diff options
Diffstat (limited to '695-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 695-0.txt | 4812 |
1 files changed, 4812 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/695-0.txt b/695-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..078e28c --- /dev/null +++ b/695-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4812 @@ +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: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLAUCUS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1890 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + [Picture: Plate 1: Actinia Mesembryanthemum] + + + + + + GLAUCUS + OR + THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE + + + * * * * * + + BY + CHARLES KINGSLEY + + * * * * * + + _WITH COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS_ + + * * * * * + + London + MACMILLAN AND CO. + AND NEW YORK + 1890 + + _The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_ + + * * * * * + + RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, + LONDON AND BUNGAY. + +_First Edition_ (Fcap. 8vo), May 1855. _Second Edition_, August 1855. +_Third Edition_, 1856. _Fourth Edition_ (with Coloured Illustrations), +1859. _Fifth Edition_ (Crown 8vo), 1873. _Reprinted_ 1878, 1879, 1881, +1884, 1887, 1890. + + + + +Dedication. + + +MY DEAR MISS GRENFELL, + +I CANNOT 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. + +Your grateful and faithful brother-in-law, + + C. KINGSLEY. + +BIDEFORD, + _April_ 24, 1855. + + * * * * * + + _The basis of this little book was an Article which appeared in the_ + _North British Review for November_ 1854. + + * * * * * + + BEYOND the shadow of the ship, + I watch’d the water snakes: + They moved in tracks of shining white, + And when they rear’d, the elfish light + Fell off in hoary flakes. + + * * * * + + O happy living things! no tongue + Their beauty might declare: + A spring of love gush’d from my heart, + And I bless’d them unware. + + COLERIDGE’S _Ancient Mariner_. + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + WOOD ENGRAVINGS. +FIG. PAGE +1. Nymphon Abyssorum, NORMAN 81 +2. Caprella spinosissima, NORMAN 83 +3. Pentacrinus asteria, LINNÆUS 85 + COLOURED PLATES. +PLATE +1. 1. FLUSTRA LINEATA; (_a_) enlarged with polypes 73 + protruding. 2. FLUSTRA FOLIACEA. 3. VALKERIA + CUSCUTA; (_a_) natural size; (_b_) two + tentacles; (_c_) tentacles bent inwards; (_d_) + enlarged, showing the gradual eversion of the + animal. 4. CRISIA DENTICULATA; (_a_) natural + size. 5. GEMELLARIA LORIOATA; (_a_) natural + size. 6. SERTULARIA ROSEA; (_a_) natural size. + 7. CELLULARIA CILIATA; (_a_) natural size; (_b_) + one of the bird’s heads; (_c_) cell and bird’s + head, much enlarged. 8. CAMPANULARIA SYRINGA; + (_a_) natural size. 9. CAMPANULARIA VOLUBILIS, + enlarged. 10. SERIALARIA LENDIGERA. 11. + NOTAMIA BURSARIA; (_a_) natural size; (_b_) two + pairs of polype cells with the tobacco pipe + appendages +2. 1. CARDIUM RUSTICUM, (TUBERCULATUM). 2. PAGURUS 65 + BERNHARDI, in a Periwinkle Shell +3. 1. NEMERTIES BORLASII. 2. SABELLA? 3. 136 + Sand-tube of TEREBELLA CONCHILEGA (_See Plate_ + 8) +4. 1. SYNAPTA DIGITATA; (_a_) Ditto separating and 109 + throwing out capsuliferous threads. 2. + THALASSIMA NEPTUNI +5. 1. BALANOPHYLLEA REGIA, expanded; (_a_) Ditto, 117 + contracted; (_b_) Ditto coral; (_c_) Ditto, + tentacle enlarged; 2. CARYOPHYLLEA SMITHII + partly expanded; (_a_) Ditto, section of bony + plates; (_b_) Ditto, tentacle. 3. SAGARTIA + ANGUICOMA closed; (_a_) Ditto, basal disc + showing radiating septa. 4. SYNAPTA DIGITATA + (_See Plate_ 4); (_a_, _b_) Ditto, fingered + tentacles enlarged; (_c_) Ditto, Spiculæ; (_d_) + Ditto, anchor lying on its transparent + anchor-plate. 5. S. VITTATA? perforated + anchor-plate; (_a_) Spicula +6. 1. ACTINIA MESEMBRYANTHEMUM, partially expanded; 135 + (_a_) Ditto, closed. 2. BUNODES CRASSICORNIS. + 3. CARYOPHYLLEA SMITHII _Front_ +7. 1. ECHINUS MILIARIS, creeping over Modiola 168 + barbata. 2. Ditto, creeping up the glass. 3. + Hiding under stones +8. 1. LITTORINA LITTOREA (_See Plate_ 9); (_a_) 201 + operculum; (_b_) pallet; (_c_) part of pallet, + magnified. 2. NASSA RETICULATA (_See Plate_ + 11); (_a_) egg capsules; (_b_, _c_) fry; (_d_) + shell of fry; (_e_) pallet, magnified. 3. + PATELLA VULGARIS; (_a_) palate, natural size; + (_b_, _c_) Ditto, enlarged. 4. ECHINUS MILIARIS + (_See Plate_ 7); (_a_) teeth and digesting mill; + (_b_) suckers, enlarged; (_c_) spine and socket; + (_d_) shell denuded; (_e_) Pedicellaria. 5. + NEMERTES BORLASII (_See Plate_ 3); (_a_) head, + enlarged; (_b_) head expanded swallowing a + Terebella +9. 1. CUCUMARIA HYNDMANNI. 2. LITTORINA LITTOREA. 114 + 3. SIPHUNCULUS BERNHARDUS in shell of + TURRITELLA, with living BALANI +10. 1. SERPULA CONTORTUPLICATA. 2. HINNITES PUSIO. 129 + 3. DORIS REPANDA. 4. EOLIS PELLUCIDA. 5. + PHOLADIDÆA PAPYRACEA. 6. PHOLAS PARVA. 7. + FISSURELLA GRÆCA +11. 1. SYNGNATHUS LUMBRICIFORMIS. 2. SAXICAVA 163 + RUGOSA; (_a_) Shell of SAXICAVA RUGOSA. 3. + NASSA RETICULATA +12. 1. PEACHIA HASTATA. 