images/p92s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Let me speak freely a few words on this important +matter. Geology has disproved the old popular belief that +the universe was brought into being as it now exists by a single +fiat. We know that the work has been gradual; that the +earth</p> +<blockquote><p>“In tracts of fluent heat began,<br /> +The seeming prey of cyclic storms,<br /> +The home of seeming random forms,<br /> +Till, at the last, arose the man.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And we know, also, that these forms, “seeming +random” as they are, have appeared according to a law +which, as far as we can judge, has been on the whole one of +progress,—lower animals (though we cannot yet say, the +lowest) appearing first, and man, the highest mammal, “the +roof and crown of things,” one of the latest in the +series. We have no more right, let it be observed, to say +that man, the highest, appeared last, than that the lowest +appeared first. It was probably so, in both cases; but +there is as yet no positive proof of either; and as we know that +species of animals lower than those which already existed +appeared again and again during the various eras, so it is quite +possible that they may be appearing now, and may appear +hereafter: and that for every extinct Dodo or Moa, a new species +may be created, to keep up the equilibrium of the whole. +This is but a surmise: but it may be wise, perhaps, just now, to +confess boldly, even to insist on, its possibility, lest any +should fancy, from our unwillingness to allow it, that there +would be ought in it, if proved, contrary to sound religion.</p> +<p>I am, I must honestly confess, more and more unable to +perceive anything which an orthodox Christian may not hold, in +those physical theories of “evolution,” which are +gaining more and more the assent of our best zoologists and +botanists. All that they ask us to believe is, that +“species” and “families,” and indeed the +whole of organic nature, have gone through, and may still be +going through, some such development from a lowest germ, as we +know that every living individual, from the lowest zoophyte to +man himself, does actually go through. They apply to the +whole of the living world, past, present, and future, the law +which is undeniably at work on each individual of it. They +may be wrong, or they may be right: but what is there in such a +conception contrary to any doctrine—at least of the Church +of England? To say that this cannot be true; that species +cannot vary, because God, at the beginning, created each thing +“according to its kind,” is really to beg the +question; which is—Does the idea of “kind” +include variability or not? and if so, how much +variability? Now, “kind,” or +“species,” as we call it, is defined nowhere in the +Bible. What right have we to read our own definition into +the word?—and that against the certain fact, that some +“kinds” do vary, and that widely,—mankind, for +instance, and the animals and plants which he domesticates. +Surely that latter fact should be significant, to those who +believe, as I do, that man was created in the likeness of +God. For if man has the power, not only of making plants +and animals vary, but of developing them into forms of higher +beauty and usefulness than their wild ancestors possessed, why +should not the God in whose image he is made possess the same +power? If the old theological rule be +true—“There is nothing in man which was not first in +God” (sin, of course, excluded)—then why should not +this imperfect creative faculty in man be the very guarantee that +God possesses it in perfection?</p> +<p>Such at least is the conclusion of one who, studying certain +families of plants, which indulge in the most fantastic varieties +of shape and size, and yet through all their vagaries +retain—as do the Palms, the Orchids, the +Euphorbiaceæ—one organ, or form of organs, peculiar +and highly specialized, yet constant throughout the whole of each +family, has been driven to the belief that each of these three +families, at least, has “sported off” from one common +ancestor—one archetypal Palm, one archetypal Orchid, one +archetypal Euphorbia, simple, it may be, in itself, but endowed +with infinite possibilities of new and complex beauty, to be +developed, not in it, but in its descendants. He has asked +himself, sitting alone amid the boundless wealth of tropic +forests, whether even then and there the great God might not be +creating round him, slowly but surely, new forms of beauty? +If he chose to do it, could He not do it? That man found +himself none the worse Christian for the thought. He has +said—and must be allowed to say again, for he sees no +reason to alter his words—in speaking of the wonderful +variety of forms in the Euphorbiaceæ, from the weedy +English Euphorbias, the Dog’s Mercuries, and the Box, to +the prickly-stemmed Scarlet Euphorbia of Madagascar, the +succulent Cactus-like Euphorbias of the Canaries and elsewhere; +the Gale-like Phyllanthus; the many-formed Crotons; the Hemp-like +Maniocs, Physic-nuts, Castor-oils, the scarlet Poinsettia, the +little pink and yellow Dalechampia, the poisonous Manchineel, and +the gigantic Hura, or sandbox tree, of the West Indies,—all +so different in shape and size, yet all alike in their most +peculiar and complex fructification, and in their acrid milky +juice,—“What if all these forms are the descendants +of one original form? Would that be one whit the more +wonderful than the theory that they were, each and all, with the +minute, and often imaginary, shades of difference between certain +cognate species among them, created separately and at once? +But if it be so—which I cannot allow—what would the +theologian have to say, save that God’s works are even more +wonderful than he always believed them to be? As for the +theory being impossible—that is to be decided by men of +science, on strict experimental grounds. As for us +theologians, who are we, that we should limit, à priori, +the power of God? ‘Is anything too hard for the +Lord?’ asked the prophet of old; and we have a right to ask +it as long as the world shall last. If it be said that +‘natural selection,’ or, as Mr. Herbert Spencer +better defines it, the ‘survival of the fittest,’ is +too simple a cause to produce such fantastic variety—that, +again, is a question to be settled exclusively by men of science, +on their own grounds. We, meanwhile, always knew that God +works by very simple, or seemingly simple, means; that the +universe, as far as we could discern it, was one organization of +the most simple means. It was wonderful—or should +have been—in our eyes, that a shower of rain should make +the grass grow, and that the grass should become flesh, and the +flesh food for the thinking brain of man. It was—or +ought to have been—more wonderful yet to us that a child +should resemble its parents, or even a butterfly resemble, if not +always, still usually, its parents likewise. Ought God to +appear less or more august in our eyes if we discover that the +means are even simpler than we supposed? We held Him to be +Almighty and All-wise. Are we to reverence Him less or more +if we find Him to be so much mightier, so much wiser, than we +dreamed, that He can not only make all things, but—the very +perfection of creative power—<i>make all things make +themselves</i>? We believed that His care was over all His +works; that His providence worked perpetually over the +universe. We were taught—some of us at least—by +Holy Scripture, that without Him not a sparrow fell to the +ground, and that the very hairs of our head were all numbered; +that the whole history of the universe was made up, in fact, of +an infinite network of special providences. If, then, that +should be true which a great naturalist writes, ‘It may be +metaphorically said that natural selection is daily and hourly +scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the +slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up +all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and +wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic +being, in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of +life,’—if this, I say, were proved to be true, ought +God’s care and God’s providence to seem less or more +magnificent in our eyes? Of old it was said by Him without +whom nothing is made—‘My Father worketh hitherto, and +I work.’ Shall we quarrel with physical science, if +she gives us evidence that those words are true?”</p> +<p>And—understand it well—the grand passage I have +just quoted need not be accused of substituting “natural +selection for God.” In any case natural selection +would be only the means or law by which God works, as He does by +other natural laws. We do not substitute gravitation for +God, when we say that the planets are sustained in their orbits +by the law of gravitation. The theory about natural +selection may be untrue, or imperfect, as may the modern theories +of the “evolution and progress” of organic forms: let +the man of science decide that. But if true, the theories +seem to me perfectly to agree with, and may be perfectly +explained by, the simple old belief which the Bible sets before +us, of a <span class="smcap">Living God</span>: not a mere past +will, such as the Koran sets forth, creating once and for all, +and then leaving the universe, to use Goethe’s simile, +“to spin round his finger;” nor again, an +“all-pervading spirit,” words which are mere +contradictory jargon, concealing, from those who utter them, +blank Materialism: but One who works in all things which have +obeyed Him to will and to do of His good pleasure, keeping His +abysmal and self-perfect purpose, yet altering the methods by +which that purpose is attained, from æon to æon, ay, +from moment to moment, for ever various, yet for ever the +same. This great and yet most blessed paradox of the +Changeless God, who yet can say “It repenteth me,” +and “Behold, I work a new thing on the earth,” is +revealed no less by nature than by Scripture; the changeableness, +not of caprice or imperfection, but of an Infinite Maker and +“Poietes,” drawing ever fresh forms out of the +inexhaustible treasury of His primæval Mind; and yet never +throwing away a conception to which He has once given actual +birth in time and space, (but to compare reverently small things +and great) lovingly repeating it, re-applying it; producing the +same effects by endlessly different methods; or so delicately +modifying the method that, as by the turn of a hair, it shall +produce endlessly diverse effects; looking back, as it were, ever +and anon over the great work of all the ages, to retouch it, and +fill up each chasm in the scheme, which for some good purpose had +been left open in earlier worlds; or leaving some open (the +forms, for instance, necessary to connect the bimana and the +quadrumana) to be filled up perhaps hereafter when the world +needs them; the handiwork, in short, of a living and loving Mind, +perfect in His own eternity, but stooping to work in time and +space, and there rejoicing Himself in the work of His own hands, +and in His eternal Sabbaths ceasing in rest ineffable, that He +may look on that which He hath made, and behold it is very +good.</p> +<p>I speak, of course, under correction; for this conclusion is +emphatically matter of induction, and must be verified or +modified by ever-fresh facts: but I meet with many a Christian +passage in scientific books, which seems to me to go, not too +far, but rather not far enough, in asserting the God of the +Bible, as Saint Paul says, “not to have left Himself +without witness,” in nature itself, that He is the God of +grace. Why speak of the God of nature and the God of grace +as two antithetical terms? The Bible never, in a single instance, +makes the distinction; and surely, if God be (as He is) the +Eternal and Unchangeable One, and if (as we all confess) the +universe bears the impress of His signet, we have no right, in +the present infantile state of science, to put arbitrary limits +of our own to the revelation which He may have thought good to +make of Himself in nature. Nay, rather, let us believe +that, if our eyes were opened, we should fulfil the requirement +of Genius, to “see the universal in the particular,” +by seeing God’s whole likeness, His whole glory, reflected +as in a mirror even in the meanest flower; and that nothing but +the dulness of our own souls prevents them from seeing day and +night in all things, however small or trivial to human +eclecticism, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself fulfilling His own +saying, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”</p> +<p>To me it seems (to sum up, in a few words, what I have tried +to say) that such development and progress as have as yet been +actually discovered in nature, bear every trace of having been +produced by successive acts of thought and will in some personal +mind; which, however boundlessly rich and powerful, is still the +Archetype of the human mind; and therefore (for to this I confess +I have been all along tending) probably capable, without violence +to its properties, of becoming, like the human mind, +incarnate.</p> +<p>But to descend from these perhaps too daring speculations, +there is another, and more human, source of interest about the +animal who is writhing feebly in the glass jar of salt water; for +he is one of the many curiosities which have been added to our +fauna by that humble hero Mr. Charles Peach, the self-taught +naturalist, of whom, as we walk on toward the rocks, something +should be said, or rather read; for Mr. Chambers, in an +often-quoted passage from his Edinburgh Journal, which I must +have the pleasure of quoting once again, has told the story +better than we can tell it:—</p> +<p>“But who is that little intelligent-looking man in a +faded naval uniform, who is so invariably to be seen in a +particular central seat in this section? That, gentle +reader, is perhaps one of the most interesting men who attend the +British Association. He is only a private in the mounted +guard (preventive service) at an obscure part of the Cornwall +coast, with four shillings a day, and a wife and nine children, +most of whose education he has himself to conduct. He never +tastes the luxuries which are so common in the middle ranks of +life, and even amongst a large portion of the working +classes. He has to mend with his own hands every sort of +thing that can break or wear in his house. Yet Mr. Peach is +a votary of Natural History; not a student of the science in +books, for he cannot afford books; but an investigator by sea and +shore, a collector of Zoophytes and Echinodermata—strange +creatures, many of which are as yet hardly known to man. +These he collects, preserves, and describes; and every year does +he come up to the British Association with a few novelties of +this kind, accompanied by illustrative papers and drawings: thus, +under circumstances the very opposite of those of such men as +Lord Enniskillen, adding, in like manner, to the general stock of +knowledge. On the present occasion he is unusually elated, +for he has made the discovery of a Holothuria with twenty +tentacula, a species of the Echinodermata which Professor Forbes, +in his book on Star-Fishes, has said was never yet observed in +the British seas. It may be of small moment to you, who, +mayhap, know nothing of Holothurias: but it is a considerable +thing to the Fauna of Britain, and a vast matter to a poor +private of the Cornwall mounted guard. And accordingly he +will go home in a few days, full of the glory of his exhibition, +and strong anew by the kind notice taken of him by the masters of +the science, to similar inquiries, difficult as it may be to +prosecute them, under such a complication of duties, professional +and domestic. Honest Peach! humble as is thy home, and +simple thy bearing, thou art an honour even to this assemblage of +nobles and doctors: nay, more, when we consider everything, thou +art an honour to human nature itself; for where is the heroism +like that of virtuous, intelligent, independent poverty? +And such heroism is thine!”—<i>Chambers’ Edin. +Journ.</i>, Nov. 23, 1844.</p> +<p>Mr. Peach has been since rewarded in part for his long labours +in the cause of science, by having been removed to a more +lucrative post on the north coast of Scotland; the earnest, it is +to be hoped, of still further promotion.</p> +<p>I mentioned just now Synapta; or, as Montagu called it, +Chirodota: a much better name, and, I think, very uselessly +changed; for Chirodota expresses the peculiarity of the beast, +which consists in—start not, reader—twelve hands, +like human hands, while Synapta expresses merely its power of +clinging to the fingers, which it possesses in common with many +other animals. It is, at least, a beast worth talking +about; as for finding one, I fear that we have no chance of such +good fortune.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image109" href="images/p109b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Plate 4: Synapta Digitata etc." +title= +"Plate 4: Synapta Digitata etc." + src="images/p109s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Colonel Montagu found them here some forty years ago; and +after him, Mr. Alder, in 1845. I found hundreds of them, +but only once, in 1854 after a heavy south-eastern gale, washed +up among the great Lutrariæ in a cove near Goodrington; but +all my dredging outside failed to procure a specimen—Mr. +Alder, however, and Mr. Cocks (who find everything, and will at +last certainly catch Midgard, the great sea-serpent, as Thor did, +by baiting for him with a bull’s head), have dredged them +in great numbers; the former, at Helford in Cornwall, the latter +on the west coast of Scotland. It seems, however, to be a +southern monster, probably a remnant, like the great cockle, of +the Mediterranean fauna; for Mr. MacAndrew finds them plentifully +in Vigo Bay, and J. Müller in the Adriatic, off Trieste.</p> +<p>But what is it like? Conceive a very fat short +earth-worm; not ringed, though, like the earth-worm, but smooth +and glossy, dappled with darker spots, especially on one side, +which may be the upper one. Put round its mouth twelve +little arms, on each a hand with four ragged fingers, and on the +back of the hand a stump of a thumb, and you have Synapta +Digitata (Plates IV. and V., from my drawings of the live +animal). These hands it puts down to its mouth, generally +in alternate pairs, but how it obtains its food by them is yet a +mystery, for its intestines are filled, like an +earth-worm’s, with the mud in which it lives, and from +which it probably extracts (as does the earth-worm) all organic +matters.</p> +<p>You will find it stick to your fingers by the whole skin, +causing, if your hand be delicate, a tingling sensation; and if +you examine the skin under the microscope, you will find the +cause. The whole skin is studded with minute glass anchors, +some hanging freely from the surface, but most imbedded in the +skin. Each of these anchors is jointed at its root into one +end of a curious cribriform plate,—in plain English, one +pierced like a sieve, which lies under the skin, and reminds one +of the similar plates in the skin of the White Cucumaria, which I +will show you presently; and both of these we must regard as the +first rudiments of an Echinoderm’s outside skeleton, such +as in the Sea-urchins covers the whole body of the animal. +(See on Echinus Millaris, p. 89.) <a +name="citation111"></a><a href="#footnote111" +class="citation">[111]</a> Somewhat similar anchor-plates, +from a Red Sea species, Synapta Vittata, may be seen in any +collection of microscopic objects.</p> +<p>The animal, when caught, has a strange habit of +self-destruction, contracting its skin at two or three different +points, and writhing till it snaps itself into +“junks,” as the sailors would say, and then +dies. My specimens, on breaking up, threw out from the +wounded part long “ovarian filaments” (whatsoever +those may be), similar to those thrown out by many of the +Sagartian anemones, especially S. parasitica. Beyond this, +I can tell you nothing about Synapta, and only ask you to +consider its hands, as an instance of that fantastic play of +Nature which repeats, in families widely different, organs of +similar form, though perhaps of by no means similar use; nay, +sometimes (as in those beautiful clear-wing hawk-moths which you, +as they hover round the rhododendrons, mistake for bumble-bees) +repeats the outward form of a whole animal, for no conceivable +reason save her—shall we not say honestly His?—own +good pleasure.</p> +<p>But here we are at the old bank of boulders, the ruins of an +antique pier which the monks of Tor Abbey built for their +convenience, while Torquay was but a knot of fishing huts within +a lonely limestone cove. To get to it, though, we have +passed many a hidden treasure; for every ledge of these flat +New-red-sandstone rocks, if torn up with the crowbar, discloses +in its cracks and crannies nests of strange forms which shun the +light of day; beautiful Actiniæ fill the tiny caverns with +living flowers; great Pholades (Plate X. figs. 3, 4) bore by +hundreds in the softer strata; and wherever a thin layer of muddy +sand intervenes between two slabs, long Annelid worms of +quaintest forms and colours have their horizontal burrows, among +those of that curious and rare radiate animal, the Spoonworm, <a +name="citation113"></a><a href="#footnote113" +class="citation">[113]</a> an eyeless bag about an inch long, +half bluish grey, half pink, with a strange scalloped and +wrinkled proboscis of saffron colour, which serves, in some +mysterious way, soft as it is, to collect food, and clear its +dark passage through the rock.