198 AUGUST. 



widened and deepened by the same grinding action. 

 By-and-by a pebble is rolled in, and being almost large 

 enough to fill the cavity, it does not readily wash out, 

 but grinds round and round with the motion of the sea. 

 So the process goes on, perhaps for centuries, perhaps 

 with long intervals of almost sameness; every stone 

 that is washed-in enlarging the work; while, when 

 once the hollow has become only ever so little larger 

 or deeper than those which surround it, the pebbles 

 will have an increasing tendency to roll in and to stay 

 there. So, at length, the basin is formed, tiny at first ; 

 I know scores not so big as a slop-bowl, which yet have 

 their furniture of elegant little sea- weeds, green and 

 purple, and their tenants of worms, and shrimps, and 

 polyps ; but destined by-and-by to become noble 

 reservoirs in which man may pleasantly bathe, and in 

 which little fishes play and shoot to and fro, and hide 

 under the umbrageous fronds of the oar-weed and tangle 

 that droop gracefully into the ample cavity. 



In the pleasant sunny afternoons of this season of 

 the year we may find in tolerable abundance the pretty 

 Cork-wing, 1 in such rock-pools as I have been speaking 

 of. In the shallow hollows of the ledges they shoot 

 hither and thither, the swift movement just catching 



1 Crenilabrus Cornubicus, of which a group, in several varieties of colour, 

 size, and position, are represented in Plate xxn. 