2. URASTER RUBENS 92 + + + + +GLAUCUS; +OR, +THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. + + +YOU 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 _réchauffé_ 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. + +Now I will not be so rude as to apply to you the old hymn-distich about +one who + + “—finds some mischief still + For idle hands to do:” + +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 + + “No speculation in those eyes + Which they do glare withal”? + +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. + +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. + +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? + +It is puzzling, truly. I shall be very glad if these pages help you +somewhat toward solving the puzzle. + +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. + +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!” + +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. + +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 _vis plastrix_ 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. + +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. + +But if you seek, reader, rather for pleasure than for wisdom, you can +find it in such studies, pure and undefiled. + +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 + + “Embraced his Eve in happy hour, + And every bird in Eden burst + In carol, every bud in flower,” + +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. + +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 + + “Call spirits from the vasty deep,” + +who will not + + “Come when you do call for them.” + +What to do, then? You are sitting, perhaps, in your coracle, upon some +mountain tarn, waiting for a wind, and waiting in vain. + + “Keine luft an keine seite, + Todes-stille fürchterlich;” + +as Göthe has it— + + “Und der schiffer sieht bekümmert + Glatte fläche rings umher.” + +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. + +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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But why loose stones?—and if so, what matter? and what wonder? There are +rocks cropping out everywhere down the hill-side. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Shot out of a volcano? As you seem determined to have a prodigy, it may +as well be a sufficiently huge one. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?” + +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. + +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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _scientia scientiarum_, 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 _résumé_ 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? + +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. {37} 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 (_Virgularia +mirabilis_), 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.” + +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— + + “Oh, what an endless work have I in hand, + To count the sea’s abundant progeny! + Whose fruitful seed far passeth those in land, + And also those which won in th’ azure sky, + For much more earth to tell the stars on high, + Albe they endless seem in estimation, + Than to recount the sea’s posterity; + So fertile be the flouds in generation, + So huge their numbers, and so numberless their nation.” + +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!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _mens +sana_ unless there be a _corpus sanum_ 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 + + “The reason firm,” + +yet still + + “The temperate will, + Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill,” + +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 + + “Of fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute, + And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?— + +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.) + + [Picture: Plate 2: 1. Cardium Rusticum, (tuberculatum). 2. Pagurus + Bernhardi, in a Periwinkle Shell] + +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. {67} + +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!” + +“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. + +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. {70} + +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. {72} + + [Picture: Plate 1: Flustra Lineata etc.] + +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? + +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. + +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 {74}). 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. + +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 _maxima in minimis_, +has provided by fitting him with a stout leather coat, which she has +given, I believe, to no other of his family. + +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. + +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— + +“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. + + “‘O sea! old sea! who yet knows half + Of thy wonders or thy pride!’” + + GOSSE’S _Aquarium_, pp. 226, 227. + +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.” + +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.” + +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. + +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. + + [Picture: Nymphon Abyssorum, Norman] + +You may find also a quaint little shrimp, _Caprella_, 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. + +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. + + [Picture: Caprella spinosissima, Norman] + +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. + +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. + + [Picture: Pentacrinus asteria, Linnæus] + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 {90}—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. + + [Picture: 1. Peachia Hastata. 