</p> +<p>See, at the extreme low-water mark, where the broad olive +fronds of the Laminariæ, like fan-palms, droop and wave +gracefully in the retiring ripples, a great boulder which will +serve our purpose. Its upper side is a whole forest of +sea-weeds, large and small; and that forest, if you examined it +closely, as full of inhabitants as those of the Amazon or the +Gambia. To “beat” that dense cover would be an +endless task: but on the under side, where no sea-weeds grow, we +shall find full in view enough to occupy us till the tide +returns. For the slab, see, is such a one as sea-beasts +love to haunt. Its weed-covered surface shows that the +surge has not shifted it for years past. It lies on other +boulders clear of sand and mud, so that there is no fear of dead +sea-weed having lodged and decayed under it, destructive to +animal life. We can see dark crannies and caves beneath; +yet too narrow to allow the surge to wash in, and keep the +surface clean. It will be a fine menagerie of Nereus, if we +can but turn it.</p> +<p>Now the crowbar is well under it; heave, and with a will; and +so, after five minutes’ tugging, propping, slipping, and +splashing, the boulder gradually tips over, and we rush greedily +upon the spoil.</p> +<p>A muddy dripping surface it is, truly, full of cracks and +hollows, uninviting enough at first sight: let us look it round +leisurely, to see if there are not materials enough there for an +hour’s lecture.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image114" href="images/p114b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Plate 9: Cucumaria Hyndmanni etc." +title= +"Plate 9: Cucumaria Hyndmanni etc." + src="images/p114s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The first object which strikes the eye is probably a group of +milk-white slugs, from two to six inches long, cuddling snugly +together (Plate IX. fig. 1). You try to pull them off, and +find that they give you some trouble, such a firm hold have the +delicate white sucking arms, which fringe each of their five +edges. You see at the head nothing but a yellow dimple; for +eating and breathing are suspended till the return of tide; but +once settled in a jar of salt-water, each will protrude a large +chocolate-coloured head, tipped with a ring of ten feathery +gills, looking very much like a head of “curled +kale,” but of the loveliest white and primrose; in the +centre whereof lies perdu a mouth with sturdy teeth—if +indeed they, as well as the whole inside of the beast, have not +been lately got rid of, and what you see be not a mere bag, +without intestine or other organ: but only for the time +being. For hear it, worn-out epicures, and old Indians who +bemoan your livers, this little Holothuria knows a secret which, +if he could tell it, you would be glad to buy of him for +thousands sterling. To him blue pill and muriatic acid are +superfluous, and travels to German Brunnen a waste of time. +Happy Holothuria! who possesses really the secret of everlasting +youth, which ancient fable bestowed on the serpent and the +eagle. For when his teeth ache, or his digestive organs +trouble him, all he has to do is just to cast up forthwith his +entire inside, and, faisant maigre for a month or so, grow a +fresh set, and then eat away as merrily as ever. His name, +if you wish to consult so triumphant a hygeist, is Cucumaria +Pentactes: but he has many a stout cousin round the Scotch coast, +who knows the antibilious panacea as well as he, and submits, +among the northern fishermen, to the rather rude and undeserved +name of sea-puddings; one of which grows in Shetland to the +enormous length of three feet, rivalling there his huge +congeners, who display their exquisite plumes on every tropic +coral reef. <a name="citation116"></a><a href="#footnote116" +class="citation">[116]</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image117" href="images/p117b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Plate 5: Balanophyllea Regia etc." +title= +"Plate 5: Balanophyllea Regia etc." + src="images/p117s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Next, what are those bright little buds, like salmon-coloured +Banksia roses half expanded, sitting closely on the stone? +Touch them; the soft part is retracted, and the orange flower of +flesh is transformed into a pale pink flower of stone. That +is the Madrepore, Caryophyllia Smithii (Plate V. fig. 2); one of +our south coast rarities: and see, on the lip of the last one, +which we have carefully scooped off with the chisel, two little +pink towers of stone, delicately striated; drop them into this +small bottle of sea-water, and from the top of each tower issues +every half-second—what shall we call it?—a hand or a +net of finest hairs, clutching at something invisible to our +grosser sense. That is the Pyrgoma, parasitic only (as far +as we know) on the lip of this same rare Madrepore; a little +“cirrhipod,” the cousin of those tiny barnacles which +roughen every rock (a larger sort whereof I showed you on the +Turritella), and of those larger ones also who burrow in the +thick hide of the whale, and, borne about upon his mighty sides, +throw out their tiny casting nets, as this Pyrgoma does, to catch +every passing animalcule, and sweep them into the jaws concealed +within its shell. And this creature, rooted to one spot +through life and death, was in its infancy a free swimming +animal, hovering from place to place upon delicate ciliæ, +till, having sown its wild oats, it settled down in life, built +itself a good stone house, and became a landowner, or rather a +glebæ adscriptus, for ever and a day. Mysterious +destiny!—yet not so mysterious as that of the free medusoid +young of every polype and coral, which ends as a rooted tree of +horn or stone, and seems to the eye of sensuous fancy to have +literally degenerated into a vegetable. Of them you must +read for yourself in Mr. Gosse’s book; in the meanwhile he +shall tell you something of the beautiful Madrepores +themselves. His description, <a name="citation118"></a><a +href="#footnote118" class="citation">[118]</a> by far the best +yet published, should be read in full; we must content ourselves +with extracts.</p> +<p>“Doubtless you are familiar with the stony skeleton of +our Madrepore, as it appears in museums. It consists of a +number of thin calcareous plates standing up edgewise, and +arranged in a radiating manner round a low centre. A little +below the margin their individuality is lost in the deposition of +rough calcareous matter. . . . The general form is more or less +cylindrical, commonly wider at top than just above the bottom. . +. . This is but the skeleton; and though it is a very pretty +object, those who are acquainted with it alone, can form but a +very poor idea of the beauty of the living animal. . . . Let it, +after being torn from the rock, recover its equanimity; then you +will see a pellucid gelatinous flesh emerging from between the +plates, and little exquisitely formed and coloured tentacula, +with white clubbed tips fringing the sides of the cup-shaped +cavity in the centre, across which stretches the oval disc marked +with a star of some rich and brilliant colour, surrounding the +central mouth, a slit with white crenated lips, like the orifice +of one of those elegant cowry shells which we put upon our +mantelpieces. The mouth is always more or less prominent, +and can be protruded and expanded to an astonishing extent. +The space surrounding the lips is commonly fawn colour, or rich +chestnut-brown; the star or vandyked circle rich red, pale +vermilion, and sometimes the most brilliant emerald green, as +brilliant as the gorget of a humming-bird.”</p> +<p>And what does this exquisitely delicate creature do with its +pretty mouth? Alas for fact! It sips no honey-dew, or +fruits from paradise.—“I put a minute spider, as +large as a pin’s head, into the water, pushing it down to +the coral. The instant it touched the tip of a tentacle, it +adhered, and was drawn in with the surrounding tentacles between +the plates. With a lens I saw the small mouth slowly open, +and move over to that side, the lips gaping unsymmetrically; +while with a movement as imperceptible as that of the hour hand +of a watch, the tiny prey was carried along between the plates to +the corner of the mouth. The mouth, however, moved most, +and at length reached the edges of the plates, gradually closed +upon the insect, and then returned to its usual place in the +centre.”</p> +<p>Mr. Gosse next tried the fairy of the walking mouth with a +house-fly, who escaped only by hard fighting; and at last the +gentle creature, after swallowing and disgorging various large +pieces of shell-fish, found viands to its taste in “the +lean of cooked meat and portions of earthworms,” filling up +the intervals by a perpetual dessert of microscopic animalcules, +whirled into that lovely avernus, its mouth, by the currents of +the delicate ciliæ which clothe every tentacle. The +fact is, that the Madrepore, like those glorious sea-anemones +whose living flowers stud every pool, is by profession a +scavenger and a feeder on carrion; and being as useful as he is +beautiful, really comes under the rule which he seems at first to +break, that handsome is who handsome does.</p> +<p>Another species of Madrepore <a name="citation121"></a><a +href="#footnote121" class="citation">[121]</a> was discovered on +our Devon coast by Mr. Gosse, more gaudy, though not so delicate +in hue as our Caryophyllia. Mr. Gosse’s locality, for +this and numberless other curiosities, is Ilfracombe, on the +north coast of Devon. My specimens came from Lundy Island, +in the mouth of the Bristol Channel, or more properly from that +curious “Rat Island” to the south of it, where still +lingers the black long-tailed English rat, exterminated +everywhere else by his sturdier brown cousin of the Hanoverian +dynasty.</p> +<p>Look, now, at these tiny saucers of the thinnest ivory, the +largest not bigger than a silver threepence, which contain in +their centres a milk-white crust of stone, pierced, as you see +under the magnifier, into a thousand cells, each with its living +architect within. Here are two kinds: in one the tubular +cells radiate from the centre, giving it the appearance of a tiny +compound flower, daisy or groundsel; in the other they are +crossed with waving grooves, giving the whole a peculiar fretted +look, even more beautiful than that of the former species. +They are Tubulipora patina and Tubulipora hispida;—and +stay—break off that tiny rough red wart, and look at its +cells also under the magnifier: it is Cellepora pumicosa; and +now, with the Madrepore, you hold in your hand the principal, at +least the commonest, British types of those famed coral insects, +which in the tropics are the architects of continents, and the +conquerors of the ocean surge. All the world, since the +publication of Darwin’s delightful “Voyage of the +Beagle,”‘ and of Williams’ “Missionary +Enterprises,” knows, or ought to know, enough about them: +for those who do not, there are a few pages in the beginning of +Dr. Landsborough’s “British Zoophytes,” well +worth perusal.</p> +<p>There are a few other true cellepore corals round the +coast. The largest of all, Cervicornis, may be dredged a +few miles outside on the Exmouth bank, with a few more +Tubulipores: but all tiny things, the lingering and, as it were, +expiring remnants of that great coral-world which, through the +abysmal depths of past ages, formed here in Britain our limestone +hills, storing up for generations yet unborn the materials of +agriculture and architecture. Inexpressibly interesting, +even solemn, to those who will think, is the sight of those puny +parasites which, as it were, connect the ages and the æons: +yet not so solemn and full of meaning as that tiny relic of an +older world, the little pear-shaped Turbinolia (cousin of the +Madrepores and Sea-anemones), found fossil in the Suffolk Crag, +and yet still lingering here and there alive in the deep water of +Scilly and the west coast of Ireland, possessor of a pedigree +which dates, perhaps, from ages before the day in which it was +said, “Let us make man in our image, after our +likeness.” To think that the whole human race, its +joys and its sorrows, its virtues and its sins, its aspirations +and its failures, has been rushing out of eternity and into +eternity again, as Arjoon in the Bhagavad Gita beheld the race of +men issuing from Kreeshna’s flaming mouth, and swallowed up +in it again, “as the crowds of insects swarm into the +flame, as the homeless streams leap down into the ocean +bed,” in an everlasting heart-pulse whose blood is living +souls—and all that while, and ages before that mystery +began, that humble coral, unnoticed on the dark sea-floor, has +been “continuing as it was at the beginning,” and +fulfilling “the law which cannot be broken,” while +races and dynasties and generations have been</p> +<blockquote><p>“Playing such fantastic tricks before high +heaven,<br /> +As make the angels weep.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yes; it is this vision of the awful permanence and perfection +of the natural world, beside the wild flux and confusion, the mad +struggles, the despairing cries of the world of spirits which man +has defiled by sin, which would at moments crush the +naturalist’s heart, and make his brain swim with terror, +were it not that he can see by faith, through all the abysses and +the ages, not merely</p> + +<blockquote><p> “Hands,<br +/> +From out the darkness, shaping man;”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>but above them a living loving countenance, human and yet +Divine; and can hear a voice which said at first, “Let us +make man in our image;” and hath said since then, and says +for ever and for ever, “Lo, I am with you alway, even to +the end of the world.”</p> +<p>But now, friend, who listenest, perhaps instructed, and at +least amused—if, as Professor Harvey well says, the simpler +animals represent, as in a glass, the scattered organs of the +higher races, which of your organs is represented by that +“sca’d man’s head,” which the Devon +children more gracefully, yet with less adherence to plain +likeness, call “mermaid’s head,” <a +name="citation126a"></a><a href="#footnote126a" +class="citation">[126a]</a> which we picked up just now on +Paignton Sands? Or which, again, by its more beautiful +little congener, <a name="citation126b"></a><a +href="#footnote126b" class="citation">[126b]</a> five or six of +which are adhering tightly to the slab before us, a ball covered +with delicate spines of lilac and green, and stuck over (cunning +fellows!) with stripes of dead sea-weed to serve as improvised +parasols? One cannot say that in him we have the first type +of the human skull: for the resemblance, quaint as it is, is only +sensuous and accidental, (in the logical use of that term,) and +not homological, <i>i.e.</i> a lower manifestation of the same +idea. Yet how is one tempted to say, that this was +Nature’s first and lowest attempt at that use of hollow +globes of mineral for protecting soft fleshy parts, which she +afterwards developed to such perfection in the skulls of +vertebrate animals! But even that conceit, pretty as it +sounds, will not hold good; for though Radiates similar to these +were among the earliest tenants of the abyss, yet as early as +their time, perhaps even before them, had been conceived and +actualized, in the sharks, and in Mr. Hugh Miller’s pets +the old red sandstone fishes, that very true vertebrate skull and +brain, of which this is a mere mockery. <a +name="citation127"></a><a href="#footnote127" +class="citation">[127]</a> Here the whole animal, with his +extraordinary feeding mill, (for neither teeth nor jaws is a fit +word for it,) is enclosed within an ever-growing limestone +castle, to the architecture of which the Eddystone and the +Crystal Palace are bungling heaps; without arms or legs, eyes or +ears, and yet capable, in spite of his perpetual imprisonment, of +walking, feeding, and breeding, doubt it not, merrily +enough. But this result has been attained at the expense of +a complication of structure, which has baffled all human analysis +and research into final causes. As much concerning this +most miraculous of families as is needful to be known, and ten +times more than you are likely to understand, may be read in +Harvey’s “Sea-Side Book,” pp. +142–148,—pages from which you will probably arise +with a sense of the infinity and complexity of Nature, even in +what we are pleased to call her “lower” forms, and +the simplest and, as it were, easiest forms of life. +Conceive a Crystal Palace, (for mere difference in size, as both +the naturalist and the metaphysician know, has nothing to do with +the wonder,) whereof each separate joist, girder, and pane grows +continually without altering the shape of the whole; and you have +conceived only one of the miracles embodied in that little +sea-egg, which the Creator has, as it were, to justify to man His +own immutability, furnished with a shell capable of enduring +fossil for countless ages, that we may confess Him to have been +as great when first His Spirit brooded on the deep, as He is now +and will be through all worlds to come.</p> +<p>But we must make haste; for the tide is rising fast, and our +stone will be restored to its eleven hours’ bath, long +before we have talked over half the wonders which it holds. +Look though, ere you retreat, at one or two more.</p> +<p>What is that little brown thing whom you have just taken off +the rock to which it adhered so stoutly by his +sucking-foot? A limpet? Not at all: he is of quite a +different family and structure; but, on the whole, a limpet-like +shell would suit him well enough, so he had one given him: +nevertheless, owing to certain anatomical peculiarities, he +needed one aperture more than a limpet; so one, if you will +examine, has been given him at the top of his shell. <a +name="citation129"></a><a href="#footnote129" +class="citation">[129]</a> This is one instance among a +thousand of the way in which a scientific knowledge of objects +must not obey, but run counter to, the impressions of sense; and +of a custom in nature which makes this caution so necessary, +namely, the repetition of the same form, slightly modified, in +totally different animals, sometimes as if to avoid waste, (for +why should not the same conception be used in two different +cases, if it will suit in both?) and sometimes (more marvellous +by far) when an organ, fully developed and useful in one species, +appears in a cognate species but feeble, useless, and, as it +were, abortive; and gradually, in species still farther removed, +dies out altogether; placed there, it would seem, at first sight, +merely to keep up the family likeness. I am half jesting; +that cannot be the only reason, perhaps not the reason at all; +but the fact is one of the most curious, and notorious also, in +comparative anatomy.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image129" href="images/p129b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Plate 10: Serpula Contortuplicata etc." +title= +"Plate 10: Serpula Contortuplicata etc." + src="images/p129s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Look, again, at those sea-slugs. One, some three inches +long, of a bright lemon-yellow, clouded with purple; another of a +dingy grey; <a name="citation130a"></a><a href="#footnote130a" +class="citation">[130a]</a> another exquisite little creature of +a pearly French White, <a name="citation130b"></a><a +href="#footnote130b" class="citation">[130b]</a> furred all over +the back with what seem arms, but are really gills, of ringed +white and grey and black. Put that yellow one into water, +and from his head, above the eyes, arise two serrated horns, +while from the after-part of his back springs a circular +Prince-of-Wales’s-feather of gills,—they are almost +exactly like those which we saw just now in the white +Cucumaria. Yes; here is another instance of the same custom +of repetition. The Cucumaria is a low radiate +animal—the sea-slug a far higher mollusc; and every organ +within him is formed on a different type; as indeed are those +seemingly identical gills, if you come to examine them under the +microscope, having to oxygenate fluids of a very different and +more complicated kind; and, moreover, the Cucumaria’s gills +were put round his mouth, the Doris’s feathers round the +other extremity; that grey Eolis’s, again, are simple +clubs, scattered over his whole back, and in each of his +nudibranch congeners these same gills take some new and fantastic +form; in Melibæa those clubs are covered with warts; in +Scyllæa, with tufted bouquets; in the beautiful Antiopa +they are transparent bags; and in many other English species they +take every conceivable form of leaf, tree, flower, and branch, +bedecked with every colour of the rainbow, as you may see them +depicted in Messrs. Alder and Hancock’s unrivalled +Monograph on the Nudibranch Mollusca.