COVERED-GILLED MOLLUSKS. 138 
stances in which He has placed them, and not 
merely their dried and shrivelled remains, techni- 
cally labelled and arranged in the drawers of a 
cabinet, can scarcely have a greater treat than a 
ramble on a summer’s day along the margin of the 
sea, on some one of our rocky shores. 
‘Tis pleasant to wander along on the sand, 
Beneath the high cliff that is hollow’d in caves, 
When the fisher has put off his boat from the land, 
And the prawn-catcher wades thro’ the short rippling waves; 
While fast run before us the sandling and plover, 
Intent on the crabs and the sand-eels to feed; 
Or on a smooth rock which the tide will soon cover, 
To find us a seat that is tap’stried with weed.” 
But still more pleasant is it to peer into those 
wells of pure water which are hollowed out in the 
living rock, frmged with waving sea-plants, and 
stocked with animals of various kinds, all pursuing 
their natural avocations, and disporting themselves 
in a thousand ways, under the umbrageous shade 
of what to them is a marine forest. As we gaze 
down into these clear, quiet depths, we almost 
unconsciously repeat the words of one of our 
noblest poets, who has selected such a scene for the 
embellishment of the wildest of his romances :— 
‘“‘ 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. 
