62 SAGABTIADJ2. 



troglodyte habit, it is, like many of its congeners, rather 

 difficult to procure, notwithstanding its abundance, as it 

 must be chiselled out, — an operation, which, from the. great 

 hardness of the compact limestone, is both tedious and 

 precarious. 



Hundreds might be seen* in the largest of the caverns 

 just alluded to, hanging down from the walls during the 

 recess of the tide ; the button elongated to an inch or more. 

 And almost every dark overarched basin hollowed in the 

 sides of the caves, or in similar situations, at Lidstep, at 

 St. Margaret's Island, and under Tenby Head, each filled 

 to the brim with still crystalline water, had its rugged w T alls 

 and floor studded with the full-blown blossoms of this 

 and cognate species. 



As a specimen of the exceeding richness of these " gar- 

 dens of the Nereids," wherewith our iron-bound coasts are 

 adorned, I shall take the liberty of citing the description of 

 one, as it appeared to myself in the vicinity of which I 

 am speaking. It was on the face of the bluff castle- 

 crowned promontory known as Tenby Head. 



" After scrambling over many rough ridges, we come to 

 a perpendicular wall of rock some twenty-five feet high, 

 jutting out from the cliff right across our way ; its foot 

 washed by the sea, which is evidently of considerable 

 depth, its summit tapered to a sharp edge, and the whole 

 side holed, and furrowed, and honeycombed, and covered 

 with barnacles to the very top. 



* I use the past tense ; for alas ! it is so no more. When I revisited 

 Tenby in 1856, I found that these caves, and almost every accessible part 

 of the neighbouring coast, were pretty well denuded of the lovely animal- 

 flowers, which, in 1854, had blossomed there, as in a parterre. I fear that 

 the hammers and chisels of amateur naturalists have been the desolating 

 agents ; and my friends tell me, not without a semi-earnest reproachful- 

 ness, that I am myself not guiltless of bringing about the consummation. 

 If the visitors were gainers to the same amount as the rocks are losers, 

 there would be less cause for regret; but owing to difficulty and unskilful- 

 ness combined, probably half a dozen Anemones are destroyed for one that 

 goes into the aquarium. 