</p> +<p>And now, worshipper of final causes and the mere useful in +nature, answer but one question,—Why this prodigal +variety? All these Nudibranchs live in much the same way: +why would not the same mould have done for them all? And +why, again, (for we must push the argument a little further,) why +have not all the butterflies, at least all who feed on the same +plant, the same markings? Of all unfathomable triumphs of +design, (we can only express ourselves thus, for honest +induction, as Paley so well teaches, allows us to ascribe such +results only to the design of some personal will and mind,) what +surpasses that by which the scales on a butterfly’s wing +are arranged to produce a certain pattern of artistic beauty +beyond all painter’s skill? What a waste of power, on +any utilitarian theory of nature! And once more, why are +those strange microscopic atomies, the Diatomaceæ and +Infusoria, which fill every stagnant pool; which fringe every +branch of sea-weed; which form banks hundreds of miles long on +the Arctic sea-floor, and the strata of whole moorlands; which +pervade in millions the mass of every iceberg, and float aloft in +countless swarms amid the clouds of the volcanic dust;—why +are their tiny shells of flint as fantastically various in their +quaint mathematical symmetry, as they are countless beyond the +wildest dreams of the Poet? Mystery inexplicable on the +conceited notion which, making man forsooth the centre of the +universe, dares to believe that this variety of forms has existed +for countless ages in abysmal sea-depths and untrodden forests, +only that some few individuals of the Western races might, in +these latter days, at last discover and admire a corner here and +there of the boundless realms of beauty. Inexplicable, +truly, if man be the centre and the object of their existence; +explicable enough to him who believes that God has created all +things for Himself, and rejoices in His own handiwork, and that +the material universe is, as the wise man says, “A platform +whereon His Eternal Spirit sports and makes melody.” +Of all the blessings which the study of nature brings to the +patient observer, let none, perhaps, be classed higher than this: +that the further he enters into those fairy gardens of life and +birth, which Spenser saw and described in his great poem, the +more he learns the awful and yet most comfortable truth, that +they do not belong to him, but to One greater, wiser, lovelier +than he; and as he stands, silent with awe, amid the pomp of +Nature’s ever-busy rest, hears, as of old, “The Word +of the Lord God walking among the trees of the garden in the cool +of the day.”</p> +<p>One sight more, and we have done. I had something to +say, had time permitted, on the ludicrous element which appears +here and there in nature. There are animals, like monkeys +and crabs, which seem made to be laughed at; by those at least +who possess that most indefinable of faculties, the sense of the +ridiculous. As long as man possesses muscles especially +formed to enable him to laugh, we have no right to suppose (with +some) that laughter is an accident of our fallen nature; or to +find (with others) the primary cause of the ridiculous in the +perception of unfitness or disharmony. And yet we shrink +(whether rightly or wrongly, we can hardly tell) from attributing +a sense of the ludicrous to the Creator of these forms. It +may be a weakness on my part; at least I will hope it is a +reverent one: but till we can find something corresponding to +what we conceive of the Divine Mind in any class of phenomena, it +is perhaps better not to talk about them at all, but observe a +stoic “epoche,” waiting for more light, and yet +confessing that our own laughter is uncontrollable, and therefore +we hope not unworthy of us, at many a strange creature and +strange doing which we meet, from the highest ape to the lowest +polype.</p> +<p>But, in the meanwhile, there are animals in which results so +strange, fantastic, even seemingly horrible, are produced, that +fallen man may be pardoned, if he shrinks from them in +disgust. That, at least, must be a consequence of our own +wrong state; for everything is beautiful and perfect in its +place. It may be answered, “Yes, in its place; but +its place is not yours. You had no business to look at it, +and must pay the penalty for intermeddling.” I doubt +that answer; for surely, if man have liberty to do anything, he +has liberty to search out freely his heavenly Father’s +works; and yet every one seems to have his antipathic animal; and +I know one bred from his childhood to zoology by land and sea, +and bold in asserting, and honest in feeling, that all without +exception is beautiful, who yet cannot, after handling and +petting and admiring all day long every uncouth and venomous +beast, avoid a paroxysm of horror at the sight of the common +house-spider. At all events, whether we were intruding or +not, in turning this stone, we must pay a fine for having done +so; for there lies an animal as foul and monstrous to the eye as +“hydra, gorgon, or chimæra dire,” and yet so +wondrously fitted to its work, that we must needs endure for our +own instruction to handle and to look at it. Its name, if +you wish for it, is Nemertes; probably N. Borlasii; <a +name="citation136"></a><a href="#footnote136" +class="citation">[136]</a> a worm of very “low” +organization, though well fitted enough for its own work. +You see it? That black, shiny, knotted lump among the +gravel, small enough to be taken up in a dessert spoon. +Look now, as it is raised and its coils drawn out. Three +feet—six—nine, at least: with a capability of +seemingly endless expansion; a slimy tape of living caoutchouc, +some eighth of an inch in diameter, a dark chocolate-black, with +paler longitudinal lines. Is it alive? It hangs, +helpless and motionless, a mere velvet string across the +hand. Ask the neighbouring Annelids and the fry of the rock +fishes, or put it into a vase at home, and see. It lies +motionless, trailing itself among the gravel; you cannot tell +where it begins or ends; it may be a dead strip of sea-weed, +Himanthalia lorea, perhaps, or Chorda filum; or even a tarred +string. So thinks the little fish who plays over and over +it, till he touches at last what is too surely a head. In +an instant a bell-shaped sucker mouth has fastened to his +side. In another instant, from one lip, a concave double +proboscis, just like a tapir’s (another instance of the +repetition of forms), has clasped him like a finger; and now +begins the struggle: but in vain. He is being +“played” with such a fishing-line as the skill of a +Wilson or a Stoddart never could invent; a living line, with +elasticity beyond that of the most delicate fly-rod, which +follows every lunge, shortening and lengthening, slipping and +twining round every piece of gravel and stem of sea-weed, with a +tiring drag such as no Highland wrist or step could ever bring to +bear on salmon or on trout. The victim is tired now; and +slowly, and yet dexterously, his blind assailant is feeling and +shifting along his side, till he reaches one end of him; and then +the black lips expand, and slowly and surely the curved finger +begins packing him end-foremost down into the gullet, where he +sinks, inch by inch, till the swelling which marks his place is +lost among the coils, and he is probably macerated to a pulp long +before he has reached the opposite extremity of his cave of +doom. Once safe down, the black murderer slowly contracts +again into a knotted heap, and lies, like a boa with a stag +inside him, motionless and blest. <a name="citation138"></a><a +href="#footnote138" class="citation">[138]</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image136" href="images/p136b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Nemerties Borlasii etc.: Plate 3" +title= +"Nemerties Borlasii etc.: Plate 3" + src="images/p136s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>There; we must come away now, for the tide is over our ankles; +but touch, before you go, one of those little red mouths which +peep out of the stone. A tiny jet of water shoots up almost +into your face. The bivalve <a name="citation139a"></a><a +href="#footnote139a" class="citation">[139a]</a> who has burrowed +into the limestone knot (the softest part of the stone to his +jaws, though the hardest to your chisel) is scandalized at having +the soft mouths of his siphons so rudely touched, and taking your +finger for some bothering Annelid, who wants to nibble him, is +defending himself; shooting you, as naturalists do humming-birds, +with water. Let him rest in peace; it will cost you ten +minutes’ hard work, and much dirt, to extract him; but if +you are fond of shells, secure one or two of those beautiful pink +and straw-coloured scallops (Hinnites pusio, Plate X. fig. 1), +who have gradually incorporated the layers of their lower valve +with the roughnesses of the stone, destroying thereby the +beautiful form which belongs to their race, but not their +delicate colour. There are a few more bivalves too, +adhering to the stone, and those rare ones, and two or three +delicate Mangeliæ and Nassæ <a +name="citation139b"></a><a href="#footnote139b" +class="citation">[139b]</a> are trailing their graceful spires up +and down in search of food. That little bright red and +yellow pea, too, touch it—the brilliant coloured cloak is +withdrawn, and, instead, you have a beautiful ribbed pink cowry, +<a name="citation140a"></a><a href="#footnote140a" +class="citation">[140a]</a> our only European representative of +that grand tropical family. Cast one wondering glance, too, +at the forest of zoophytes and corals, Lepraliæ and +Flustræ, and those quaint blue stars, set in brown jelly, +which are no zoophytes, but respectable molluscs, each with his +well-formed mouth and intestines, <a name="citation140b"></a><a +href="#footnote140b" class="citation">[140b]</a> but combined in +a peculiar form of Communism, of which all one can say is, that +one hopes they like it; and that, at all events, they agree +better than the heroes and heroines of Mr. Hawthorne’s +“Blithedale Romance.”</p> +<p>Now away, and as a specimen of the fertility of the +water-world, look at this rough list of species, <a +name="citation140c"></a><a href="#footnote140c" +class="citation">[140c]</a> the greater part of which are on this +very stone, and all of which you might obtain in an hour, would +the rude tide wait for zoologists: and remember that the number +of individuals of each species of polype must be counted by tens +of thousands; and also, that, by searching the forest of +sea-weeds which covers the upper surface, we should probably +obtain some twenty minute species more.</p> +<p>A goodly catalogue this, surely, of the inhabitants of three +or four large stones; and yet how small a specimen of the +multitudinous nations of the sea!</p> +<p>From the bare rocks above high-water mark, down to abysses +deeper than ever plummet sounded, is life, everywhere life; fauna +after fauna, and flora after flora, arranged in zones, according +to the amount of light and warmth which each species requires, +and to the amount of pressure which they are able to +endure. The crevices of the highest rocks, only sprinkled +with salt spray in spring-tides and high gales, have their +peculiar little univalves, their crisp lichen-like sea-weed, in +myriads; lower down, the region of the Fuci (bladder-weeds) has +its own tribes of periwinkles and limpets; below again, about the +neap-tide mark, the region of the corallines and Algæ +furnishes food for yet other species who graze on its watery +meadows; and beneath all, only uncovered at low spring-tide, the +zone of the Laminariæ (the great tangles and ore-weeds) is +most full of all of every imaginable form of life. So that +as we descend the rocks, we may compare ourselves (likening small +things to great) to those who, descending the Andes, pass in a +single day from the vegetation of the Arctic zone to that of the +Tropics. And here and there, even at half-tide level, deep +rock-basins, shaded from the sun and always full of water, keep +up in a higher zone the vegetation of a lower one, and afford in +nature an analogy to those deep “barrancos” which +split the high table-land of Mexico, down whose awful cliffs, +swept by cool sea-breezes, the traveller looks from among the +plants and animals of the temperate zone, and sees far below, dim +through their everlasting vapour-bath of rank hot steam, the +mighty forms and gorgeous colours of a tropic forest.</p> +<p>“I do not wonder,” says Mr. Gosse, in his charming +“Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast” +(p. 187), “that when Southey had an opportunity of seeing +some of those beautiful quiet basins hollowed in the living rock, +and stocked with elegant plants and animals, having all the charm +of novelty to his eye, they should have moved his poetic fancy, +and found more than one place in the gorgeous imagery of his +Oriental romances. Just listen to him</p> +<blockquote><p>“It was a garden still beyond all price,<br +/> +Even yet it was a place of paradise;<br /> +* * * * * *<br /> + And here were coral bowers,<br /> + And grots of madrepores,<br /> +And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eye<br /> + As e’er +was mossy bed<br /> + Whereon the wood-nymphs lie<br /> +With languid limbs in summer’s sultry hours.<br /> + Here, too, were living flowers,<br +/> + Which, like a bud compacted,<br /> + Their purple cups contracted;<br +/> + And now in open blossom spread,<br +/> +Stretch’d, like green anthers, many a seeking head.<br /> + And arborets of jointed stone were +there,<br /> +And plants of fibres fine as silkworm’s thread;<br /> + Yea, beautiful as mermaid’s +golden hair<br /> + Upon the waves +dispread.<br /> +Others that, like the broad banana growing,<br /> +Raised their long wrinkled leaves of purple hue,<br /> + Like streamers wide +outflowing.’—<i>Kehama</i>, xvi. 5.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“A hundred times you might fancy you saw the type, the +very original of this description, tracing, line by line, and +image by image, the details of the picture; and acknowledging, as +you proceed, the minute truthfulness with which it has been +drawn. For such is the loveliness of nature in these +secluded reservoirs, that the accomplished poet, when depicting +the gorgeous scenes of Eastern mythology—scenes the wildest +and most extravagant that imagination could paint—drew not +upon the resources of his prolific fancy for imagery here, but +was well content to jot down the simple lineaments of Nature as +he saw her in plain, homely England.</p> +<p>“It is a beautiful and fascinating sight for those who +have never seen it before, to see the little shrubberies of pink +coralline—‘the arborets of jointed +stone’—that fringe those pretty pools. It is a +charming sight to see the crimson banana-like leaves of the +Delesseria waving in their darkest corners; and the purple +fibrous tufts of Polysiphonia and Ceramia, ‘fine as +silkworm’s thread.’ But there are many others +which give variety and impart beauty to these tide-pools. +The broad leaves of the Ulva, finer than the finest cambric, and +of the brightest emerald-green, adorn the hollows at the highest +level, while, at the lowest, wave tiny forests of the feathery +Ptilota and Dasya, and large leaves, cut into fringes and +furbelows, of rosy Rhodymeniæ. All these are lovely +to behold; but I think I admire as much as any of them, one of +the commonest of our marine plants, Chondrus crispus. It +occurs in the greatest profusion on this coast, in every pool +between tide-marks; and everywhere—except in those of the +highest level, where constant exposure to light dwarfs the plant, +and turns it of a dull umber-brown tint—it is elegant in +form and brilliant in colour. The expanding fan-shaped +fronds, cut into segments, cut, and cut again, make fine bushy +tufts in a deep pool, and every segment of every frond reflects a +flush of the most lustrous azure, like that of a tempered +sword-blade.”—<span +class="smcap">Gosse’s</span> <i>Devonshire Coast</i>, pp. +187–189.</p> +<p>And the sea-bottom, also, has its zones, at different depths, +and its peculiar forms in peculiar spots, affected by the +currents and the nature of the ground, the riches of which have +to be seen, alas! rather by the imagination than the eye; for +such spoonfuls of the treasure as the dredge brings up to us, +come too often rolled and battered, torn from their sites and +contracted by fear, mere hints to us of what the populous reality +below is like. Often, standing on the shore at low tide, +has one longed to walk on and in under the waves, as the +water-ousel does in the pools of the mountain burn, and see it +all but for a moment; and a solemn beauty and meaning has +invested the old Greek fable of Glaucus the fisherman: how eating +of the herb which gave his fish strength to leap back into their +native element, he was seized on the spot with a strange longing +to follow them under the waves, and became for ever a companion +of the fair semi-human forms with which the Hellenic poets +peopled their sunny bays and firths, feeding “silent +flocks” far below on the green Zostera beds, or basking +with them on the sunny ledges in the summer noon, or wandering in +the still bays on sultry nights amid the choir of Amphitrite and +her sea-nymphs:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Joining the bliss of the gods, as they +waken the coves with their laughter,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>in nightly revels, whereof one has sung,—</p> +<blockquote><p>“So they came up in their joy; and before +them the roll of the surges<br /> +Sank, as the breezes sank dead, into smooth green foam-flecked +marble<br /> +Awed; and the crags of the cliffs, and the pines of the +mountains, were silent.<br /> +So they came up in their joy, and around them the lamps of the +sea-nymphs,<br /> +Myriad fiery globes, swam heaving and panting, and rainbows,<br +/> +Crimson, and azure, and emerald, were broken in star-showers, +lighting,<br /> +Far in the wine-dark depths of the crystal, the gardens of +Nereus,<br /> +Coral, and sea-fan, and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the +ocean.<br /> +So they went on in their joy, more white than the foam which they +scattered,<br /> +Laughing and singing and tossing and twining; while, eager, the +Tritons<br /> +Blinded with kisses their eyes, unreproved, and above them in +worship<br /> +Fluttered the terns, and the sea-gulls swept past them on silvery +pinions,<br /> +Echoing softly their laughter; around them the wantoning +dolphins<br /> +Sighed as they plunged, full of love; and the great sea-horses +which bore them<br /> +Curved up their crests in their pride to the delicate arms of +their riders,<br /> +Pawing the spray into gems, till a fiery rainfall, unharming,<br +/> +Sparkled and gleamed on the limbs of the maids, and the coils of +the mermen.<br /> +So they went on in their joy, bathed round with the fiery +coolness,<br /> +Needing nor sun nor moon, self-lighted, immortal: but others,<br +/> +Pitiful, floated in silence apart; on their knees lay the +sea-boys<br /> +Whelmed by the roll of the surge, swept down by the anger of +Nereus;<br /> +Hapless, whom never again upon quay or strand shall their +mothers<br /> +Welcome with garlands and vows to the temples; but, wearily +pining,<br /> +Gaze over island and main for the sails which return not; they, +heedless,<br /> +Sleep in soft bosoms for ever, and dream of the surge and the +sea-maids.<br /> +So they passed by in their joy, like a dream, on the murmuring +ripple.