56 GLAUCUS ; OR, 



yellow and white and red, a week's study, in 

 form and color and chiaro-oscuro, for any art- 

 ist; and a mile or so further along a pleasant 

 road, with landlocked glimpses of the bay, to 

 the broad sheet of sand which lies between the 

 village of Paignton and the sea, — sands trodden 

 a hundred times by Montagu and Turton, per- 

 haps, by Dillwyn and Gaertnei", and many another 

 pioneer of science. And once there, before we 

 look at anything else, come down straight to the 

 sea marge ; for yonder lies, just left by the retii-ing 

 tide, a mass of life such as you will seldom see 

 again. It is somewhat ugly, perhaps, at first sight ; 

 for ankle-deep are spread, for some ten yards long 

 by five broad, huge dirty shells, as large as the 

 hand, each with its loathly gray and black tongue 

 hanging out, a confused mass of slimy death. Let 

 us walk on to some cleaner heap, and leave these, 

 the great Lutraria elUjitica, which have been 

 lying buried by thousands in the sandy mud, each 

 with the point of its long siphon above the surface, 

 suckinof in and drivinj; out ajirain the salt water on 

 which it feeds, till last night's ground-swell shifted 

 the sea bottom, and drove them up hither to per- 

 ish helpless, but not useless, on the beach. 



See, dose by is another shell bed, quite as 



