236 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



His choice of that particular county was made partly 

 because of its warmth in winter, partly because of its geo- 

 graphical position at the gates of the populous Atlantic, 

 but also for a reason which would have occurred only to 

 a practical naturalist. The researches of a littoral zoolo- 

 gist are carried on with most success at spring tides. In 

 many parts of the English coast the lowest water occurs 

 at about six o'clock in the morning or evening, a time 

 inconvenient in many ways, and particularly to an invalid. 

 In Devonshire, on the days of new and full moon, the 

 lowest tide is near the middle of the day. After great 

 hesitation as to a point at which to begin, Torquay was 

 finally chosen, although the doctors considered it too re- 

 laxing for a nervous disorder. On January 29, 1852, the 

 family arrived there, and immediately proceeded to the 

 village of St. Marychurch, about a mile and a half to 

 north, an ancient but not picturesque assemblage of white- 

 washed cottages and small shops, close to the sea-cliff, but 

 out of sight of the sea. This place had the advantage of 

 a considerable altitude above Torquay, which slumbered 

 among its groves of arbutus, by the side of its land-locked 

 azure bay, as in a warm bath, and had alarmed its feeble 

 visitors by the relaxing quality of its atmosphere. St. 

 Marychurch lay open to the east, on a level with the tops 

 of the cliffs, and enjoyed, on clear days, a refreshing view 

 of the purple tors of Dartmoor away in the west. It was 

 little in Philip Gosse's mind, when he first stepped up 

 the reddish-white street of St. Marychurch, that in this 

 village he would eventually spend more than thirty years 

 of his life, and would close it there. For the present his 

 stay was transitory. They took lodgings at Bank Cottage, 

 a little detached villa in the main street. 



After the long imprisonment within the gloom of 

 London, Philip Gosse's eyes were acutely sensitive to the 