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Such a rhapsody may be somewhat out of order, even in a +popular scientific book; and yet one cannot help at moments +envying the old Greek imagination, which could inform the +soulless sea-world with a human life and beauty. For, after +all, star-fishes and sea-anemones are dull substitutes for Sirens +and Tritons; the lamps of the sea-nymphs, those glorious +phosphorescent medusæ whose beauty Mr. Gosse sets forth so +well with pen and pencil, are not as attractive as the sea-nymphs +themselves would be; and who would not, like Menelaus, take the +grey old man of the sea himself asleep upon the rocks, rather +than one of his seal-herd, probably too with the same result as +the world-famous combat in the Antiquary, between Hector and +Phoca? And yet—is there no human interest in these +pursuits, more humanity and more divine, than there would be even +in those Triton and Nereid dreams, if realized to sight and +sense? Heaven forbid that those should say so, whose +wanderings among rock and pool have been mixed up with holiest +passages of friendship and of love, and the intercommunion of +equal minds and sympathetic hearts, and the laugh of children +drinking in health from every breeze and instruction at every +step, running ever and anon with proud delight to add their +little treasure to their parents’ stock, and of happy +friendly evenings spent over the microscope and the vase, in +examining, arranging, preserving, noting down in the diary the +wonders and the labours of the happy, busy day. No; such +short glimpses of the water-world as our present appliances +afford us are full enough of pleasure; and we will not envy +Glaucus: we will not even be over-anxious for the success of his +only modern imitator, the French naturalist who is reported to +have fitted himself with a waterproof dress and breathing +apparatus, in order to walk the bottom of the Mediterranean, and +see for himself how the world goes on at the fifty-fathom line: +we will be content with the wonders of the shore and of the +sea-floor, as far as the dredge will discover them to us. +We shall even thus find enough to occupy (if we choose) our +lifetime. For we must recollect that this hasty sketch has +hardly touched on that vegetable water-world, which is as +wonderful and as various as the animal one. A hint or two +of the beauty of the sea-weeds has been given; but space has +allowed no more. Yet we might have spent our time with +almost as much interest and profit, had we neglected utterly the +animals which we have found, and devoted our attention +exclusively to the flora of the rocks. Sea-weeds are no +mere playthings for children; and to buy at a shop some thirty +pretty kinds, pasted on paper, with long names (probably +mis-spelt) written under each, is not by any means to possess a +collection of them. Putting aside the number and the +obscurity of their species, the questions which arise in studying +their growth, reproduction, and organic chemistry are of the very +deepest and most important in the whole range of science; and it +will need but a little study of such a book as Harvey’s +“Algæ,” to show the wise man that he who has +comprehended (which no man yet does) the mystery of a single +spore or tissue-cell, has reached depths in the great +“Science of Life” at which an Owen would still +confess himself “blind by excess of light.” +“Knowest thou how the bones grow in the womb?” asks +the Jewish sage, sadly, half self-reprovingly, as he discovers +that man is not the measure of all things, and that in much +learning may be vanity and vexation of spirit, and in much study +a weariness of the flesh; and all our deeper physical science +only brings the same question more awfully near. +“Vilior algâ,” more worthless than the very +sea-weed, says the old Roman: and yet no torn scrap of that very +sea-weed, which to-morrow may manure the nearest garden, but says +to us, “Proud man! talking of spores and vesicles, if thou +darest for a moment to fancy that to have seen spores and +vesicles is to have seen <i>me</i>, or to know what I am, answer +this. Knowest thou how the bones do grow in the womb? +Knowest thou even how one of these tiny black dots, which thou +callest spores, grow on my fronds?” And to that +question what answer shall we make? We see tissues divide, +cells develop, processes go on—but How and Why? These are +but phenomena; but what are phenomena save effects? Causes, it +may be, of other effects; but still effects of other +causes. And why does the cause cause that effect? Why +should it not cause something else? Why should it cause +anything at all? Because it obeys a law. But why does it +obey the law? and how does it obey the law? And, after all, +what is a law? A mere custom of Nature. We see the +same phenomenon happen a great many times; and we infer from +thence that it has a custom of happening; and therefore we call +it a law: but we have not seen the law; all we have seen is the +phenomenon which we suppose to indicate the law. We have +seen things fall: but we never saw a little flying thing pulling +them down, with “gravitation” labelled on its back; +and the question, <i>why</i> things fall, and <i>how</i>, is just +where it was before Newton was born, and is likely to remain +there. All we can say is, that Nature has her customs, and +that other customs ensue, when those customs appear: but that as +to what connects cause and effect, as to what is the reason, the +final cause, or even the <i>causa causans</i>, of any phenomenon, +we know not more but less than ever; for those laws or customs +which seem to us simplest (“endosmose,” for instance, +or “gravitation”), are just the most inexplicable, +logically unexpected, seemingly arbitrary, certainly +supernatural—miraculous, if you will; for no natural and +physical cause whatsoever can be assigned for them; while if +anyone shall argue against their being miraculous and +supernatural on the ground of their being so common, I can only +answer, that of all absurd and illogical arguments, this is the +most so. For what has the number of times which the miracle +occurs to do with the question, save to increase the +wonder? Which is more strange, that an inexplicable and +unfathomable thing should occur once and for all, or that it +should occur a million times every day all the world over?</p> +<p>Let those, however, who are too proud to wonder, do as seems +good to them. Their want of wonder will not help them +toward the required explanation: and to them, as to us, as soon +as we begin asking, “<i>How</i>?” and +“<i>Why</i>?” the mighty Mother will only reply with +that magnificent smile of hers, most genial, but most silent, +which she has worn since the foundation of all worlds; that +silent smile which has tempted many a man to suspect her of +irony, even of deceit and hatred of the human race; the silent +smile which Solomon felt, and answered in +“Ecclesiastes;” which Goethe felt, and did not answer +in his “Faust;” which Pascal felt, and tried to +answer in his “Thoughts,” and fled from into +self-torture and superstition, terrified beyond his powers of +endurance, as he found out the true meaning of St. John’s +vision, and felt himself really standing on that fragile and +slippery “sea of glass,” and close beneath him the +bottomless abyss of doubt, and the nether fires of moral +retribution. He fled from Nature’s silent smile, as +that poor old King Edward (mis-called the Confessor) fled from +her hymns of praise, in the old legend of Havering-atte-bower, +when he cursed the nightingales because their songs confused him +in his prayers: but the wise man need copy neither, and fear +neither the silence nor the laughter of the mighty mother Earth, +if he will be but wise, and hear her tell him, alike in +both—“Why call me mother? Why ask me for knowledge +which I cannot teach, peace which I cannot give or take +away? I am only your foster-mother and your nurse—and +I have not been an unkindly one. But you are God’s +children, and not mine. Ask Him. I can amuse you with +my songs; but they are but a nurse’s lullaby to the weary +flesh. I can awe you with my silence; but my silence is +only my just humility, and your gain. How dare I pretend to +tell you secrets which He who made me knows alone? I am but +inanimate matter; why ask of me things which belong to living +spirit? In God I live and move, and have my being; I know +not how, any more than you know. Who will tell you what +life is, save He who is the Lord of life? And if He will +not tell you, be sure it is because you need not to know. +At least, why seek God in nature, the living among the +dead? He is not here: He is risen.”</p> +<p>He is not here: He is risen. Good reader, you will +probably agree that to know that saying, is to know the key-note +of the world to come. Believe me, to know it, and all it +means, is to know the keynote of this world also, from the fall +of dynasties and the fate of nations, to the sea-weed which rots +upon the beach.</p> +<p>It may seem startling, possibly (though I hope not, for my +readers’ sake, irreverent), to go back at once after such +thoughts, be they true or false, to the weeds upon the cliff +above our heads. But He who is not here, but is risen, yet +is here, and has appointed them their services in a wonderful +order; and I wish that on some day, or on many days, when a quiet +sea and offshore breezes have prevented any new objects from +coming to land with the rising tide, you would investigate the +flowers peculiar to our sea-rocks and sandhills. Even if +you do not find the delicate lily-like Trichonema of the Channel +Islands and Dawlish, or the almost as beautiful Squill of the +Cornish cliffs, or the sea-lavender of North Devon, or any of +those rare Mediterranean species which Mr. Johns has so +charmingly described in his “Week at the Lizard +Point,” yet an average cliff, with its carpeting of pink +thrift and of bladder catchfly, and Lady’s finger, and +elegant grasses, most of them peculiar to the sea marge, is often +a very lovely flower-bed.</p> +<p>Not merely interesting, too, but brilliant in their vegetation +are sandhills; and the seemingly desolate dykes and banks of salt +marshes will yield many a curious plant, which you may neglect if +you will: but lay to your account the having to repent your +neglect hereafter, when, finding out too late what a pleasant +study botany is, you search in vain for curious forms over which +you trod every day in crossing flats which seemed to you utterly +ugly and uninteresting, but which the good God was watching as +carefully as He did the pleasant hills inland: perhaps even more +carefully; for the uplands He has completed, and handed over to +man, that he may dress and keep them: but the tide-flats below +are still unfinished, dry land in the process of creation, to +which every tide is adding the elements of fertility, which shall +grow food, perhaps in some future state of our planet, for +generations yet unborn.</p> +<p>But to return to the water-world, and to dredging; which of +all sea-side pursuits is perhaps the most pleasant, combining as +it does fine weather sailing with the discovery of new objects, +to which, after all, the waifs and strays of the beach, whether +“flotsom jetsom, or lagand,” as the old Admiralty +laws define them, are few and poor. I say particularly fine +weather sailing; for a swell, which makes the dredge leap along +the bottom, instead of scraping steadily, is as fatal to sport as +it is to some people’s comfort. But dredging, if you +use a pleasure boat and the small naturalist’s dredge, is +an amusement in which ladies, if they will, may share, and which +will increase, and not interfere with, the amusements of a +water-party.</p> +<p>The naturalist’s dredge, of which Mr. Gosse’s +“Aquarium” gives a detailed account, should differ +from the common oyster dredge in being smaller; certainly not +more than four feet across the mouth; and instead of having but +one iron scraping-lip like the oyster dredge, it should have two, +one above and one below, so that it will work equally well on +whichsoever side it falls, or how often soever it may be turned +over by rough ground. The bag-net should be of strong +spunyarn, or (still better) of hide “such as those hides of +the wild cattle of the Pampas, which the tobacconists receive +from South America,” cut into thongs, and netted +close. It should be loosely laced together with a thong at +the tail edge in order to be opened easily, when brought on +board, without canting the net over, and pouring the contents +roughly out through the mouth. The dragging-rope should be +strong, and at least three times as long as the perpendicular +depth of the water in which you are working; if, indeed, there is +much breeze, or any swell at all, still more line should be +veered out. The inboard end should be made fast somewhere +in the stern sheets, the dredge hove to windward, the boat put +before the wind; and you may then amuse yourself as you will for +the next quarter of an hour, provided that you have got ready +various wide-mouthed bottles for the more delicate monsters, and +a couple of buckets, to receive the large lumps of oysters and +serpulæ which you will probably bring to the surface.</p> +<p>As for a dredging ground, one may be found, I suppose, off +every watering-place. The most fertile spots are in rough +ground, in not less than five fathoms water. The deeper the +water, the rarer and more interesting will the animals generally +be: but a greater depth than fifteen fathoms is not easily +reached on this side of Plymouth; and, on the whole, the beginner +will find enough in seven or eight fathoms to stock an aquarium +rivalling any of those in the “Tank-house” at the +Zoological Gardens.</p> +<p>In general, the south coast of England, to the eastward of +Portland, affords bad dredging ground. The friable cliffs, +of comparatively recent formations, keep the sea shallow, and the +bottom smooth and bare, by the vast deposits of sand and +gravel. Yet round the Isle of Wight, especially at the back +of the Needles, there ought to be fertile spots; and Weymouth, +according to Mr. Gosse and other well-known naturalists, is a +very garden of Nereus. Torbay, as may well be supposed, is +an admirable dredging spot; perhaps its two best points are round +the isolated Thatcher and Oare-rock, and from the mouth of +Brixham harbour to Berry Head; along which last line, for perhaps +three hundred years, the decks of all Brixham trawlers have been +washed down ere running into harbour, and the sea-bottom thus +stored with treasures scraped up from deeper water in every +direction for miles and miles.</p> +<p>Hastings is, I fear, but a poor spot for dredging. Its +friable cliffs and strong tides produce a changeable and barren +sea-floor. Yet the immense quantities of Flustra thrown up +after a storm indicate dredging ground at no great distance +outside; its rocks, uninteresting as they are compared with our +Devonians, have yielded to the industry and science of M. +Tumanowicz a vast number of sea-weeds and sponges. Those +three curious polypes, Valkeria cuscuta (Plate I. fig. 3), +Notamia Bursaria, and Serialaria Lendigera, abound within +tide-marks; and as the place is so much visited by Londoners, it +may be worth while to give a few hints as to what might be done, +by anyone whose curiosity has been excited by the salt-water +tanks of the Zoological Gardens and the Crystal Palace.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image163" href="images/p163b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Plate 11: Syngnathus Lumbriciformis etc." +title= +"Plate 11: Syngnathus Lumbriciformis etc." + src="images/p163s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>An hour or two’s dredging round the rocks to the +eastward, would probably yield many delicate and brilliant little +fishes; Gobies, brilliant Labri, blue, yellow, and orange, with +tiny rabbit mouths, and powerful protruding teeth; pipe fishes +(Syngnathi) <a name="citation163"></a><a href="#footnote163" +class="citation">[163]</a> with strange snipe-bills (which they +cannot open) and snake-like bodies; small cuttlefish +(Sepiolæ) of a white jelly mottled with brilliant metallic +hues, with a ring of suckered arms round their tiny +parrots’ beaks, who, put into a jar, will hover and dart in +the water, as the skylark does in air, by rapid winnowings of +their glassy side-fins, while they watch you with bright +lizard-eyes; the whole animal being a combination of the +vertebrate and the mollusc, so utterly fantastic and abnormal, +that (had not the family been amongst the commonest, from the +earliest geological epochs) it would have seemed, to man’s +deductive intellect, a form almost as impossible as the mermaid, +far more impossible than the sea-serpent. These, and +perhaps a few handsome sea-slugs and bivalve shells, you will be +pretty sure to find: perhaps a great deal more.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, without dredging, you may find a good deal on the +shore. In the spring Doris bilineata comes to the rocks in +thousands, to lay its strange white furbelows of spawn upon their +overhanging edges. Eolides of extraordinary beauty haunt +the same spots. The great Eolis papillosa, of a delicate +French grey; Eolis pellucida (?) (Plate X. fig. 4), in which each +papilla on the back is beautifully coloured with a streak of +pink, and tipped with iron blue; and a most fantastical yellow +little creature, so covered with plumes and tentacles that the +body is invisible, which I believe to be the Idalia aspersa of +Alder and Hancock.</p> +<p>At the bottom of the rock pools, behind St. Leonard’s +baths, may be found hundreds of the snipe’s feather Anemone +(Sagartia troglodytes), of every line; from the common brown and +grey snipe’s feather kind, to the white-horned Hesperus, +the orange-horned Aurora, and a rich lilac and crimson variety, +which does not seem to agree with either the Lilacinia or +Rubicunda of Gosse. A more beautiful living bouquet could +hardly be seen, than might be made of the varieties of this +single species, from this one place.</p> +<p>On the outside sands between the end of the Marina and the +Martello tower, you may find, at very low tides, great numbers of +a sand-tube, about three inches long, standing up out of the +sand. I do not mean the tubes of the Terebella, so common +in all sands, which are somewhat flexible, and have their upper +end fringed with a ragged ring of sandy arms: those I speak of +are straight and stiff, and ending in a point upward. Draw +them out of the sand—they will offer some +resistance—and put them into a vase of water; you will see +the worm inside expand two delicate golden combs, just like +old-fashioned back-hair combs, of a metallic lustre, which will +astonish you. With these combs the worm seems to burrow +head downward into the sand; but whether he always remains in +that attitude I cannot say. His name is Pectinaria +Belgica. He is an Annelid, or true worm, connected with the +Serpulea and Sabellæ of which I have spoken already, and +holds himself in his case like them, by hooks and bristles set on +each ring of his body. In confinement he will probably come +out of his case and die; when you may dissect him at your +leisure, and learn a great deal more about him thereby than (I am +sorry to say) I know.</p> +<p>But if you have courage to run out fifteen or twenty miles to +the Diamond, you may find really rare and valuable animals. +There is a risk, of course, of being blown over to the coast of +France, by a change of wind; there is a risk also of not being +able to land at night on the inhospitable Hastings beach, and of +sleeping, as best you can, on board: but in the long days and +settled fine weather of summer, the trip, in a stout boat, ought +to be a safe and a pleasant one.</p> +<p>On the Diamond you will find many, or most of those gay +creatures which attract your eye in the central row of tanks at +the Zoological Gardens: great twisted masses of Serpulæ, <a +name="citation167"></a><a href="#footnote167" +class="citation">[167]</a> those white tubes of stone, from the +mouth of which protrude pairs of rose-coloured or orange fans, +flashing in, quick as light, the moment that your finger +approaches them or your shadow crosses the water.</p> +<p>You will dredge, too, the twelve-rayed sun-star (Solaster +papposa), with his rich scarlet armour; and more strange, and +quite as beautiful, the bird’s foot star (Palmipes +membranaceus), which you may see crawling by its thousand +sucking-feet in the Crystal Palace tanks, a pentagonal webbed +bird’s foot, of scarlet and orange shagreen. With +him, most probably, will be a specimen of the great purple +heart-urchin (Spatangus purpureus), clothed in pale lilac horny +spines, and other Echinoderms, for which you must consult +Forbes’s “British Star-fishes:” but perhaps the +species among them which will interest you most, will be the +common brittle-star (Ophiocoma rosula), of which a hundred or so, +I can promise, shall come up at a single haul of the dredge, +entwining their long spine-clad arms in a seemingly inextricable +confusion of “kaleidoscope” patterns (thanks to Mr. +Gosse for the one right epithet), purple and azure, fawn, brown, +green, grey, white and crimson; as if a whole bed of China-asters +should have first come to life, and then gone mad, and fallen to +fighting. But pick out, one by one, specimens from the +tangled mass, and you will agree that no China-aster is so fair +as this living stone-flower of the deep, with its daisy-like +disc, and fine long prickly arms, which never cease their +graceful serpentine motion, and its colours hardly alike in any +two specimens. Handle them not, meanwhile, too roughly, +lest, whether modesty or in anger, they begin a desperate course +of gradual suicide, and, breaking off arm after arm piecemeal, +fling them indignantly at their tormentor. Along with these +you will certainly obtain a few of that fine bivalve, the great +Scallop, which you have seen lying on every fishmonger’s +counter in Hastings. Of these you must pick out those which +seem dirtiest and most overgrown with parasites, and place them +carefully in a jar of salt water, where they may not be rubbed; +for they are worth your examination, not merely for the sake of +that ring of gem-like eyes which borders their +“cloak,” lying along the extreme out edge of the +shell as the valves are half open, but for the sake of the +parasites outside: corallines of exquisite delicacy, +Plumulariæ and Sertulariæ, dead men’s hands +(Alcyonia), lumps of white or orange jelly, which will protrude a +thousand star-like polypes, and the Tubularia indivisa, twisted +tubes of fine straw, which ought already to have puzzled you; for +you may pick them up in considerable masses on the Hastings beach +after a south-west gale, and think long over them before you +determine whether the oat-like stems and spongy roots belong to +an animal, or a vegetable. Animals they are, nevertheless, +though even now you will hardly guess the fact, when you see at +the mouth of each tube a little scarlet flower, connected with +the pink pulp which fills the tube. For a further +description of this largest and handsomest of our Hydroid +Polypes, I must refer you to Johnston, or, failing him, to +Landsborough; and go on, to beg you not to despise those pink, or +grey, or white lumps of jelly, which will expand in salt water +into exquisite sea-anemones, of quite different forms from any +which we have found along the rocks. One of them will +certainly be the Dianthus, <a name="citation170"></a><a +href="#footnote170" class="citation">[170]</a> which will open +into a furbelowed flower, furred with innumerable delicate +tentacula; and in the centre a mouth of the most delicate orange, +the size of the whole animal being perhaps eight inches high and +five across. Perhaps it will be of a satiny grey, perhaps +pale rose, perhaps pure white; whatever its colour, it is the +very maiden queen of all the beautiful tribe, and one of the +loveliest gems with which it has pleased God to bedeck this lower +world.