THE GARDEN OF CYMODOCE 105 



I found a few shells myself and bought others at first, 

 as welcome gifts for children or bazaars ; but further 

 experience taught me where I could always get as 

 many gratis as I cared to take away. It was only 

 necessary to search the dust-heaps at the back of any 

 farm-house or cottage, and numbers of fine speci- 

 mens could be obtained, far better than the dead 

 shells washed up on the shore, which in addition to 

 their loss of colour usually bear marks of the perfora- 

 tions of their enemies, the cuttlefish and whelks. But 

 it is in anemones, sponges, and zoophytes of a similar 

 character that the island is especially rich. The rocky 

 caverns and hollows covered and disclosed by the great 

 rise and fall of the sea, amounting to as much as 

 twenty-six feet at spring tides, furnish ideal homes for 

 these light-avoiding creatures. One spot especially 

 the celebrated Gouliot cave is in itself sufficiently 

 unique to furnish a reason for a visit to the island by 

 any one interested in these beautiful and strange in- 

 habitants. These caves, for there are really two, can 

 only be penetrated at the lowest spring tides, when 

 they must be approached either by a boat, if the sea 

 is sufficiently calm to admit of landing, or by a some- 

 what precipitous and difficult path from above, not 

 dangerous to any one with a reasonably good head, 

 although Mr. Swinburne, with permissible poetical 

 licence, has given a somewhat exaggerated view of its 

 perils : 



"For the path is for passage of sea-mews, and he that hath glided 



and leapt 



Over sea-grass and sea-rock, alighting as one from a citadel crept 

 That his foemen beleaguer, descending by darkness and stealth 



at the last, 

 Peers under, and all is as hollow to hellward, agape and aghast." 



