THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 107 
that can break or wear in his house. Yet Mr. Peach 
is a votary of Natural History ; not a student of the 
science in books, for he cannot afford books; but an 
investigator by sea and shore, a collector of Zoo- 
phytes and Echinodermata—strange creatures, many 
of which are as yet hardly known to man. These 
he collects, preserves, and describes; and every year 
does he come up to the British Association with a 
few novelties of this kind, accompanied by illustra- 
tive papers and drawings: thus, under circumstances 
the very opposite of those of such men as Lord 
Enniskillen, adding, in like manner, to the general 
stock of knowledge. On the present occasion he is 
unusually elated, for he has made the discovery of a 
Holothuria with twenty tentacula, a species of the 
Echinodermata which Professor Forbes, in his book 
on Star-Fishes, has said was never yet observed in 
the British seas. It may be of small moment to 
you, who, mayhap, know nothing of Holothurias: 
but it is a considerable thing to the Fauna of Britain, 
and a vast matter to a poor private of the Cornwall 
mounted guard And accordingly he will go home 