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image168" href="images/p168b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Plate 7: Echinus Miliaris etc." +title= +"Plate 7: Echinus Miliaris etc." + src="images/p168s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>These and much more you will find on the scallops, or even +more plentifully on any lump of ancient oysters; and if you do +not dredge, it would be well worth your while to make interest +with the fish-monger for a few oyster lumps, put into water the +moment they are taken out of the trawl. Divide them +carefully, clear out the oysters with a knife, and put the shells +into your aquarium, and you will find that an oyster at home is a +very different thing from an oyster on a stall.</p> +<p>You ought, besides, to dredge many handsome species of shells, +which you would never pick up along the beach; and if you are +conchologizing in earnest, you must not forget to bring home a +tin box of shell sand, to be washed and picked over in a dish at +your leisure, or forget either to wash through a fine sieve, over +the boat’s side, any sludge and ooze which the dredge +brings up. Many—I may say, hundreds—rare and +new shells are found in this way, and in no other.</p> +<p>But if you cannot afford the expense of your own dredge and +boat, and the time and trouble necessary to follow the occupation +scientifically, yet every trawler and oyster-boat will afford you +a tolerable satisfaction. Go on board one of these; and +while the trawl is down, spend a pleasant hour or two in talking +with the simple, honest, sturdy fellows who work it, from whom +(if you are as fortunate as I have been for many a year past) you +may get many a moving story of danger and sorrow, as well as many +a shrewd practical maxim, and often, too, a living recognition of +God, and the providence of God, which will send you home, +perhaps, a wiser and more genial man. And when the trawl is +hauled, wait till the fish are counted out, and packed away, and +then kneel down and inspect (in a pair of Mackintosh leggings, +and your oldest coat) the crawling heap of shells and zoophytes +which remains behind about the decks, and you will find, if a +landsman, enough to occupy you for a week to come. Nay, +even if it be too calm for trawling, condescend to go out in a +dingy, and help to haul some honest fellow’s deep-sea lines +and lobster-pots, and you will find more and stranger things +about them than even fish or lobsters: though they, to him who +has eyes to see, are strange enough.</p> +<p>I speak from experience; for it was not so very long ago that, +in the north of Devon, I found sermons, not indeed in stones, but +in a creature reputed among the most worthless of +sea-vermin. I had been lounging about all the morning on +the little pier, waiting, with the rest of the village, for a +trawling breeze which would not come. Two o’clock was +past, and still the red mainsails of the skiffs hung motionless, +and their images quivered head downwards in the glassy swell,</p> +<blockquote><p>“As idle as a painted ship<br /> +Upon a painted ocean.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It was neap-tide, too, and therefore nothing could be done +among the rocks. So, in despair, finding an old coast-guard +friend starting for his lobster-pots, I determined to save the +old man’s arms, by rowing him up the shore; and then +paddled homeward again, under the high green northern wall, five +hundred feet of cliff furred to the water’s edge with rich +oak woods, against whose base the smooth Atlantic swell died +whispering, as if curling itself up to sleep at last within that +sheltered nook, tired with its weary wanderings. The sun +sank lower and lower behind the deer-park point; the white stair +of houses up the glen was wrapped every moment deeper and deeper +in hazy smoke and shade, as the light faded; the evening fires +were lighted one by one; the soft murmur of the waterfall, and +the pleasant laugh of children, and the splash of homeward oars, +came clearer and clearer to the ear at every stroke: and as we +rowed on, arose the recollection of many a brave and wise friend, +whose lot was cast in no such western paradise, but rather in the +infernos of this sinful earth, toiling even then amid the +festering alleys of Bermondsey and Bethnal Green, to palliate +death and misery which they had vainly laboured to prevent, +watching the strides of that very cholera which they had been +striving for years to ward off, now re-admitted in spite of all +their warnings, by the carelessness, and laziness, and greed of +sinful man. And as I thought over the whole hapless +question of sanitary reform, proved long since a moral duty to +God and man, possible, easy, even pecuniarily profitable, and yet +left undone, there seemed a sublime irony, most humbling to man, +in some of Nature’s processes, and in the silent and +unobtrusive perfection with which she has been taught to +anticipate, since the foundation of the world, some of the +loftiest discoveries of modern science, of which we are too apt +to boast as if we had created the method by discovering its +possibility. Created it? Alas for the pride of human +genius, and the autotheism which would make man the measure of +all things, and the centre of the universe! All the +invaluable laws and methods of sanitary reform at best are but +clumsy imitations of the unseen wonders which every animalcule +and leaf have been working since the world’s foundation; +with this slight difference between them and us, that they fulfil +their appointed task, and we do not.</p> +<p>The sickly geranium which spreads its blanched leaves against +the cellar panes, and peers up, as if imploringly, to the narrow +slip of sunlight at the top of the narrow alley, had it a voice, +could tell more truly than ever a doctor in the town, why little +Bessy sickened of the scarlatina, and little Johnny of the +hooping-cough, till the toddling wee things who used to pet and +water it were carried off each and all of them one by one to the +churchyard sleep, while the father and mother sat at home, trying +to supply by gin that very vital energy which fresh air and pure +water, and the balmy breath of woods and heaths, were made by God +to give; and how the little geranium did its best, like a +heaven-sent angel, to right the wrong which man’s ignorance +had begotten, and drank in, day by day, the poisoned atmosphere, +and formed it into fair green leaves, and breathed into the +children’s faces from every pore, whenever they bent over +it, the life-giving oxygen for which their dulled blood and +festered lungs were craving in vain; fulfilling God’s will +itself, though man would not, too careless or too covetous to +see, after thousands of years of boasted progress, why God had +covered the earth with grass, herb, and tree, a living and +life-giving garment of perpetual health and youth.</p> +<p>It is too sad to think long about, lest we become very +Heraclituses. Let us take the other side of the matter with +Democritus, try to laugh man out of a little of his boastful +ignorance and self-satisfied clumsiness, and tell him, that if +the House of Commons would but summon one of the little Paramecia +from any Thames’ sewer-mouth, to give his evidence before +their next Cholera Committee, sanitary blue-books, invaluable as +they are, would be superseded for ever and a day; and sanitary +reformers would no longer have to confess, that they know of no +means of stopping the smells which in past hot summers drove the +members out of the House, and the judges out of Westminster +Hall.</p> +<p>Nay, in the boat at the minute of which I have been speaking, +silent and neglected, sat a fellow-passenger, who was a greater +adept at removing nuisances than the whole Board of Health put +together; and who had done his work, too, with a cheapness +unparalleled; for all his good deeds had not as yet cost the +State one penny. True, he lived by his business; so do +other inspectors of nuisances: but Nature, instead of paying Maia +Squinado, Esquire, some five hundred pounds sterling per annum +for his labour, had contrived, with a sublime simplicity of +economy which Mr. Hume might have envied and admired afar off, to +make him do his work gratis, by giving him the nuisances as his +perquisites, and teaching him how to eat them. Certainly +(without going the length of the Caribs, who upheld cannibalism +because, they said, it made war cheap, and precluded entirely the +need of a commissariat), this cardinal virtue of cheapness ought +to make Squinado an interesting object in the eyes of the present +generation; especially as he was at that moment a true sanitary +martyr, having, like many of his human fellow-workers, got into a +fearful scrape by meddling with those existing interests, and +“vested rights which are but vested wrongs,” which +have proved fatal already to more than one Board of Health. +For last night, as he was sitting quietly under a stone in four +fathoms water, he became aware (whether by sight, smell, or that +mysterious sixth sense, to us unknown, which seems to reside in +his delicate feelers) of a palpable nuisance somewhere in the +neighbourhood; and, like a trusty servant of the public, turned +out of his bed instantly and went in search; till he discovered, +hanging among what he judged to be the stems of ore-weed +(Laminaria), three or four large pieces of stale thornback, of +most evil savour, and highly prejudicial to the purity of the +sea, and the health of the neighbouring herrings. Happy +Squinado! He needed not to discover the limits of his +authority, to consult any lengthy Nuisances’ Removal Act, +with its clauses, and counter-clauses, and explanations of +interpretations, and interpretations of explanations. +Nature, who can afford to be arbitrary, because she is perfect, +and to give her servants irresponsible powers, because she has +trained them to their work, had bestowed on him and on his +forefathers, as general health inspectors, those very summary +powers of entrance and removal in the watery realms for which +common sense, public opinion, and private philanthropy are still +entreating vainly in the terrestrial realms; so finding a hole, +in he went, and began to remove the nuisance, without +“waiting twenty-four hours,” “laying an +information,” “serving a notice,” or any other +vain delay. The evil was there,—and there it should +not stay; so having neither cart nor barrow, he just began +putting it into his stomach, and in the meanwhile set his +assistants to work likewise. For suppose not, gentle +reader, that Squinado went alone; in his train were more than a +hundred thousand as good as he, each in his office, and as +cheaply paid; who needed no cumbrous baggage train of +force-pumps, hose, chloride of lime packets, whitewash, pails or +brushes, but were every man his own instrument; and, to save +expense of transit, just grew on Squinado’s back. Do +you doubt the assertion? Then lift him up hither, and +putting him gently into that shallow jar of salt water, look at +him through the hand-magnifier, and see how Nature is maxima in +minimis.</p> +<p>There he sits, twiddling his feelers (a substitute, it seems, +with crustacea for biting their nails when they are puzzled), and +by no means lovely to look on in vulgar eyes;—about the +bigness of a man’s fist; a round-bodied, spindle-shanked, +crusty, prickly, dirty fellow, with a villanous squint, too, in +those little bony eyes, which never look for a moment both the +same way. Never mind: many a man of genius is ungainly +enough; and Nature, if you will observe, as if to make up to him +for his uncomeliness, has arrayed him as Solomon in all his glory +never was arrayed, and so fulfilled one of the proposals of old +Fourier—that scavengers, chimney-sweeps, and other workers +in disgusting employments, should be rewarded for their +self-sacrifice in behalf of the public weal by some peculiar +badge of honour, or laurel crown. Not that his crown, like +those of the old Greek games, is a mere useless badge; on the +contrary, his robe of state is composed of his +fellow-servants. His whole back is covered with a little +grey forest of branching hairs, fine as a spider’s web, +each branchlet carrying its little pearly ringed club, each club +its rose-coloured polype, like (to quote Mr. Gosse’s +comparison) the unexpanded birds of the acacia. <a +name="citation181a"></a><a href="#footnote181a" +class="citation">[181a]</a></p> +<p>On that leg grows, amid another copse of the grey polypes, a +delicate straw-coloured Sertularia, branch on branch of tiny +double combs, each tooth of the comb being a tube containing a +living flower; on another leg another Sertularia, coarser, but +still beautiful; and round it again has trained itself, parasitic +on the parasite, plant upon plant of glass ivy, bearing crystal +bells, <a name="citation181b"></a><a href="#footnote181b" +class="citation">[181b]</a> each of which, too, protrudes its +living flower; on another leg is a fresh species, like a little +heather-bush of whitest ivory, <a name="citation182"></a><a +href="#footnote182" class="citation">[182]</a> and every needle +leaf a polype cell—let us stop before the imagination grows +dizzy with the contemplation of those myriads of beautiful +atomies. And what is their use? Each living flower, +each polype mouth is feeding fast, sweeping into itself, by the +perpetual currents caused by the delicate fringes upon its rays +(so minute these last, that their motion only betrays their +presence), each tiniest atom of decaying matter in the +surrounding water, to convert it, by some wondrous alchemy, into +fresh cells and buds, and either build up a fresh branch in their +thousand-tenanted tree, or form an egg-cell, from whence when +ripe may issue, not a fixed zoophyte, but a free swimming +animal.</p> +<p>And in the meanwhile, among this animal forest grows a +vegetable one of delicatest sea-weeds, green and brown and +crimson, whose office is, by their everlasting breath, to +reoxygenate the impure water, and render it fit once more to be +breathed by the higher animals who swim or creep around.</p> +<p>Mystery of mysteries! Let us jest no more,—Heaven +forgive us if we have jested too much on so simple a matter as +that poor spider-crab, taken out of the lobster-pots, and left to +die at the bottom of the boat, because his more aristocratic +cousins of the blue and purple armour will not enter the trap +while he is within.</p> +<p>I am not aware whether the surmise, that these tiny zoophytes +help to purify the water by exhaling oxygen gas, has yet been +verified. The infusorial animalcules do so, reversing the +functions of animal life, and instead of evolving carbonic acid +gas, as other animals do, evolve pure oxygen. So, at least, +says Liebig, who states that he found a small piece of matchwood, +just extinguished, burst out again into a flame on being immersed +in the bubbles given out by these living atomies.</p> +<p>I myself should be inclined to doubt that this is the case +with zoophytes, having found water in which they were growing +(unless, of course, sea-weeds were present) to be peculiarly +ready to become foul; but it is difficult to say whether this is +owing to their deoxygenating the water while alive, like other +animals, or to the fact that it is very rare to get a specimen of +zoophyte in which a large number of the polypes have not been +killed in the transit home, or at least so far knocked about, +that (in the Anthozoa, which are far the most abundant) the +polype—or rather living mouth, for it is little +more—is thrown off to decay, pending the growth of a fresh +one in the same cell.</p> +<p>But all the sea-weeds, in common with other vegetables, +perform this function continually, and thus maintain the water in +which they grow in a state fit to support animal life.</p> +<p>This fact—first advanced by Priestley and Ingenhousz, +and though doubted by the great Ellis, satisfactorily ascertained +by Professor Daubeny, Mr. Ward, Dr. Johnston, and Mr. +Warrington—gives an answer to the question, which I hope +has ere now arisen in the minds of some of my readers,—</p> +<p>How is it possible to see these wonders at home? +Beautiful and instructive as they may be, can they be meant for +any but dwellers by the sea-side? Nay more, even to them, +must not the glories of the water-world be always more momentary +than those of the rainbow, a mere Fata Morgana which breaks up +and vanishes before the eyes? If there were but some method of +making a miniature sea-world for a few days; much more of keeping +one with us when far inland.—</p> +<p>This desideratum has at last been filled up; and science has +shown, as usual, that by simply obeying Nature, we may conquer +her, even so far as to have our miniature sea, of artificial +salt-water, filled with living plants and sea-weeds, maintaining +each other in perfect health, and each following, as far as is +possible in a confined space, its natural habits.</p> +<p>To Dr. Johnston is due, as far as is known, the honour of the +first accomplishment of this as of a hundred other zoological +triumphs. As early as 1842, he proved to himself the +vegetable nature of the common pink Coralline, which fringes +every rock-pool, by keeping it for eight weeks in unchanged +salt-water, without any putrefaction ensuing. The ground, +of course, on which the proof rested in this case was, that if +the coralline were, as had often been thought, a zoophyte, the +water would become corrupt, and poisonous to the life of the +small animals in the same jar; and that its remaining fresh +argued that the coralline had re-oxygenated it from time to time, +and was therefore a vegetable.</p> +<p>In 1850, Mr. Robert Warrington communicated to the Chemical +Society the results of a year’s experiments, “On the +Adjustment of the Relations between the Animal and Vegetable +Kingdoms, by which the Vital Functions of both are permanently +maintained.” The law which his experiments verified +was the same as that on which Mr. Ward, in 1842, founded his +invaluable proposal for increasing the purity of the air in large +towns, by planting trees and cultivating flowers in rooms, +<i>that the animal and vegetable respirations might +counterbalance each other</i>; the animal’s blood being +purified by the oxygen given off by the plants, the plants fed by +the carbonic acid breathed out by the animals.</p> +<p>On the same principle, Mr. Warrington first kept, for many +months, in a vase of unchanged water, two small gold fish and a +plant of Vallisneria spiralis; and two years afterwards began a +similar experiment with sea-water, weeds, and anemones, which +were, at last, as successful as the former ones. Mr. Gosse +had, in the meanwhile, with tolerable success begun a similar +method, unaware of what Mr. Warrington had done; and now the +beautiful and curious exhibition of fresh and salt water tanks in +the Zoological Gardens in London, bids fair to be copied in every +similar institution, and we hope in many private houses, +throughout the kingdom.</p> +<p>To this subject Mr. Gosse’s book, “The +Aquarium,” is principally devoted, though it contains, +besides, sketches of coast scenery, in his usual charming style, +and descriptions of rare sea-animals, with wise and goodly +reflections thereon. One great object of interest in the +book is the last chapter, which treats fully of the making and +stocking these salt-water “Aquaria;” and the various +beautifully coloured plates, which are, as it were, sketches from +the interior of tanks, are well fitted to excite the desire of +all readers to possess such gorgeous living pictures, if as +nothing else, still as drawing-room ornaments, flower-gardens +which never wither, fairy lakes of perpetual calm which no storm +blackens,—</p> +<blockquote><p>οὐτ’ ἐν +θέρει, οὐτ’ +ἐν ὁπώρῃ.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Those who have never seen one of them can never imagine (and +neither Mr. Gosse’s pencil nor my clumsy words can ever +describe to them) the gorgeous colouring and the grace and +delicacy of form which these subaqueous landscapes exhibit.</p> +<p>As for colouring,—the only bit of colour which I can +remember even faintly resembling them (for though +Correggio’s Magdalene may rival them in greens and blues, +yet even he has no such crimsons and purples) is the Adoration of +the Shepherds, by that “prince of +colorists”—Palma Vecchio, which hangs on the +left-hand side of Lord Ellesmere’s great gallery. But +as for the forms,—where shall we see their like? +Where, amid miniature forests as fantastic as those of the +tropics, animals whose shapes outvie the wildest dreams of the +old German ghost painters which cover the walls of the galleries +of Brussels or Antwerp? And yet the uncouthest has some +quaint beauty of its own, while most—the star-fishes and +anemones, for example—are nothing but beauty. The +brilliant plates in Mr. Gosse’s “Aquarium” +give, after all, but a meagre picture of the reality, as it may +be seen in the tank-house at the Zoological Gardens; and as it +may be seen also, by anyone who will follow carefully the +directions given at the end of his book, stock a glass vase with +such common things as he may find in an hour’s search at +low tide, and so have an opportunity of seeing how truly Mr. +Gosse says, in his valuable preface, that—</p> +<p>“The habits” (and he might well have added, the +marvellous beauty) “of animals will never be thoroughly +known till they are observed in detail. Nor is it +sufficient to mark them with attention now and then; they must be +closely watched, their various actions carefully noted, their +behaviour under different circumstances, and especially those +movements which seem to us mere vagaries, undirected by any +suggestible motive or cause, well examined. A rich fruit of +result, often new and curious and unexpected, will, I am sure, +reward anyone who studies living animals in this way. The +most interesting parts, by far, of published Natural History are +those minute, but graphic particulars, which have been gathered +up by an attentive watching of individual animals.”