164 Dwellers of the Sea and Shore 



Such was the impression produced by my first ac- 

 quaintance with a tide pool. At the time of this expe- 

 rience, nothing whatever was known to me of the nature 

 or the identity of the various plants and animals which 

 inhabit the seashore. My interest in nature, always 

 keen, had hitherto been excited only by such of its 

 aspects as are ordinarily familiar to the inland dweller. 

 It is true that those contacts were fraught with an un- 

 deniable charm. Many a ravishing hour had I spent 

 watching some woodland watercourse with its divers 

 wonders; indeed, I have often been beguiled into lin- 

 gering at the margin of some glistening pond to watch 

 with awe just the merest living mote. But on none of 

 those occasions did my emotions respond to the degree 

 that they did on my introduction to the tide pool. Per- 

 haps this was because they had always been among the 

 common things of life. It was not so much that mar- 

 vels did not occur as that it did not occur to me to 

 marvel. Alpine villagers, it is said, fail to find the 

 same beauties in their region that move the tourist to 

 such superlative expressions of delight. The ever- 

 present spectacle of those lofty altitudes is unimpressive 

 and without novelty, if not without charm, to a people 

 born and reared amidst sublime surroundings. My 

 own feelings and attitude in regard to the outstanding 

 features of my terrestrial haunts were, doubtless, of a 

 sort like this. Then for the first time I saw the sublime 

 aspect of nature as it exists only in the sea. I was like 

 one lost in a delectable land of illusion. But there was 

 no illusion: I had acquired a newer vision; and from 

 that moment I have never looked upon living things in 



