62 GLAUCUS; OR, 
caves, like Hindoo temples, upborne on pillars 
banded with yellow and white and red, a week’s 
study, in form and colour and chiaro-oscuro, for 
any artist; and a mile or so further along a 
pleasant road, with land-locked glimpses of the 
bay, to the broad sheet of sand which lies between 
the village of Paignton and the sea—sands trodden 
a hundred times by Montagu and Turton, perhaps, 
by Dillwyn and Gaertner, and many another pioneer 
of science. And once there, before we look at 
anything else, come down straight to the sea marge ; 
for yonder lies, just left by the retiring tide, a 
mass of life such as you will seldom see again. 
It is somewhat ugly, perhaps, at first sight; for 
ankle-deep are spread, for some ten yards long by 
five broad, huge dirty bivalve shells, as large as 
the hand, each with its loathly grey and black 
siphons hanging out, a confused mass of slimy 
death. Let us walk on to some cleaner heap, and 
leave these, the great Lutraria FElliptica, which 
have been lying buried by thousands in the sandy 
mud, each with the point of its long siphon above 