</p> +<p>Mr. Gosse’s own books, certainly, give proof enough of +this. We need only direct the reader to his exquisitely +humorous account of the ways and works of a captive soldier-crab, +<a name="citation190"></a><a href="#footnote190" +class="citation">[190]</a> to show them how much there is to be +seen, and how full Nature is also of that ludicrous element of +which we spoke above. And, indeed, it is in this form of +Natural History: not in mere classification, and the finding out +of means, and quarrellings as to the first discovery of that +beetle or this buttercup,—too common, alas! among mere +closet-collectors,—“endless genealogies,” to +apply St. Paul’s words by no means irreverently or +fancifully, “which do but gender strife;”—not +in these pedantries is that moral training to be found, for which +we have been lauding the study of Natural History: but in +healthful walks and voyages out of doors, and in careful and +patient watching of the living animals and plants at home, with +an observation sharpened by practice, and a temper calmed by the +continual practice of the naturalist’s first +virtues—patience and perseverance.</p> +<p>Practical directions for forming an “Aquarium” may +be found in Mr. Gosse’s book bearing that name, at pp. 101, +255, <i>et seq.</i>; and those who wish to carry out the notion +thoroughly, cannot do better than buy his book, and take their +choice of the many different forms of vase, with rockwork, +fountains, and other pretty devices which he describes.</p> +<p>But the many, even if they have Mr. Gosse’s book, will +be rather inclined to begin with a small attempt; especially as +they are probably half sceptical of the possibility of keeping +sea-animals inland without changing the water. A few simple +directions, therefore, will not come amiss here. They shall +be such as anyone can put into practice, who goes down to stay in +a lodging-house at the most cockney of watering-places.</p> +<p>Buy at any glass-shop a cylindrical glass jar, some six inches +in diameter and ten high, which will cost you from three to four +shillings; wash it clean, and fill it with clean salt-water, +dipped out of any pool among the rocks, only looking first to see +that there is no dead fish or other evil matter in the said pool, +and that no stream from the land runs into it. If you +choose to take the trouble to dip up the water over a +boat’s side, so much the better.</p> +<p>So much for your vase; now to stock it.</p> +<p>Go down at low spring-tide to the nearest ledge of rocks, and +with a hammer and chisel chip off a few pieces of stone covered +with growing sea-weed. Avoid the common and coarser kinds +(fuci) which cover the surface of the rocks; for they give out +under water a slime which will foul your tank: but choose the +more delicate species which fringe the edges of every pool at +low-water mark; the pink coralline, the dark purple ragged dulse +(Rhodymenia), the Carrageen moss (Chondrus), and above all, the +commonest of all, the delicate green Ulva, which you will see +growing everywhere in wrinkled fan-shaped sheets, as thin as the +finest silver-paper. The smallest bits of stone are +sufficient, provided the sea-weeds have hold of them; for they +have no real roots, but adhere by a small disc, deriving no +nourishment from the rock, but only from the water. Take +care, meanwhile, that there be as little as possible on the +stone, beside the weed itself. Especially scrape off any +small sponges, and see that no worms have made their twining +tubes of sand among the weed-stems; if they have, drag them out; +for they will surely die, and as surely spoil all by sulphuretted +hydrogen, blackness, and evil smells.</p> +<p>Put your weeds into your tank, and settle them at the bottom; +which last, some say, should be covered with a layer of pebbles: +but let the beginner leave it as bare as possible; for the +pebbles only tempt cross-grained annelids to crawl under them, +die, and spoil all by decaying: whereas if the bottom of the vase +is bare, you can see a sickly or dead inhabitant at once, and +take him out (which you must do) instantly. Let your weeds +stand quietly in the vase a day or two before you put in any live +animals; and even then, do not put any in if the water does not +appear perfectly clear: but lift out the weeds, and renew the +water ere you replace them.</p> +<p>This is Mr. Gosse’s method. But Mr. Lloyd, in his +“Handbook to the Crystal Palace Aquarium,” advises +that no weed should be put into the tank. “It is +better,” he says, “to depend only on those which +gradually and naturally appear on the rocks of the aquarium by +the action of light, and which answer every chemical +purpose.” I should advise anyone intending to set up +an aquarium, however small, to study what Mr. Lloyd says on this +matter in pp. 17–19, and also in page 30, of his pamphlet; +and also to go to the Crystal Palace Aquarium, and there see for +himself the many beautiful species of sea-weeds which have +appeared spontaneously in the tanks from unsuspected spores +floating in the sea-water. On the other hand, Mr. Lloyd +lays much stress on the necessity of aërating the water, by +keeping it in perpetual motion; a process not easy to be carried +out in small aquaria; at least to that perfection which has been +attained at the Crystal Palace, where the water is kept in +continual circulation by steam-power. For a jar-aquarium, +it will be enough to drive fresh air through the water every day, +by means of a syringe.</p> +<p>Now for the live stock. In the crannies of every rock +you will find sea-anemones (Actiniæ); and a dozen of these +only will be enough to convert your little vase into the most +brilliant of living flower-gardens. There they hang upon +the under side of the ledges, apparently mere rounded lumps of +jelly: one is of dark purple dotted with green; another of a rich +chocolate; another of a delicate olive; another sienna-yellow; +another all but white. Take them from their rock; you can +do it easily by slipping under them your finger-nail, or the edge +of a pewter spoon. Take care to tear the sucking base as +little as possible (though a small rent they will darn for +themselves in a few days, easily enough), and drop them into a +basket of wet sea-weed; when you get home turn them into a dish +full of water and leave them for the night, and go to look at +them to-morrow. What a change! The dull lumps of +jelly have taken root and flowered during the night, and your +dish is filled from side to side with a bouquet of +chrysanthemums; each has expanded into a hundred-petalled flower, +crimson, pink, purple, or orange; touch one, and it shrinks +together like a sensitive plant, displaying at the root of the +petals a ring of brilliant turquoise beads. That is the +commonest of all the Actiniæ (Mesembryanthemum); you may +have him when and where you will: but if you will search those +rocks somewhat closer, you will find even more gorgeous species +than him. See in that pool some dozen large ones, in full +bloom, and quite six inches across, some of them. If their +cousins whom we found just now were like Chrysanthemums, these +are like quilled Dahlias. Their arms are stouter and +shorter in proportion than those of the last species, but their +colour is equally brilliant. One is a brilliant blood-red; +another a delicate sea-blue striped with pink; but most have the +disc and the innumerable arms striped and ringed with various +shades of grey and brown. Shall we get them? By all +means if we can. Touch one. Where is he now? +Gone? Vanished into air, or into stone? Not +quite. You see that knot of sand and broken shell lying on +the rock, where your Dahlia was one moment ago. Touch it, +and you will find it leathery and elastic. That is all +which remains of the live Dahlia. Never mind; get your +finger into the crack under him, work him gently but firmly out, +and take him home, and he will be as happy and as gorgeous as +ever to-morrow.</p> +<p>Let your Actiniæ stand for a day or two in the dish, and +then, picking out the liveliest and handsomest, detach them once +more from their hold, drop them into your vase, right them with a +bit of stick, so that the sucking base is downwards, and leave +them to themselves thenceforth.</p> +<p>These two species (Mesembryanthemum and Crassicornis) are +quite beautiful enough to give a beginner amusement: but there +are two others which are not uncommon, and of such exceeding +loveliness, that it is worth while to take a little trouble to +get them. The one is Dianthus, which I have already +mentioned; the other Bellis, the sea-daisy, of which there is an +excellent description and plates in Mr. Gosse’s +“Rambles in Devon,” pp. 24 to 32.</p> +<p>It is common at Ilfracombe, and at Torquay; and indeed +everywhere where there are cracks and small holes in limestone or +slate rock. In these holes it fixes its base, and expands +its delicate brown-grey star-like flowers on the surface: but it +must be chipped out with hammer and chisel, at the expense of +much dirt and patience; for the moment it is touched it contracts +deep into the rock, and all that is left of the daisy flower, +some two or three inches across, is a blue knot of half the size +of a marble. But it will expand again, after a day or two +of captivity, and will repay all the trouble which it has +cost. Troglodytes may be found, as I have said already, in +hundreds at Hastings, in similar situations to that of Bellis; +its only token, when the tide is down, being a round dimple in +the muddy sand which firs the lower cracks of rocks.</p> +<p>But you will want more than these anemones, both for your own +amusement, and for the health of your tank. Microscopic +animals will breed, and will also die; and you need for them some +such scavenger as our poor friend Squinado, to whom you were +introduced a few pages back. Turn, then, a few stones which +lie piled on each other at extreme low-water mark, and five +minutes’ search will give you the very animal you +want,—a little crab, of a dingy russet above, and on the +under side like smooth porcelain. His back is quite flat, +and so are his large angular fringed claws, which, when he folds +them up, lie in the same plane with his shell, and fit neatly +into its edges. Compact little rogue that he is, made +especially for sidling in and out of cracks and crannies, he +carries with him such an apparatus of combs and brushes as Isidor +or Floris never dreamed of; with which he sweeps out of the +sea-water at every moment shoals of minute animalcules, and sucks +them into his tiny mouth. Mr. Gosse will tell you more of +this marvel, in his “Aquarium,” p. 48.</p> +<p>Next, your sea-weeds, if they thrive as they ought to do, will +sow their minute spores in millions around them; and these, as +they vegetate, will form a green film on the inside of the glass, +spoiling your prospect: you may rub it off for yourself, if you +will, with a rag fastened to a stick; but if you wish at once to +save yourself trouble, and to see how all emergencies in nature +are provided for, you will set three or four live shells to do it +for you, and to keep your sub-aqueous lawn close mown.</p> +<p>That last word is no figure of speech. Look among the +beds of sea-weed for a few of the bright yellow or green +sea-snails (Nerita), or Conical Tops (Trochus), especially that +beautiful pink one spotted with brown (Ziziphinus), which you are +sure to find about shaded rock-ledges at dead low tide, and put +them into your aquarium. For the present, they will only +nibble the green ulvæ; but when the film of young weed +begins to form, you will see it mown off every morning as fast as +it grows, in little semicircular sweeps, just as if a +fairy’s scythe had been at work during the night.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image201" href="images/p201b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Plate 8: Littorina Littorea etc." +title= +"Plate 8: Littorina Littorea etc." + src="images/p201s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>And a scythe has been at work; none other than the tongue of +the little shell-fish; a description of its extraordinary +mechanism (too long to quote here, but which is well worth +reading) may be found in Gosse’s “Aquarium.” <a +name="citation201"></a><a href="#footnote201" +class="citation">[201]</a></p> +<p>A prawn or two, and a few minute star-fish, will make your +aquarium complete; though you may add to it endlessly, as one +glance at the salt-water tanks of the Zoological Gardens, and the +strange and beautiful forms which they contain, will prove to you +sufficiently.</p> +<p>You have two more enemies to guard against, dust, and +heat. If the surface of the water becomes clogged with +dust, the communication between it and the life-giving oxygen of +the air is cut off; and then your animals are liable to die, for +the very same reason that fish die in a pond which is long frozen +over, unless a hole be broken in the ice to admit the air. +You must guard against this by occasional stirring of the +surface, or, as I have already said, by syringing and by keeping +on a cover. A piece of muslin tied over will do; but a +better defence is a plate of glass, raised on wire some half-inch +above the edge, so as to admit the air. I am not sure that +a sheet of brown paper laid over the vase is not the best of all, +because that, by its shade, also guards against the next evil, +which is heat. Against that you must guard by putting a +curtain of muslin or oiled paper between the vase and the sun, if +it be very fierce, or simply (for simple expedients are best) by +laying a handkerchief over it till the heat is past. But if +you leave your vase in a sunny window long enough to let the +water get tepid, all is over with your pets. Half an +hour’s boiling may frustrate the care of weeks. And +yet, on the other hand, light you must have, and you can hardly +have too much. Some animals certainly prefer shade, and +hide in the darkest crannies; and for them, if your aquarium is +large enough, you must provide shade, by arranging the bits of +stone into piles and caverns. But without light, your +sea-weeds will neither thrive nor keep the water sweet. +With plenty of light you will see, to quote Mr. Gosse once more, +<a name="citation203"></a><a href="#footnote203" +class="citation">[203]</a> “thousands of tiny globules +forming on every plant, and even all over the stones, where the +infant vegetation is beginning to grow; and these globules +presently rise in rapid succession to the surface all over the +vessel, and this process goes on uninterruptedly as long as the +rays of the sun are uninterrupted.</p> +<p>“Now these globules consist of <i>pure oxygen</i>, given +out by the plants under the stimulus of light; and to this oxygen +the animals in the tank owe their life. The difference +between the profusion of oxygen-bubbles produced on a sunny day, +and the paucity of those seen on a dark cloudy day, or in a +northern aspect, is very marked.” Choose, therefore, +a south or east window, but draw down the blind, or throw a +handkerchief over all if the heat become fierce. The water +should always feel cold to your hand, let the temperature outside +be what it may.</p> +<p>Next, you must make up for evaporation by <i>fresh</i> water +(a very little will suffice), as often as in summer you find the +water in your vase sink below its original level, and prevent the +water from getting too salt. For the salts, remember, do +not evaporate with the water; and if you left the vase in the sun +for a few weeks, it would become a mere brine-pan.</p> +<p>But how will you move your treasures up to town?</p> +<p>The simplest plan which I have found successful is an earthen +jar. You may buy them with a cover which screws on with two +iron clasps. If you do not find such, a piece of oilskin +tied over the mouth is enough. But do not fill the jar full +of water; leave about a quarter of the contents in empty air, +which the water may absorb, and so keep itself fresh. And +any pieces of stone, or oysters, which you send up, hang by a +string from the mouth, that they may not hurt tender animals by +rolling about the bottom. With these simple precautions, +anything which you are likely to find will well endure +forty-eight hours of travel.</p> +<p>What if the water fails, after all?</p> +<p>Then Mr. Gosse’s artificial sea-water will form a +perfect substitute. You may buy the requisite salts (for +there are more salts than “salt” in sea-water) from +any chemist to whom Mr. Gosse has entrusted his discovery, and, +according to his directions, make sea-water for yourself.</p> +<p>One more hint before we part. If, after all, you are not +going down to the sea-side this year, and have no opportunities +of testing “the wonders of the shore,” you may still +study Natural History in your own drawing-room, by looking a +little into “the wonders of the pond.”</p> +<p>I am not jesting; a fresh-water aquarium, though by no means +as beautiful as a salt-water one, is even more easily +established. A glass jar, floored with two or three inches +of pond-mud (which should be covered with fine gravel to prevent +the mud washing up); a specimen of each of two water-plants which +you may buy now at any good shop in Covent Garden, Vallisneria +spiralis (which is said to give to the Canvas-backed duck of +America its peculiar richness of flavour), and Anacharis +alsinastrum, that magical weed which, lately introduced from +Canada among timber, has multiplied, self-sown, to so prodigious +an extent, that it bid fair, a few years since, to choke the +navigation not only of our canals and fen-rivers, but of the +Thames itself: <a name="citation206"></a><a href="#footnote206" +class="citation">[206]</a> or, in default of these, some of the +more delicate pond-weeds; such as Callitriche, Potamogeton +pusillum, and, best of all, perhaps, the beautiful Water-Milfoil +(Myriophyllium), whose comb-like leaves are the haunts of +numberless rare and curious animalcules:—these (in +themselves, from the transparency of their circulation, +interesting microscopic objects) for oxygen-breeding vegetables; +and for animals, the pickings of any pond; a minnow or two, an +eft; a few of the delicate pond-snails (unless they devour your +plants too rapidly): water-beetles, of activity inconceivable, +and that wondrous bug the Notonecta, who lies on his back all +day, rowing about his boat-shaped body, with one long pair of +oars, in search of animalcules, and the moment the lights are +out, turns head over heels, rights himself, and opening a pair of +handsome wings, starts to fly about the dark room in company with +his friend the water-beetle, and (I suspect) catch flies; and +then slips back demurely into the water with the first streak of +dawn. But perhaps the most interesting of all the tribes of +the Naiads,—(in default, of course, of those semi-human +nymphs with which our Teutonic forefathers, like the Greeks, +peopled each “sacred fountain,”)—are the little +“water-crickets,” which may be found running under +the pebbles, or burrowing in little galleries in the banks: and +those “caddises,” which crawl on the bottom in the +stiller waters, enclosed, all save the head and legs, in a tube +of sand or pebbles, shells or sticks, green or dead weeds, often +arranged with quaint symmetry, or of very graceful shape. +Their aspect in this state may be somewhat uninviting, but they +compensate for their youthful ugliness by the strangeness of +their transformations, and often by the delicate beauty of the +perfect insects, as the “caddises,” rising to the +surface, become flying Phryganeæ (caperers and sand-flies), +generally of various shades of fawn-colour; and the +water-crickets (though an unscientific eye may be able to discern +but little difference in them in the “larva,” or +imperfect state) change into flies of the most various +shapes;—one, perhaps, into the great sluggish olive +“Stone-fly” (Perla bicaudata); another into the +delicate lemon-coloured “Yellow Sally” (Chrysoperla +viridis); another into the dark chocolate “Alder” +(Sialis lutaria): and the majority into duns and drakes +(Ephemeræ); whose grace of form, and delicacy of colour, +give them a right to rank among the most exquisite of God’s +creations, from the tiny “Spinners” (Baëtis or +Chloron) of incandescent glass, with gorgeous rainbow-coloured +eyes, to the great Green Drake (Ephemera vulgata), known to all +fishermen as the prince of trout-flies. These animals, +their habits, their miraculous transformations, might give many +an hour’s quiet amusement to an invalid, laid on a sofa, or +imprisoned in a sick-room, and debarred from reading, unless by +some such means, any page of that great green book outside, whose +pen is the finger of God, whose covers are the fire kingdoms and +the star kingdoms, and its leaves the heather-bells, and the +polypes of the sea, and the gnats above the summer stream.