AUGUST. 349 



new images created, and the knowledge and pleasure 

 attained, compensates abundantly for every asperity. 

 So on the sea shore, the indented cliffs lift up their 

 serrated ridges with forbidding aspect, and the con- 

 torted rocks, washed and wasted by the eternal boil 

 of ocean, rise to view as sullen and barren reefs, 

 pointed, ragged, and terrific. Yet when the tide has 

 retired, and the quiet repose of a summer's afternoon 

 has tempted one out to thread the rocky labyrinth, 

 and bound from crag to crag, how different does the 

 scene appear how beautiful ! In the recesses of the 

 rocks a hundred or a myriad of translucent fairy pools 

 have been left, their bosoms glistening with the qui- 

 vering light that reveals the amber pebbles or pearly 

 shells, in their transparent depths. There the crimson 

 Dasya or Plocamium, and green Ulva, placidly floats ; 

 the singular Asteria flaps upon the cold stone; the 

 Fucus, of various species, hangs its pods ; and zoo- 

 phytes, of numerous kinds (among which the Sea 

 Anemone is conspicuous,) claim the excited attention. 

 In other nooks, a host of Lichens colour the rocks 

 with orange, mark them with sable, or stain them 

 with bloody spots,* Some dry hollows are occupied 



* A knowledge of natural phenomena often brings to light hidden facts, 

 and sadly encroaches upon the domain of the marvellous. The " blood- 

 spercled" stones, at the bottom of St. Winefrid's well, at Holywell, in 

 Flintshire, were long appealed to as miraculous relics of St. Winefrid's 

 blood, till the prying botanist resolved them into an algoid production, 

 known as Palmetto, cruenta, which has been frequently taken for blood 

 spilt upon the ground. Thus CAXTON quaintly says 

 " In the welmes ofter than ones, 

 Ben found reed spercled stones, 

 In token of the blood reed 

 That the mayd Wenefrede 

 Shadd at that pytte 

 Whan hyr throte was kytte." 



Caxt. Chron. Descrypt. of Walys. 

 I have myself in summer time picked up in damp hollows of the slaty 



