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Drawing nearer the shore, upon some of the most recently deposited 

 layers of mud, we find patches of Salicornia, the Saltwort, one of the first 

 pioneers of land vegetation, for the places where we remember to have first 

 seen it are either covered with Scirpus maritimus, Glaux maritima, or the 

 short grasses and carices which succeed these, of which cattle appear to be 

 extremely fond. A large mass of lias which has fallen from the cliff into 

 such a position as to be washed only by the highest tides, is covered 

 entirely by Plantago maritima. The Saltwort, under the name of Sam- 

 phire, is gathered and eaten either as a pickle or as a substitute for aspa- 

 ragus, and is said to be very wholesome. 



From out of the mud-cracks formed by the sun, and shaken by our 

 footsteps, rush numberless Bembidiida and other small beetles, the 

 pedigrees of which would once have excited our highest curiosity, but 

 whose acquaintance upon the present occasion, we dechne to make upon 

 any terms. 



Further from the river, we find other ponds, smaller and shallower than 

 any we have yet examined, too shallow indeed for sticklebacks, though 

 not void of inhabitants, for, as we intercept the sunshine from one of 

 them, the bottom is seen to be covered by a shoal of small crustaceans, 

 resembling Gammarus, which immediately move away rapdily towards the 

 opposite side. Two or three strange-looking, whitish objects, about an 

 inch in length, and a line in breadth, are now crawling leisurely over the 

 mud, now swimming rapidly, anon rising to the surface, and apparently 

 dividing their bodies fi-om one extremity to beyond the middle, groping 

 along the surface with the points of the divided portion. Capturing some 

 of these, we find that the division is caused by the expansion of a pair of 

 claws, longer than the entii-e body, and that the creature is an 

 amphipodous crustacean, probably the Corophmi of Cuvier. Spherosoma 

 dentata, and Ncesa bidentata, are also present in considerable numbers, 

 and with Ligia oceanica and Talitra locusta, both of which may be found 

 amongst the Driftwood, or under stones above the tide-reach, and 

 species yet to be mentioned, form an array of its order, with which we are 

 surprised to meet. We are forcibly reminded by the first-named of these, of 

 the outlines of the Bumastis Barriensis of the "Woolhope beds of the Silurian 

 formation, which may have resembled them in its habitudes, crawling with 

 its slender feet, or swimming slowly by their aid, and possibly, that of 

 similar caudal appendages, over the unctuous mud of its haunts. 



Eeturning to deeper fishing, we discover in a muddy pool which has 

 evidently received an accession to its waters from the tide, a few fronds of 

 Fucus vesiculosus, which we carelessly lift out with the net, and to our 

 great surprise, find that we have at the same time bagged half a dozen of 



