216 HIGH WATER MARK. 



scend the steep and winding footpath down the dell, 

 the sheltering hill makes it perfectly calm, and the 

 full blaze of the morning sun gives to the air the 

 warmth of summer. Vegetation is rapidly unfold- 

 ing in so genial a nook as this ; the thickets of furze 

 are covered with golden bloom ; the young foliage of 

 the brambles is of the tenderest green ; clumps of 

 palu rimroses are carpeting the hollows, and fragrant 

 violets peep out beneath the bushes : the bee-orchis 

 is above ground by scores, and in the oozy outbreak- 

 ings of the springs rise hosts of the clubbed columnar 

 spikes of the great water horse-tail. The vivid- 

 coloured stonechat and the elegant rock -pipit are 

 flitting from hummock to boulder, selecting the scene 

 of then* domestic economy ; and the perturbed haste 

 with which the blackbird shoots out from yonder 

 gorsebush, loudly cackling as he goes, indicates with 

 tolerable certainty his whereabouts. But here we are 

 at the beach, treading the leathery line that consti- 

 tutes our hunting-field. 



Many of these black and leathery sea-weeds at our 

 feet, which are shrivelling up in the sun and air, like 

 scorched parchment, are perfect microcosms. And 

 exquisite forms of being people these tiny worlds. I 

 pick out this broad frond from the d&rk mass, and 

 lo ! its expanse is studded over with tangled shrubs, 

 like the thickets of furze upon the downs yonder. 

 What can these little shrubs and bushes be ? " Sea- 

 weeds, of course," you say ; " parasitic sea-weeds." 



Not so fast, however. The difference between a 