</p> +<p>I said just now, that happy was the sportsman who was also a +naturalist. And, having once mentioned these curious +water-flies, I cannot help going a little farther, and saying, +that lucky is the fisherman who is also a naturalist. A +fair scientific knowledge of the flies which he imitates, and of +their habits, would often ensure him sport, while other men are +going home with empty creels. One would have fancied this a +self-evident fact; yet I have never found any sound knowledge of +the natural water-flies which haunt a given stream, except among +cunning old fishermen of the lower class, who get their living by +the gentle art, and bring to indoors baskets of trout killed on +flies, which look as if they had been tied with a pair of tongs, +so rough and ungainly are they; but which, nevertheless, kill, +simply because they are (in <i>colour</i>, which is all that fish +really care for) exact likenesses of some obscure local species, +which happen to be on the water at the time. Among +gentlemen-fishermen, on the other hand, so deep is the ignorance +of the natural fly, that I have known good sportsmen still under +the delusion that the great green May-fly comes out of a +caddis-bait; the gentlemen having never seen, much less fished +with, that most deadly bait the “Water-cricket,” or +free creeping larva of the May-fly, which may be found in May +under the river-banks. The consequence of this ignorance is +that they depend for good patterns of flies on mere chance and +experiment; and that the shop patterns, originally excellent, +deteriorate continually, till little or no likeness to their +living prototype remains, being tied by town girls, who have no +more understanding of what the feathers and mohair in their hands +represent than they have of what the National Debt +represents. Hence follows many a failure at the +stream-side; because the “Caperer,” or +“Dun,” or “Yellow Sally,” which is +produced from the fly-book, though, possibly, like the brood +which came out three years since on some stream a hundred miles +away, is quite unlike the brood which is out to-day on +one’s own river. For not only do most of these flies +vary in colour in different soils and climates, but many of them +change their hue during life; the Ephemeræ, especially, +have a habit of throwing off the whole of their skins (even, +marvellously enough, to the skin of the eyes and wings, and the +delicate “whisks” at their tail), and appearing in an +utterly new garb after ten minutes’ rest, to the +discomfiture of the astonished angler.</p> +<p>The natural history of these flies, I understand from Mr. +Stainton (one of our most distinguished entomologists), has not +yet been worked out, at least for England. The only +attempt, I believe, in that direction is one made by a charming +book, “The Fly-fisher’s Entomology,” which +should be in every good angler’s library; but why should +not a few fishermen combine to work out the subject for +themselves, and study for the interests both of science and their +own sport, “The Wonders of the Bank?” The work, +petty as it may seem, is much too great for one man, so prodigal +is Nature of her forms, in the stream as in the ocean; but what +if a correspondence were opened between a few fishermen—of +whom one should live, say, by the Hampshire or Berkshire chalk +streams; another on the slates and granites of Devon; another on +the limestones of Yorkshire or Derbyshire; another among the yet +earlier slates of Snowdonia, or some mountain part of Wales; and +more than one among the hills of the Border and the lakes of the +Highlands? Each would find (I suspect), on comparing his +insects with those of the others, that he was exploring a little +peculiar world of his own, and that with the exception of a +certain number of typical forms, the flies of his county were +unknown a hundred miles away, or, at least, appeared there under +great differences of size and colour; and each, if he would take +the trouble to collect the caddises and water-crickets, and breed +them into the perfect fly in an aquarium, would see marvels in +their transformations, their instincts, their anatomy, quite as +great (though not, perhaps, as showy and startling) as I have +been trying to point out on the sea-shore. Moreover, each +and every one of the party, I will warrant, will find his +fellow-correspondents (perhaps previously unknown to him) men +worth knowing; not, it may be, of the meditative and half-saintly +type of dear old Izaak Walton (who, after all, was no fly-fisher, +but a sedentary “popjoy” guilty of float and worm), +but rather, like his fly-fishing disciple Cotton, good fellows +and men of the world, and, perhaps, something better over and +above.</p> +<p>The suggestion has been made. Will it ever be taken up, +and a “Naiad Club” formed, for the combination of +sport and science?</p> +<p>And, now, how can this desultory little treatise end more +usefully than in recommending a few books on Natural History, fit +for the use of young people; and fit to serve as introductions to +such deeper and larger works as Yarrell’s “Birds and +Fishes,” Bell’s “Quadrupeds” and +“Crustacea,” Forbes and Hanley’s +“Mollusca,” Owen’s “Fossil Mammals and +Birds,” and a host of other admirable works? Not that +this list will contain all the best; but simply the best of which +the writer knows; let, therefore, none feel aggrieved, if, as it +may chance, opening these pages, they find their books +omitted.</p> +<p>First and foremost, certainly, come Mr. Gosse’s +books. There is a playful and genial spirit in them, a +brilliant power of word-painting combined with deep and earnest +religious feeling, which makes them as morally valuable as they +are intellectually interesting. Since White’s +“History of Selborne,” few or no writers on Natural +History, save Mr. Gosse, Mr. G. H. Lewes, and poor Mr. E. Forbes, +have had the power of bringing out the human side of science, and +giving to seemingly dry disquisitions and animals of the lowest +type, by little touches of pathos and humour, that living and +personal interest, to bestow which is generally the special +function of the poet: not that Waterton and Jesse are not +excellent in this respect, and authors who should be in every +boy’s library: but they are rather anecdotists than +systematic or scientific inquirers; while Mr. Gosse, in his +“Naturalist on the Shores of Devon,” his “Tour +in Jamaica,” his “Tenby,” and his +“Canadian Naturalist,” has done for those three +places what White did for Selborne, with all the improved +appliances of a science which has widened and deepened tenfold +since White’s time. Mr. Gosse’s “Manual +of the Marine Zoology of the British Isles” is, for +classification, by far the completest handbook extant. He +has contrived in it to compress more sound knowledge of vast +classes of the animal kingdom than I ever saw before in so small +a space. <a name="citation215"></a><a href="#footnote215" +class="citation">[215]</a></p> +<p>Miss Anne Pratt’s “Things of the Sea-coast” +is excellent; and still better is Professor Harvey’s +“Sea-side Book,” of which it is impossible to speak +too highly; and most pleasant it is to see a man of genius and +learning thus gathering the bloom of his varied knowledge, to put +it into a form equally suited to a child and a +<i>savant</i>. Seldom, perhaps, has there been a little +book in which so vast a quantity of facts have been told so +gracefully, simply, without a taint of pedantry or +cumbrousness—an excellence which is the sure and only mark +of a perfect mastery of the subject. Mr. G. H. +Lewes’s “Sea-shore Studies” are also very +valuable; hardly perhaps a book for beginners, but from his +admirable power of description, whether of animals or of scenes, +is interesting for all classes of readers.</p> +<p>Two little “Popular” Histories—one of +British Zoophytes, the other of British Sea-weeds, by Dr. +Landsborough (since dead of cholera, at Saltcoats, the scene of +his energetic and pious ministry)—are very excellent; and +are furnished, too, with well-drawn and coloured plates, for the +comfort of those to whom a scientific nomenclature (as liable as +any other human thing to be faulty and obscure) conveys but a +vague conception of the objects. These may serve well for +the beginner, as introductions to Professor Harvey’s large +work on British Algæ, and to the new edition of Professor +Johnston’s invaluable “British Zoophytes,” Miss +Gifford’s “Marine Botanist,” third edition, and +Dr. Cocks’s “Sea-weed Collector’s Guide,” +have also been recommended by a high authority.</p> +<p>For general Zoology the best books for beginners are, perhaps, +as a general introduction, the Rev. J. A. L. Wood’s +“Popular Zoology,” full of excellent plates; and for +systematic Zoology, Mr. Gosse’s four little books, on +Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes, published with many plates, +by the Christian Knowledge Society, at a marvellously cheap +rate. For miscroscopic animalcules, Miss Agnes +Catlow’s “Drops of Water” will teach the young +more than they will ever remember, and serve as a good +introduction to those teeming abysses of the unseen world, which +must be afterwards traversed under the guidance of Hassall and +Ehrenberg.</p> +<p>For Ornithology, there is no book, after all, like dear old +Bewick, <i>passé</i> though he may be in a scientific +point of view. There is a good little British ornithology, +too, published in Sir W. Jardine’s +“Naturalist’s Library,” and another by Mr. +Gosse. And Mr. Knox’s “Ornithological Rambles +in Sussex,” with Mr. St. John’s “Highland +Sports,” and “Tour in Sutherlandshire,” are the +monographs of naturalists, gentlemen, and sportsmen, which remind +one at every page (and what higher praise can one give?) of +White’s “History of Selborne.” These +last, with Mr. Gosse’s “Canadian Naturalist,” +and his little book “The Ocean,” not forgetting +Darwin’s delightful “Voyage of the Beagle and +Adventure,” ought to be in the hands of every lad who is +likely to travel to our colonies.</p> +<p>For general Geology, Professor Ansted’s Introduction is +excellent; while, as a specimen of the way in which a single +district may be thoroughly worked out, and the universal method +of induction learnt from a narrow field of objects, what book +can, or perhaps ever will, compare with Mr. Hugh Miller’s +“Old Red Sandstone”?</p> +<p>For this last reason, I especially recommend to the young the +Rev. C. A. Johns’s “Week at the Lizard,” as +teaching a young person how much there is to be seen and known +within a few square miles of these British Isles. But, +indeed, all Mr. Johns’s books are good (as they are bound +to be, considering his most accurate and varied knowledge), +especially his “Flowers of the Field,” the best cheap +introduction to systematic botany which has yet appeared. +Trained, and all but self-trained, like Mr. Hugh Miller, in a +remote and narrow field of observation, Mr. Johns has developed +himself into one of our most acute and persevering botanists, and +has added many a new treasure to the Flora of these isles; and +one person, at least, owes him a deep debt of gratitude for first +lessons in scientific accuracy and patience,—lessons +taught, not dully and dryly at the book and desk, but livingly +and genially, in adventurous rambles over the bleak cliffs and +ferny woods of the wild Atlantic shore,—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Where the old fable of the guarded mount<br +/> +Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mr. Henfrey’s “Rudiments of Botany” might +accompany Mr. Johns’s books. Mr. Babington’s +“Manual of British Botany” is also most compact and +highly finished, and seems the best work which I know of from +which a student somewhat advanced in English botany can verify +species; while for ferns, Moore’s “Handbook” is +probably the best for beginners.</p> +<p>For Entomology, which, after all, is the study most fit for +boys (as Botany is for girls) who have no opportunity for +visiting the sea-shore, Catlow’s “Popular British +Entomology,” having coloured plates (a delight to young +people), and saying something of all the orders, is, probably, +still a good work for beginners.</p> +<p>Mr. Stainton’s “Entomologist’s Annual for +1855” contains valuable hints of that gentleman’s on +taking and arranging moths and butterflies; as well as of Mr. +Wollaston’s on performing the same kind office for that far +more numerous, and not less beautiful class, the beetles. +There is also an admirable “Manual of British Butterflies +and Moths,” by Mr. Stainton, in course of publication; but, +perhaps, the most interesting of all entomological books which I +have seen (and for introducing me to which I must express my +hearty thanks to Mr. Stainton), is “Practical Hints +respecting Moths and Butterflies, forming a Calendar of +Entomological Operations,” <a name="citation220"></a><a +href="#footnote220" class="citation">[220]</a> by Richard Shield, +a simple London working-man.</p> +<p>I would gladly devote more space than I can here spare to a +review of this little book, so perfectly does it corroborate +every word which I have said already as to the moral and +intellectual value of such studies. Richard Shield, making +himself a first-rate “lepidopterist,” while working +with his hands for a pound a week, is the antitype of Mr. Peach, +the coast-guardsman, among his Cornish tide-rocks. But more +than this, there is about Shield’s book a tone as of Izaak +Walton himself, which is very delightful; tender, poetical, and +religious, yet full of quiet quaintness and humour; showing in +every page how the love for Natural History is in him only one +expression of a love for all things beautiful, and pure, and +right. If any readers of these pages fancy that I +over-praise the book, let them buy it, and judge for +themselves. They will thus help the good man toward +pursuing his studies with larger and better appliances, and will +be (as I expect) surprised to find how much there is to be seen +and done, even by a working-man, within a day’s walk of +smoky Babylon itself; and how easily a man might, if he would, +wash his soul clean for a while from all the turmoil and +intrigue, the vanity and vexation of spirit of that +“too-populous wilderness,” by going out to be alone a +while with God in heaven, and with that earth which He has given +to the children of men, not merely for the material wants of +their bodies, but as a witness and a sacrament that in Him they +live and move, and have their being, “not by bread alone, +but by <i>every</i> word that proceedeth out of the mouth of +God.”</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Thus I wrote some twenty years ago, when the study of Natural +History was confined mainly to several scientific men, or mere +collectors of shells, insects, and dried plants.</p> +<p>Since then, I am glad to say, it has become a popular and +common pursuit, owing, I doubt not, to the impulse given to it by +the many authors whose works I then recommended. I +recommend them still; though a swarm of other manuals and popular +works have appeared since, excellent in their way, and almost +beyond counting. But all honour to those, and above all to +Mr. Gosse and Mr. Johns, who first opened people’s eyes to +the wonders around them all day long. Now, we have, in +addition to amusing books on special subjects, serials on Natural +History more or less profound, and suited to every kind of +student and every grade of knowledge. I mention the names +of none. For first, they happily need no advertisement from +me; and next, I fear to be unjust to any one of them by +inadvertently omitting its name. Let me add, that in the +advertising columns of those serials, will be found notices of +all the new manuals, and of all apparatus, and other matters, +needed by amateur naturalists, and of many who are more than +amateurs. Microscopy, meanwhile, and the whole study of +“The Wonders of the Little,” have made vast strides +in the last twenty years; and I was equally surprised and +pleased, to find, three years ago, in each of two towns of a few +thousand inhabitants, perhaps a dozen good microscopes, all but +hidden away from the public, worked by men who knew how to handle +them, and who knew what they were looking at; but who modestly +refrained from telling anybody what they were doing so +well. And it was this very discovery of unsuspected +microscopists which made me more desirous than ever to +see—as I see now in many places—scientific societies, +by means of which the few, who otherwise would work apart, may +communicate their knowledge to each other, and to the many. +These “Microscopic,” “Naturalist,” +“Geological,” or other societies, and the +“Field Clubs” for excursions into the country, which +are usually connected with them, form a most pleasant and hopeful +new feature in English Society; bringing together, as they do, +almost all ranks, all shades of opinion; and it has given me deep +pleasure to see, in the case at least of the Country Clubs with +which I am acquainted, the clergy of the Church of England taking +an active, and often a leading, interest in their practical +work. The town clergy are, for the most part, too utterly +overworked to follow the example of their country brethren. +But I have reason to know that they regard such societies, and +Natural History in general, with no unfriendly eyes; and that +there is less fear than ever that the clergy of the Church of +England should have to relinquish their ancient boast—that +since the formation of the Royal Society in the seventeenth +century, they have done more for sound physical science than any +other priesthood or ministry in the world. Let me advise +anyone who may do me the honour of reading these pages, to +discover whether such a Club or Society exists in his +neighbourhood, and to join it forthwith, certain that—if +his experience be at all like mine—he will gain most +pleasant information and most pleasant acquaintances, and pass +most pleasant days and evenings, among people whom he will be +glad to know, and whom he never would have known save for the +new—and now, I hope, rapidly spreading—freemasonry of +Natural History.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, I hope—though I dare not say I trust—to +see the day when the boys of each of our large schools shall +join—like those of Marlborough and Clifton—the same +freemasonry; and have their own Naturalists’ Clubs; nay +more; when our public schools and universities shall awake to the +real needs of the age, and—even to the curtailing of the +time usually spent in not learning Latin and Greek—teach +boys the rudiments at least of botany, zoology, geology, and so +forth; and when the public opinion, at least of the refined and +educated, shall consider it as ludicrous—to use no stronger +word—to be ignorant of the commonest facts and laws of this +living planet, as to be ignorant of the rudiments of two dead +languages. All honour to the said two languages. +Ignorance of them is a serious weakness; for it implies ignorance +of many things else; and indeed, without some knowledge of them, +the nomenclature of the physical sciences cannot be +mastered. But I have got to discover that a boy’s +time is more usefully spent, and his intellect more methodically +trained, by getting up Ovid’s Fasti with an ulterior hope +of being able to write a few Latin verses, than in getting up +Professor Rolleston’s “Forms of Animal Life,” +or any other of the excellent Scientific Manuals for beginners, +which are now, as I said, happily so numerous.</p> +<p>May that day soon come; and an old dream of mine, and of my +scientific friends, be fulfilled at last.</p> +<p>And so I end this little book, hoping, even praying, that it +may encourage a few more labourers to go forth into a vineyard, +which those who have toiled in it know to be full of ever-fresh +health, and wonder and simple joy, and the presence and the glory +of Him whose name is <span class="smcap">Love</span>.</p> +<h2>APPENDIX.</h2> +<h3>PLATE I.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Zoophyta</span>. <span +class="smcap">Polyzoa</span>.</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> forms of animal life which are +now united in an independent class, under the name Polyzoa, so +nearly resemble the Hydroid Zoophytes in general form and +appearance that a casual observer may suppose them to be nearly +identical. In all but the more recent works, they are +treated as distinct indeed, but still included under the general +term “<span class="smcap">Zoophytes</span>.” +The animals of both groups are minute, polypiform creatures, +mostly living in transparent cells, springing from the sides of a +stem which unites a number of individuals in one common life, and +grows in a shrub-like form upon any submarine body, such as a +shell, a rock, a weed, or even another polypidom to which it is +parasitically attached. Each polype, in both classes, +protrudes from and retreats within its cell by an independent +action, and when protruded puts forth a circle of tentacles whose +motion round the mouth is the means of securing +nourishment. There are, however, peculiarities in the +structure of the Polyzoa which seem to remove them from +Zoophytology to a place in the system of nature more nearly +connected with Molluscan types. Some of them come so near +to the compound ascidians that they have been termed, as an +order, “Zoophyta ascidioida.”</p> +<p>The simplest form of polype is that of a fleshy bag open at +one end, surmounted by a circle of contractile threads or fingers +called tentacles. The plate shows, on a very minute scale, +at figs. 1, 3, and 6, several of these little polypiform bodies +protruding from their cells. But the Hydra or Fresh-water +Polype has no cell, and is quite unconnected with any root +thread, or with other individuals of the same species. It +is perfectly free, and so simple in its structure, that when the +sac which forms its body is turned inside out it will continue to +perform the functions of life as before. The greater part, +however, of these Hydraform Polypes, although equally simple as +individuals, are connected in a compound life by means of their +variously formed <i>polypidom</i>, as the branched system of +cells is termed. The Hydroid Zoophytes are represented in +the first plate by the following examples.