2. Uraster Rubens] + +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 + + “In tracts of fluent heat began, + The seeming prey of cyclic storms, + The home of seeming random forms, + Till, at the last, arose the man.” + +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. + +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? + +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—_make all things make themselves_? 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?” + +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 +LIVING GOD: 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. + +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.” + +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. + +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:— + +“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!”—_Chambers’ Edin. Journ._, Nov. 23, 1844. + +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. + +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. + + [Picture: Plate 4: Synapta Digitata etc.] + +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. + +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. + +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.) {111} Somewhat similar +anchor-plates, from a Red Sea species, Synapta Vittata, may be seen in +any collection of microscopic objects. + +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. + +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, {113} 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + [Picture: Plate 9: Cucumaria Hyndmanni etc.] + +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. {116} + + [Picture: Plate 5: Balanophyllea Regia etc.] + +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, {118} by far the best yet published, should be read in full; +we must content ourselves with extracts. + +“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.” + +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.” + +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. + +Another species of Madrepore {121} 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. + +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. + +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 + + “Playing such fantastic tricks before high heaven, + As make the angels weep.” + +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 + + “Hands, + From out the darkness, shaping man;” + +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.” + +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,” {126a} which we picked up just now on Paignton Sands? +Or which, again, by its more beautiful little congener, {126b} 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.e._ 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. {127} 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. + +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. + +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. {129} 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. + + [Picture: Plate 10: Serpula Contortuplicata etc.] + +Look, again, at those sea-slugs. One, some three inches long, of a +bright lemon-yellow, clouded with purple; another of a dingy grey; {130a} +another exquisite little creature of a pearly French White, {130b} 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. + +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.” + +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. + +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; {136} 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. +{138} + + [Picture: Nemerties Borlasii etc.: Plate 3] + +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 +{139a} 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 {139b} 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, {140a} 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, {140b} 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.” + +Now away, and as a specimen of the fertility of the water-world, look at +this rough list of species, {140c} 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. + +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! + +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. + +“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 + + “It was a garden still beyond all price, + Even yet it was a place of paradise; + * * * * * * + And here were coral bowers, + And grots of madrepores, + And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eye + As e’er was mossy bed + Whereon the wood-nymphs lie + With languid limbs in summer’s sultry hours. + Here, too, were living flowers, + Which, like a bud compacted, + Their purple cups contracted; + And now in open blossom spread, + Stretch’d, like green anthers, many a seeking head. + And arborets of jointed stone were there, + And plants of fibres fine as silkworm’s thread; + Yea, beautiful as mermaid’s golden hair + Upon the waves dispread. + Others that, like the broad banana growing, + Raised their long wrinkled leaves of purple hue, + Like streamers wide outflowing.’