72 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



hangs suspended, as it seems, at the very mouth of 

 the trough-like hollow. It is natural in the silence 

 and the solitude for thoughts of the lapse of time to 

 arise of the endless centuries since, by some slow 

 geological process, this hollow was formed. Fifteen 

 hundred years ago the men of the camp above came 

 hither to draw water ; still the spring oozes and flows, 

 and the sun sinks at the western mouth. So too, 

 doubtless, the sun shone into the hollow in the even- 

 ing cycle upon cycle ere then. 



Up the blade of grass here a tiny white-shelled snail 

 has crawled, feeling in its dull, dim way that evening 

 is approaching. The coils of the little shell are ex- 

 quisitely turned the workmanship is perfect ; the 

 creature within, there can be no question, is equally 

 perfect in its way, and finds a joy in the plants on 

 which it feeds. On the ground below, hidden among 

 the fibres near the roots of the grass, lies another tiny 

 shell ; but it is empty ; the life that once animated it 

 has fled whither ? Presently the falling dew will 

 condense upon it, and at the opening one round drop 

 will stand, after a while to add its mite to the ceaseless 

 flow of the fountain. Could any system of notation 

 ever express the number of these creatures that have 

 existed in the past ? If time is measured by the dura- 

 tion of life, reckoned by their short spans eternity 

 upon eternity has gone by. To me the greatest marvel 

 is the countless, the infinite number of the organisms 

 that have existed, each with its senses and feelings, 

 whose bodies now help to build up the solid crust of 



