ROCK-POOLS. 197 



Southey must have had the deep rocky pools of the Devonshire coast in his mind's eye 

 when he wrote 



" It was a garden still beyond all price, 

 Even yet it was a place of Paradise. 

 * # * * 



And here were coral bowers, 

 And grots of madrepores, 

 And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eye 



As e'er was mossy bed 

 Whereon the wood-nymphs lie 

 With languid limbs in summer's sultry hours. 

 Here, too, were living flowers, 

 Which like a bud compacted, 

 Their purple cups contracted, 

 And now, in open blossom spread, 

 Stretched like green anthers many a seeking head ; 



And arborets of jointed stone were there, 

 And plants of fibres fine as silkworm's thread ; 



Yea, beautiful as mermaid's golden hair, 

 Upon the waves dispread." 



It is among the rock-tide pools that some of the most prized treasures of the aquarium 

 may be obtained. There are the little shrubberies of pink coralline, Southey's "arborets of 

 jointed stone " ; there are the crimson banana-leaves of the Delesseria, the purple tufts of 

 Polysiphonise and Ceramia, the broad emerald green leaves of Ulva, and the wavy, feathery 

 Ptitola and Dasya. Then everywhere is to be found the lovely C/tondrus crispus, with its 

 expanding fan-shaped fronds cut into segments, every segment of every frond reflecting a 

 lovely iridescent azure. 



Mr. Gosse was reclining one evening on the turf, looking down on a Devonshire cove that 

 formed the extremity of a great cavern. Though it was low tide, the sea did not recede 

 sufficiently to admit of any access to the cove from the shore. Presently he saw a large rat 

 come deliberately foraging down to the water's edge, peep under every stone, go hither and 

 thither very methodically, pass into the crevices, exploring them in succession. At length he 

 came out of a hole in the rock, with some white object in his mouth as big as a walnut, and 

 ran slowly off with it by a way the observer had not seen him go before, till he could follow 

 him no longer with his eyes because of the projections of the precipice. What could he 

 possibly have found ? He evidently knew what he was about. From his retirement into the 

 cavern, when the sea had quite insulated it, the sagacious little animal had doubtless his retreat 

 in its recesses, far up, of course, out of the reach of the sea, where he would be snugly lodged 

 when the waves dashed and broke wildly through the cove, kindling millions of fitful lamps 

 among the clustering polypes below. 



The influx of the tide is frequently, as we all know, very rapid on the sands, and cuts off 

 the communication between rocky islets and the shore in rather a treacherous fashion. Mr. 

 Gosse, in giving an account of such influx on a part of the Devonshire coast says : 



" In the evening we strolled down to look at the place, and were beguiled into staying till 

 it was quite late by the interest which attached to the coming-in of the tide. There was a 



