18 CHARMS OF THE SEA. 



observation ! Almost every haul in the waters of 

 the Firth brought up organisms, fitful in action and 

 Protsean in character ; — the faceless, shapeless, round, 

 angular, and stellate forms ; the gelatinous, pulpy, 

 passively transient ; the finny, scaly, and gliding- 

 surfaced; the shelly, cretaceous, or bristling-defiant, 

 mingling with the more harmonising and attractive, 

 showing their lines of beauty, and dots and streaks of 

 colour, nature-anilined, gold or ruby ; — all studies of 

 the vast waters of 



The sea, the sea, the open sea, 



# 



And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled, 

 And the dolphins bared their backs of gold. 



