6 JANUARY. 



scramble down, holding fast by the tufts of thrift, round 

 and soft and yielding, but sufficiently firm to present 

 some resistance, or by the tussocks of wiry grass, till 

 we leap down on the great piled masses of marble that 

 past ages have thrown from the cliffs upon the beach. 

 Among these we find many basins and pools of still 

 water, for we are in a deep recess of the promontory, 

 whose shelter renders us almost unconscious of the fury 

 of the winter wind without ; and the masses of rock 

 that lie piled about so curb and break the force of the 

 incoming sea, that it percolates rather than rushes into 

 these secluded nooks. Tall walls of stone, too, shut out 

 much of the light of day ; and as to the sun, only his 

 most slant evening rays ever reach this spot : it is 

 enshrouded in an obscurity which is most congenial to 

 both the plants and the animals which resort to our 

 shores ; and here, doubtless, though the season is still 

 midwinter, we shall find our searchings rewarded by 

 not a few of those creatures, beautiful and wondrous, in 

 which the devout naturalist delights to trace the handi- 

 work of the God of glory. 



At the very first glance into this little rock-hollow, 

 all fringed with crimson and purple weed, lined with 

 scales of lilac coralline, and partly shadowed by the 

 olive fronds of the leathery tangle, we discern many 

 forms of animal life. Here, for instance, is a fine hand- 



