62 HOUSE, GARDEN, AND FIELD 



XIV. THE ROCK-BARNACLE. 



The life of a rock-strewn sea-beach is a world in itself, 

 and I would no more attempt to describe it in one short 

 chapter than I would attempt to describe the land animals 

 of an English country side. But a single visit to the 

 sea-shore, like a single excursion through the fields, may 

 be profitable if we resist the temptation to examine every- 

 thing that we come across, and fix our attention upon 

 some few objects. What can we reasonably attempt in 

 a single morning's ramble and a single afternoon's boat- 

 ing party, which are all that we can now command ? 



The rocky beach before us, with its countless boulders 

 and pools, abounds in living things to a degree that only 

 the experienced shore-collector can appreciate. Though 

 many of the free-swimming animals went down with the 

 receding tide, and are now seeking their food in the 

 groves of sea-tangle below low-water mark, a multitude 

 of others have stayed behind to wait for the return of the 

 tide. Some of them, like the sea-anemones, the limpets, 

 and the barnacles, lie exposed on the bare rocks or on 

 the tufts of brown seaweed. Some trust to the pro- 

 tection of a few inches of sea-water ; many have squeezed 

 themselves up, or sunk into the sand, or crept into a 

 narrow cleft, or closed some protective shell which they 

 possess, and the untrained eye fails to discover them 

 among the blotches of colour due to rock-weathering, or 

 the tufts of marine vegetation. One of the few creatures 

 that move about freely is the shore-crab, and at a little 

 distance he too becomes invisible, so nearly does his 

 olive-green shell resemble the dark seaweeds. It is with 

 some surprise that the young naturalist hears his elders 

 remark that of all tracts on the habitable globe none so 

 swarms with life as the beach a little above and a little 

 below low water. 



Our time will be frittered away if we glance perpetually 



