TUBULIPORA. 203 



laughed heartily, saying, " Indian no want look at 

 bark or tree-top, 'cept when he hunt porcupine." But 

 if the Indian had had as acute a power of analysing 

 his perceptions as of forming them, no doubt he 

 would have found that he had been every instant 

 receiving and treasuring impressions from such 

 phenomena, though the process had become so 

 habitual that he was now unconscious of it. 



But we have travelled far from High-water Mark ; 

 and you are wondering what may be the text of this 

 long sermon on instincts and perceptions, red men and 

 pine forests. It is indeed a small one, a tiny gray 

 scale, not so large as the diameter of a split pea, spread 

 upon the stem of this sea-washed Oarweed, which 

 almost every one would pass by as nothing ; but which, 

 to you and me, fair reader, because we are naturalists, 

 is a volume of biography. 



Disregardful, then, of that young gentleman with 

 the eye-glass and cigar, who gives us first a super- 

 cilious, and then a pitying glance, and looks anxiously 

 hither and thither, no doubt wondering where our 

 " keeper " can be- let us sit down on this old spar, 

 and read our little history. 



By the aid of a pocket-lens, then, we see a tiny 

 plate of glistening white shell, of a roundish outline, 

 adhering to the rough foot-stalk of the weed. We 

 can pass the tip of a penknife under the edge all 

 round, and we see that the point of adhesion is only 

 the centre of the base. The upper surface presents a 

 complicated structure ; for to a short distance within 