—_Kehama_, xvi. 5. + +“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. + +“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.”—GOSSE’S _Devonshire +Coast_, pp. 187–189. + +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:— + + “Joining the bliss of the gods, as they waken the coves with their + laughter,” + +in nightly revels, whereof one has sung,— + + “So they came up in their joy; and before them the roll of the surges + Sank, as the breezes sank dead, into smooth green foam-flecked marble + Awed; and the crags of the cliffs, and the pines of the mountains, + were silent. + So they came up in their joy, and around them the lamps of the + sea-nymphs, + Myriad fiery globes, swam heaving and panting, and rainbows, + Crimson, and azure, and emerald, were broken in star-showers, + lighting, + Far in the wine-dark depths of the crystal, the gardens of Nereus, + Coral, and sea-fan, and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the + ocean. + So they went on in their joy, more white than the foam which they + scattered, + Laughing and singing and tossing and twining; while, eager, the + Tritons + Blinded with kisses their eyes, unreproved, and above them in worship + Fluttered the terns, and the sea-gulls swept past them on silvery + pinions, + Echoing softly their laughter; around them the wantoning dolphins + Sighed as they plunged, full of love; and the great sea-horses which + bore them + Curved up their crests in their pride to the delicate arms of their + riders, + Pawing the spray into gems, till a fiery rainfall, unharming, + Sparkled and gleamed on the limbs of the maids, and the coils of the + mermen. + So they went on in their joy, bathed round with the fiery coolness, + Needing nor sun nor moon, self-lighted, immortal: but others, + Pitiful, floated in silence apart; on their knees lay the sea-boys + Whelmed by the roll of the surge, swept down by the anger of Nereus; + Hapless, whom never again upon quay or strand shall their mothers + Welcome with garlands and vows to the temples; but, wearily pining, + Gaze over island and main for the sails which return not; they, + heedless, + Sleep in soft bosoms for ever, and dream of the surge and the + sea-maids. + So they passed by in their joy, like a dream, on the murmuring + ripple.” + +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 _me_, 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, _why_ +things fall, and _how_, 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 _causa causans_, 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? + +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, “_How_?” +and “_Why_?” 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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + [Picture: Plate 11: Syngnathus Lumbriciformis etc.] + +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) {163} 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, {167} 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. + +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, {170} 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. + + [Picture: Plate 7: Echinus Miliaris etc.] + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, + + “As idle as a painted ship + Upon a painted ocean.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. {181a} + +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, {181b} each of which, too, protrudes its living +flower; on another leg is a fresh species, like a little heather-bush of +whitest ivory, {182} 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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,— + +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.— + +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. + +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. + +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, _that the animal and +vegetable respirations might counterbalance each other_; 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. + +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. + +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,— + + οὐτ’ ἐν θέρει, οὐτ’ ἐν ὁπώρῃ. + +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. + +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— + +“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.” + +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, {190} 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. + +Practical directions for forming an “Aquarium” may be found in Mr. +Gosse’s book bearing that name, at pp. 101, 255, _et seq._; 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. + +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. + +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. + +So much for your vase; now to stock it. