VI. 

 JUNE. 



WE are on the narrow shingle-beach of Maiden- 

 combe, or, sometimes, more familiarly, Minnicombe; 

 one of the slight indentations of this line of coast, which, 

 from the mouth of the Exe to Start Point, runs nearly 

 north and south, and so looks right up-channel, and 

 receives the full violence of the keen and blustering east 

 winds. 



Away down the gentle slope till we come to the line 

 where the wavelets are kissing the rock, where the next 

 step would put us into King Canute's circumstances, 

 where the sea is washing to and fro the shaggy weed, 

 and just preventing it from assuming the shrivelled and 

 blackened condition, into which the tufts a little above 

 are fast falling under the baking powers of this June 

 sun ; and here, on these very weeds, now submerged, 

 now dry, are crawling some uncouth beings of a dark 

 liver colour or purple-brown hue. The creature passes 

 by the name of Sea-hare j 1 a not inappropriate designa- 



1 Aplysia punctata, of which two specimens, one viewed rddewise, and 