</p> +<h3>HYDROIDA.</h3> +<h4><span class="smcap">Sertularia Rosea</span>. <i>Pl.</i> +I. <i>fig.</i> 6.</h4> +<p>A species which has the cells in pairs on opposite sides of +the central tube, with the openings turned outwards. In the +more enlarged figure is seen a septum across the inner part of +each cell which forms the base upon which the polype rests. +Fig. 6 <i>b</i> indicates the natural size of the piece of branch +represented; but it must be remembered that this is only a small +portion of the bushy shrub.</p> +<h4>Campanularia syringa. <i>Pl.</i> I. <i>fig.</i> 8.</h4> +<p>This Zoophyte twines itself parasitically upon a species of +Sertularia. The cells in this species are thrown out at +irregular intervals upon flexible stems which are wrinkled in +rings. They consist of lengthened, cylindrical, transparent +vases.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Campanularia Volubilis</span>. +<i>Pl.</i> I. <i>fig.</i> 9.</h3> +<p>A still more beautiful species, with lengthened foot-stalks +ringed at each end. The polype is remarkable for the +protrusion and contractile power of its lips. It has about +twenty knobbed tentacula.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Polyzoa</span>.</h3> +<p>Among Polyzoa the animal’s body is coated with a +membraneous covering, like that of the Tunicated Mollusca, but +which is a continuation of the edge of the cell, which doubles +back upon the body in such a manner that when the animal +protrudes from its cell it pushes out the flexible membrane just +as one would turn inside out the finger of a glove. This +oneness of cell and polype is a distinctive character of the +group. Another is the higher organization of the internal +parts. The mouth, surrounded by tentacles, leads by gullet +and gizzard through a channel into a digesting stomach, from +which the rejectable matter passes upwards through an intestinal +canal till it is discharged near the mouth. The tentacles +also differ much from those of true Polypes. Instead of +being fleshy and contractile, they are rather stiff, resembling +spun glass, set on the sides with vibrating cilia, which by their +motion up one side and down the other of each tentacle, produce a +current which impels their living food into the mouth. When +these tentacles are withdrawn, they are gathered up in a bundle, +like the stays of an umbrella. Our Plate I. contains the +following examples of Polyzoa.</p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Valkeria cuscuta</span>. <i>Pl.</i> +I. <i>fig.</i> 3.</h4> +<p>From a group in one of Mr. Lloyd’s vases. Fig. 3 A +is the natural size of the central group of cells, in a specimen +coiled round a thread-like weed. Underneath this is the +same portion enlarged. When magnified to this apparent +size, the cells could be seen in different states, some closed, +and others with their bodies protruded. When magnified to 3 +D, we could pleasantly watch the gradual eversion of the +membrane, then the points of the tentacles slowly appearing, and +then, when fully protruded, suddenly expanding into a bell-shaped +circle. This was their usual appearance, but sometimes they +could be noticed bending inwards, as in fig. 3 C, as if to +imprison some living atom of importance. Fig. B represents +two tentacles, showing the direction in which the cilia +vibrate.</p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Crisia Denticulata</span>. +<i>Pl.</i> I. <i>fig.</i> 4.</h4> +<p>I have only drawn the cells from a prepared specimen. +The polypes are like those described above.</p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Gemellaria Loricata</span>. +<i>Pl.</i> I. <i>fig.</i> 5.</h4> +<p>Here the cells are placed in pairs, back to back. 5 A is +a very small portion on the natural scale.</p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Cellularia Ciliata</span>. +<i>Pl.</i> I. <i>fig.</i> 7</h4> +<p>The cells are alternate on the stem, and are curiously armed +with long whip-like cilia or spines. On the back of some of +the cells is a very strange appendage, the use of which is not +with certainty ascertained. It is a minute body, slightly +resembling a vulture’s head, with a movable lower +beak. The whole head keeps up a nodding motion, and the +movable beak occasionally opens widely, and then suddenly snaps +to with a jerk. It has been seen to hold an animalcule +between its jaws till the latter has died, but it has no power to +communicate the prey to the polype in its cell or to swallow and +digest it on its own account. It is certainly not an +independent parasite, as has been supposed, and yet its purpose +in the animal economy is a mystery. Mr. Gosse conjectures +that its use may be, by holding animalcules till they die and +decay, to attract by their putrescence crowds of other +animalcules, which may thus be drawn within the influence of the +polype’s ciliated tentacles. Fig. 7 B shows the form +of one of these “birds’ heads,” and fig. 7 C, +its position on the cell.</p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Flustra Lineata</span>. <i>Pl.</i> +I. <i>fig.</i> 1.</h4> +<p>In Flustræ, the cells are placed side by side on an +expanded membrane. Fig. 1 represents the general appearance +of a species which at least resembles F. lineata as figured in +Johnston’s work. It is spread upon a Fucus. +Fig. A is an enlarged view of the cells.</p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Flustra Foliacea</span>. <i>Pl.</i> +I. <i>fig.</i> 2.</h4> +<p>We figure a frond or two of the common species, which has +cells on both sides. It is rarely that the polypes can be +seen in a state of expansion.</p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Serialaria Lendigera</span>. +<i>Pl.</i> I. <i>fig.</i> 10.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Notamia Bursaria</span>. <i>Pl.</i> I. +<i>fig.</i> 11.</h4> +<p>The “tobacco-pipe”“ appendages, fig. 11 B, +are of unknown use: they are probably analogous to the +birds’ heads in the Cellularæ.</p> +<h3>PLATE V.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Corals and Sea Anemones</span>.</h3> +<h4><span class="smcap">Caryophyllæa Smithii</span>. +<i>Pl.</i> V. <i>fig.</i> 2. <i>Pl.</i> VI. <i>fig.</i> +3.</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> connection between Brainstones, +Mushroom Corals, and other Madrepores abounding on Polynesian +reefs, and the “Sea Anemones,” which have lately +become so familiar to us all, can be seen by comparing our +comparatively insignificant C. Smithii with our commonest species +of Actinia and Sagartia. The former is a beautiful object +when the fleshy part and tentacles are wholly or partially +expanded. Like Actinia, it has a membranous covering, a +simple sac-like stomach, a central mouth, a disk surrounded by +contractile and adhesive tentacles. Unlike Actinia, it is +fixed to submarine bodies, to which it is glued in very early +life, and cannot change its place. Unlike Actinia, its body +is supported by a stony skeleton of calcareous plates arranged +edgewise so as to radiate from the centre. But as we find +some Molluscs furnished with a shell, and others even of the same +character and habits without one, so we find that in spite of +this seemingly important difference, the animals are very similar +in their nature. Since the introduction of glass tanks we +have opportunities of seeing anemones crawling up the sides, so +as to exhibit their entire basal disk, and then we may observe +lightly coloured lines of a less transparent substance than the +interstices, radiating from the margin to the centre, some short, +others reaching the entire distance, and arranged in exactly the +same manner as the plates of Caryophyllæa. These are +doubtless flexible walls of compartments dividing the fleshy +parts of the softer animals, and corresponding with the septa of +the coral. Fig. 2 <i>a</i> represents a section of the +latter, to be compared with the basal disk of Sagartia.</p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Sagartia Anguicoma</span>. +<i>Pl.</i> V. <i>fig.</i> 3, <i>a</i>, <i>b</i>.</h4> +<p>This genus has been separated from Actinia on account of its +habit of throwing out threads when irritated. Although my +specimens often assumed the form represented in fig. 3, Mr. Lloyd +informs me that it must have arisen from unhealthiness of +condition, its usual habit being to contract into a more +flattened form. When fully expanded, its transparent and +lengthened tentacles present a beautiful appearance. Fig. 3 +<i>a</i>, showing a basal disk, is given for the purpose already +described.</p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Balanophyllæa Regia</span>. +<i>Pl.</i> V. <i>fig.</i> 1.</h4> +<p>Another species of British madrepore, found by Mr. Gosse at +Ilfracombe, and by Mr. Kingsley at Lundy Island. It is +smaller than O. Smithii, of a very bright colour, and always +covers the upper part of its bony skeleton, in which the plates +are differently arranged from those of the smaller species. +Fig. 1 shows the tentacles expanded in an unusual degree; 1 +<i>a</i>, animal contracted; 1 <i>b</i>, the coral; 1 <i>c</i>, a +tentacle enlarged.</p> +<h3>PLATE VI.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Corals and Sea Anemones</span>.</h3> +<h4><span class="smcap">Actinia Mesembryanthemum</span>. +<i>Pl.</i> VI. <i>fig.</i> 1 <i>a</i>.</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">This</span> common species is more +frequently met with than many others, because it prefers shallow +water, and often lives high up among rocks which are only covered +by the sea at very high tide; so that the creature can, if it +will, spend but a short portion of its time immersed. When +uncovered by the tide, it gathers up its leathery tunic, and +presents the appearance of fig. 1 <i>a</i>. When under +water it may often be seen expanding its flower-like disk and +moving its feelers in search of food. These feelers have a +certain power of adhesion, and any not too vigorous animals which +they touch are easily drawn towards the centre and +swallowed. Around the margin of the tunic are seen peeping +out between the tentacles certain bright blue globules looking +very like eyes, but whose purpose is not exactly +ascertained. Fig. 1 represents the disk only partially +expanded.</p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Bunodes Crassicornis</span>. +<i>Pl.</i> VI. <i>fig.</i> 2.</h4> +<p>This genus of Actinioid zoophytes is distinguished from +Actinia proper by the tubercles or warts which stud the outer +covering of the animal. In B. gemmacea these warts are +arranged symmetrically, so as to give a peculiarly jewelled +appearance to the body. Being of a large size, the +tentacles of B. crassicornis exhibit in great perfection the +adhesive powers produced by the nettling threads which proceed +from them.</p> +<h4><span class="smcap">Caryophyllæa Smithii</span>. +<i>Pl.</i> VI. <i>fig.</i> 3.</h4> +<p>This figure is to show a whiter variety, with the flesh and +tentacles fully expanded.</p> +<h3>PLATE VIII.<br /> +<span class="smcap">Mollusca</span>.</h3> +<h4><span class="smcap">Nassa Reticulata</span>. <i>Pl.</i> +VIII. fig. 2, <i>a</i>, <i>b</i>, <i>c</i>, <i>d</i>, <i>e</i>, +<i>f</i></h4> +<p>A <span class="smcap">very</span> active Mollusc, given here +chiefly on account of the opportunity afforded by the birth of +young fry in Mr. Lloyd’s tanks. The <i>Nassa</i> +feeds on small animalcules, for which, in aquaria, it may be seen +routing among the sand and stones, sometimes burying itself among +them so as only to show its caudal tube moving along between +them. A pair of Nassæ in Mr. Lloyd’s +collection, deposited, on the 5th of April, about fifty capsules +or bags of eggs upon the stems of weeds (fig. 2 <i>b</i>); each +capsule contained about a hundred eggs. The capsules opened +on the 16th of May, permitting the escape of rotiferous fry (fig. +2, <i>c</i>, <i>d</i>, <i>e</i>), not in the slightest degree +resembling the parent, but presenting minute nautilus-shaped +transparent shells. These shells rather hang on than cover +the bodies, which have a pair of lobes, around which vibrate +minute cilia in such a manner as to give them an appearance of +rotatory motion. Under a lens they may be seen moving about +very actively in various positions, but always with the look of +being moved by rapidly turning wheels. We should have been +glad to witness the next step towards assuming their ultimate +form, but were disappointed, as the embryos died. Fig. 2 +<i>f</i> is the tongue of a Nassa, from a photograph by Dr. +Kingsley.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote37"></a><a href="#citation37" +class="footnote">[37]</a> <i>Sertularia operculata</i> and +<i>Gemellaria lociculata</i>; or any of the small +<i>Sertulariæ</i>, compared with <i>Crisiæ</i> and +<i>Cellulariæ</i>, are very good examples. For a +fuller description of these, see Appendix explaining Plate I.</p> +<p><a name="footnote67"></a><a href="#citation67" +class="footnote">[67]</a> If any inland reader wishes to +see the action of this foot, in the bivalve Molluscs, let him +look at the Common Pond-Mussel (Anodon Cygneus), which he will +find in most stagnant waters, and see how he burrows with it in +the mud, and how, when the water is drawn off, he walks solemnly +into deeper water, leaving a furrow behind him.</p> +<p><a name="footnote70"></a><a href="#citation70" +class="footnote">[70]</a> These shells are so common that I +have not cared to figure them.</p> +<p><a name="footnote72"></a><a href="#citation72" +class="footnote">[72]</a> Plate IX. Fig. 3, represents both +parasites on the dead Turritella.</p> +<p><a name="footnote74"></a><a href="#citation74" +class="footnote">[74]</a> A few words on him, and on +sea-anemones in general, may be found in Appendix II. But +full details, accompanied with beautiful plates, may be found in +Mr. Gosse’s work on British sea-anemones and madrepores, +which ought to be in every seaside library.</p> +<p><a name="footnote90"></a><a href="#citation90" +class="footnote">[90]</a> Handbook to the Marine Aquarium +of the Crystal Palace.</p> +<p><a name="footnote111"></a><a href="#citation111" +class="footnote">[111]</a> An admirable paper on this +extraordinary family may be found in the Zoological +Society’s Proceedings for July 1858, by Messrs. S. P. +Woodward and the late lamented Lucas Barrett. See also +Quatrefages, I. 82, or Synapta Duvernæi.</p> +<p><a name="footnote113"></a><a href="#citation113" +class="footnote">[113]</a> Thalassema Neptuni +(Forbes’ British Star-Fishes, p. 259),</p> +<p><a name="footnote116"></a><a href="#citation116" +class="footnote">[116]</a> The Londoner may see specimens +of them at the Zoological Gardens and at the Crystal Palace; as +also of the rare and beautiful Sabella, figured in the same +plate; and of the Balanophyllia, or a closely-allied species, +from the Mediterranean, mentioned in p. 109.</p> +<p><a name="footnote118"></a><a href="#citation118" +class="footnote">[118]</a> A Naturalist’s Rambles on +the Devonshire Coast, p. 110.</p> +<p><a name="footnote121"></a><a href="#citation121" +class="footnote">[121]</a> Balanophyllia regia, Plate V. +fig. 1.</p> +<p><a name="footnote126a"></a><a href="#citation126a" +class="footnote">[126a]</a> Amphidotus cordatus.</p> +<p><a name="footnote126b"></a><a href="#citation126b" +class="footnote">[126b]</a> Echinus miliaris, Plate +VII.</p> +<p><a name="footnote127"></a><a href="#citation127" +class="footnote">[127]</a> See Professor Sedgwick’s +last edition of the “Discourses on the Studies of +Cambridge.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote129"></a><a href="#citation129" +class="footnote">[129]</a> Fissurella græca, Plate X. +fig. 5.</p> +<p><a name="footnote130a"></a><a href="#citation130a" +class="footnote">[130a]</a> Doris tuberculata and +bilineata.</p> +<p><a name="footnote130b"></a><a href="#citation130b" +class="footnote">[130b]</a> Eolis papi losa. A Doris +and an Eolis, though not of these species, are figured in Plate +X.</p> +<p><a name="footnote136"></a><a href="#citation136" +class="footnote">[136]</a> Plate III.</p> +<p><a name="footnote138"></a><a href="#citation138" +class="footnote">[138]</a> Certain Parisian zoologists have +done me the honour to hint that this description was a play of +fancy. I can only answer, that I saw it with my own eyes in +my own aquarium. I am not, I hope, in the habit of drawing +on my fancy in the presence of infinitely more marvellous +Nature. Truth is quite strange enough to be interesting +without lies.</p> +<p><a name="footnote139a"></a><a href="#citation139a" +class="footnote">[139a]</a> Saxicava rugosa, Plate XI. fig. +2.</p> +<p><a name="footnote139b"></a><a href="#citation139b" +class="footnote">[139b]</a> Plate VIII. represents the +common Nassa, with the still more common Littorina littorea, +their teeth-studded palates, and the free swimming young of the +Nassa. (<i>Vide</i> Appendix.)</p> +<p><a name="footnote140a"></a><a href="#citation140a" +class="footnote">[140a]</a> Cypræa Europæa.</p> +<p><a name="footnote140b"></a><a href="#citation140b" +class="footnote">[140b]</a> Botrylli.</p> +<p><a name="footnote140c"></a><a href="#citation140c" +class="footnote">[140c]</a></p> +<table> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: +center"><i>Molluscs</i>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Doris tuberculata.</p> +<p>— bilineata.</p> +<p>Eolis papillosa.</p> +<p>Pleurobranchus plumila.</p> +<p>Neritina.</p> +<p>Cypræa.</p> +<p>Trochus,—2 species.</p> +<p>Mangelia.</p> +<p>Triton.</p> +<p>Trophon.</p> +<p>Nassa,—2 species.</p> +<p>Cerithium.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Sigaretus.</p> +<p>Fissurella.</p> +<p>Arca lactea.</p> +<p>Pecten pusio.</p> +<p>Tapes pullastra.</p> +<p>Kellia suborbicularis.</p> +<p>Shænia Binghami.</p> +<p>Saxicava rugosa.</p> +<p>Gastrochoena pholadia.</p> +<p>Pholas parva.</p> +<p>Anomiæ,—2 or 3 species</p> +<p>Cynthia,—2 species.</p> +<p>Botryllus, do.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: +center"><i>Annelids</i>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Phyllodoce, and other Nereid worms.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Polynoe squamata.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: +center"><i>Crustacea</i>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p>4 or 5 species.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: +center"><i>Echinoderms</i>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Echinus miliaris.</p> +<p>Asterias gibbosa.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Ophiocoma neglecla.</p> +<p>Cucumaria Hyndmanni.</p> +<p>— communis.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><i>Polypes</i>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Sertularia pumila.</p> +<p>— rugosa.</p> +<p>— fallax.</p> +<p>— filicula.</p> +<p>Plumularia falcata.</p> +<p>— setacea.</p> +<p>Laomedea geniculata.</p> +<p>Campanularia volubilis.</p> +<p>Actinia mesembryanthemum.</p> +<p>Actinia clavata.</p> +<p>— anguicoma.</p> +<p>— crassicornis.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Tubulipora patina.</p> +<p>— hispida.</p> +<p>— serpens.</p> +<p>Crisia eburnea.</p> +<p>Cellepora pumicosa.</p> +<p>Lepraliæ,—many species.</p> +<p>Membranipora pilosa.</p> +<p>Cellularia ciliata.</p> +<p>— scruposa.</p> +<p>— reptans.</p> +<p>Flustra membranacea, &c.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p><a name="footnote163"></a><a href="#citation163" +class="footnote">[163]</a> Plate XI. fig. 1.</p> +<p><a name="footnote167"></a><a href="#citation167" +class="footnote">[167]</a> Plate X. fig. 1.</p> +<p><a name="footnote170"></a><a href="#citation170" +class="footnote">[170]</a> There are very fine specimens in +the Crystal Palace.</p> +<p><a name="footnote181a"></a><a href="#citation181a" +class="footnote">[181a]</a> Coryne ramosa.</p> +<p><a name="footnote181b"></a><a href="#citation181b" +class="footnote">[181b]</a> Campanularia integra.</p> +<p><a name="footnote182"></a><a href="#citation182" +class="footnote">[182]</a> Crisidia Eburnea.</p> +<p><a name="footnote190"></a><a href="#citation190" +class="footnote">[190]</a> Aquarium, p. 163.</p> +<p><a name="footnote201"></a><a href="#citation201" +class="footnote">[201]</a> P. 34. Figures of it are +given in Plate VIII.</p> +<p><a name="footnote203"></a><a href="#citation203" +class="footnote">[203]</a> P. 259.</p> +<p><a name="footnote206"></a><a href="#citation206" +class="footnote">[206]</a> But if any young lady, her +aquarium having failed, shall (as dozens do) cast out the same +Anacharis into the nearest ditch, she shall be followed to her +grave by the maledictions of all millers and trout-fishers. +Seriously, this is a wanton act of injury to the neighbouring +streams, which must be carefully guarded against. As well +turn loose queen-wasps to build in your neighbour’s +banks.</p> +<p><a name="footnote215"></a><a href="#citation215" +class="footnote">[215]</a> Very highly also, in interest, +ranks M. Quatrefages’ “Rambles of a Naturalist” +(about the Mediterranean and the French Coast), translated by M. +Otté.</p> +<p><a name="footnote220"></a><a href="#citation220" +class="footnote">[220]</a> Van Voorst & Co. price +3s.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLAUCUS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 695-h.htm or 695-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/9/695 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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