THE SCARLET AND COLD STAR-CORAL. 
345 
summer at Ilfracombe, and the chills and storms of autumn 
were already warning the migrant inliabitants away. It 
was a spring-tide in September, and the water had receded 
lower than I had seen it since I had been at the place. I 
was searching among the extremely rugged rocks that run 
out from the Tunnels, forming walls and pinnacles of dan- 
gerous abruptness, with deep, almost inaccessible cavities 
between. Into one of these, at the very verge of the water, 
I managed to scramble down ; and found round a corner 
a sort of oblong basin, about ten feet long, in whicli the 
water remained, a tide-pool of three feet depth in the 
middle. The whole concavity of the interior was so 
smooth that I could find no resting-place for my foot in 
order to examine it ; though the sides, all covered with 
the pink lichen-like Coralline, and bristling with Laminarias 
and Zoophytes, looked so tempting that I walked round 
and round, reluctant to leave it. At length I fairly stripped, 
though it was blowing very cold, and jumped in. I had 
examined a good many things, of which the only novelty 
was the pretty nan-ow fronds of F lustra chartacea in some 
abundance, and was just about to come out, when my eye 
rested on what I at once saw to be a Madrepore, but of aii 
unusual colour, a most refulgent orange. It was detached 
by means of the hammer, as were several more, which were 
associated with it. Xot su.specting, however, that it was 
anything more than a variation in colour of that very vari- 
able species, Caryo'phyllia Smithu, I left a good many 
remaining, for which I was afterwards sorry, since they 
proved to belong to this new and interesting form before 
us. All were affixed to the pci’pendicular side of the pool, 
above the permanent water-mark : and there were some of 
the common CaryopliylUos associated with them. 
I afterwards found the same species in considerable 
number, e.specially during the very low springs of the 