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + [Picture: Plate 8: Littorina Littorea etc.] + +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.” {201} + +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. + +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, {203} “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. + +“Now these globules consist of _pure oxygen_, 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. + +Next, you must make up for evaporation by _fresh_ 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. + +But how will you move your treasures up to town? + +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. + +What if the water fails, after all? + +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. + +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.” + +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: {206} 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. + +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 _colour_, 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. + +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. + +The suggestion has been made. Will it ever be taken up, and a “Naiad +Club” formed, for the combination of sport and science? + +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. + +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. {215} + +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 _savant_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +For Ornithology, there is no book, after all, like dear old Bewick, +_passé_ 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. + +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”? + +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,— + + “Where the old fable of the guarded mount + Looks toward Namancos and Bayona’s hold.” + +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. + +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. + +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,” {220} by Richard Shield, a simple London +working-man. + +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 _every_ word that +proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” + + * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +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. + +May that day soon come; and an old dream of mine, and of my scientific +friends, be fulfilled at last. + +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 LOVE. + + + + +APPENDIX. + + +PLATE I. +ZOOPHYTA. POLYZOA. + + +THE 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 “ZOOPHYTES.” +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.” + +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 _polypidom_, as the +branched system of cells is termed. The Hydroid Zoophytes are +represented in the first plate by the following examples. + + + +HYDROIDA. + + +SERTULARIA ROSEA. _Pl._ I. _fig._ 6. + + +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 _b_ 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. + + +Campanularia syringa. _Pl._ I. _fig._ 8. + + +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. + + + +CAMPANULARIA VOLUBILIS. _Pl._ I. _fig._ 9. + + +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. + + + +POLYZOA. + + +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. + + +VALKERIA CUSCUTA. _Pl._ I. _fig._ 3. + + +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. + + +CRISIA DENTICULATA. _Pl._ I. _fig._ 4. + + +I have only drawn the cells from a prepared specimen. The polypes are +like those described above. + + +GEMELLARIA LORICATA. _Pl._ I. _fig._ 5. + + +Here the cells are placed in pairs, back to back. 5 A is a very small +portion on the natural scale. + + +CELLULARIA CILIATA. _Pl._ I. _fig._ 7 + + +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. + + +FLUSTRA LINEATA. _Pl._ I. _fig._ 1. + + +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. + + +FLUSTRA FOLIACEA. _Pl._ I. _fig._ 2. + + +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. + + +SERIALARIA LENDIGERA. _Pl._ I. _fig._ 10. +NOTAMIA BURSARIA. _Pl._ I. _fig._ 11. + + +The “tobacco-pipe”“ appendages, fig. 11 B, are of unknown use: they are +probably analogous to the birds’ heads in the Cellularæ. + + + +PLATE V. +CORALS AND SEA ANEMONES. + + +CARYOPHYLLÆA SMITHII. _Pl._ V. _fig._ 2. _Pl._ VI. _fig._ 3. + + +THE 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 _a_ represents a section of the latter, +to be compared with the basal disk of Sagartia. + + +SAGARTIA ANGUICOMA. _Pl._ V. _fig._ 3, _a_, _b_. + + +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 _a_, showing +a basal disk, is given for the purpose already described. + + +BALANOPHYLLÆA REGIA. _Pl._ V. _fig._ 1. + + +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 _a_, animal contracted; 1 _b_, the coral; 1 _c_, a tentacle +enlarged. + + + +PLATE VI. +CORALS AND SEA ANEMONES. + + +ACTINIA MESEMBRYANTHEMUM. _Pl._ VI. _fig._ 1 _a_. + + +THIS 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 _a_. 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. + + +BUNODES CRASSICORNIS. _Pl._ VI. _fig._ 2. + + +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. + + +CARYOPHYLLÆA SMITHII. _Pl._ VI. _fig._ 3. + + +This figure is to show a whiter variety, with the flesh and tentacles +fully expanded. + + + +PLATE VIII. +MOLLUSCA. + + +NASSA RETICULATA. _Pl._ VIII. fig. 2, _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, _e_, _f_ + + +A VERY active Mollusc, given here chiefly on account of the opportunity +afforded by the birth of young fry in Mr. Lloyd’s tanks. The _Nassa_ +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 _b_); each +capsule contained about a hundred eggs. The capsules opened on the 16th +of May, permitting the escape of rotiferous fry (fig. 2, _c_, _d_, _e_), +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 _f_ is the tongue of a Nassa, from a photograph by Dr. Kingsley. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{37} _Sertularia operculata_ and _Gemellaria lociculata_; or any of the +small _Sertulariæ_, compared with _Crisiæ_ and _Cellulariæ_, are very +good examples. For a fuller description of these, see Appendix +explaining Plate I. + +{67} 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. + +{70} These shells are so common that I have not cared to figure them. + +{72} Plate IX. Fig. 3, represents both parasites on the dead Turritella. + +{74} 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. + +{90} Handbook to the Marine Aquarium of the Crystal Palace. + +{111} 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. + +{113} Thalassema Neptuni (Forbes’ British Star-Fishes, p. 259), + +{116} 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. + +{118} A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast, p. 110. + +{121} Balanophyllia regia, Plate V. fig. 1. + +{126a} Amphidotus cordatus. + +{126b} Echinus miliaris, Plate VII. + +{127} See Professor Sedgwick’s last edition of the “Discourses on the +Studies of Cambridge.” + +{129} Fissurella græca, Plate X. fig. 5. + +{130a} Doris tuberculata and bilineata. + +{130b} Eolis papi losa. A Doris and an Eolis, though not of these +species, are figured in Plate X. + +{136} Plate III. + +{138} 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. + +{139a} Saxicava rugosa, Plate XI. fig. 2. + +{139b} 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. (_Vide_ Appendix.) + +{140a} Cypræa Europæa. + +{140b} Botrylli. + +{140c} + + _Molluscs_. +Doris tuberculata. Sigaretus. + +— bilineata. Fissurella. + +Eolis papillosa. Arca lactea. + +Pleurobranchus plumila. Pecten pusio. + +Neritina. Tapes pullastra. + +Cypræa. Kellia suborbicularis. + +Trochus,—2 species. Shænia Binghami. + +Mangelia. Saxicava rugosa. + +Triton. Gastrochoena pholadia. + +Trophon. Pholas parva. + +Nassa,—2 species. Anomiæ,—2 or 3 species + +Cerithium. Cynthia,—2 species. + + Botryllus, do. + _Annelids_. +Phyllodoce, and other Nereid Polynoe squamata. +worms. + _Crustacea_. +4 or 5 species. + _Echinoderms_. +Echinus miliaris. Ophiocoma neglecla. + +Asterias gibbosa. Cucumaria Hyndmanni. + + — communis. + _Polypes_. +Sertularia pumila. Tubulipora patina. + +— rugosa. — hispida. + +— fallax. — serpens. + +— filicula. Crisia eburnea. + +Plumularia falcata. Cellepora pumicosa. + +— setacea. Lepraliæ,—many species. + +Laomedea geniculata. Membranipora pilosa. + +Campanularia volubilis. Cellularia ciliata. + +Actinia mesembryanthemum. — scruposa. + +Actinia clavata. — reptans. + +— anguicoma. Flustra membranacea, &c. + +— crassicornis. + +{163} Plate XI. fig. 1. + +{167} Plate X. fig. 1. + +{170} There are very fine specimens in the Crystal Palace. + +{181a} Coryne ramosa. + +{181b} Campanularia integra. + +{182} Crisidia Eburnea. + +{190} Aquarium, p. 163. + +{201} P. 34. Figures of it are given in Plate VIII. + +{203} P. 259. + +{206} 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. + +{215} Very highly also, in interest, ranks M. Quatrefages’ “Rambles of a +Naturalist” (about the Mediterranean and the French Coast), translated by +M. Otté. + +{220} Van Voorst & Co. price 3s. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GLAUCUS*** + + +******* This file should be named 695-0.txt or 695-0.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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive +specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this +eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook +for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, +performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given +away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks +not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the +trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country outside the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + 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. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The +Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the +mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its +volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous +locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt +Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to +date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and +official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + |