254 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HEXRY GOSSE. 



part of our coast which can compare with them in afford- 

 ing a treat to the marine naturaHst." In his volume called 

 Tenby he has given an account, as minute as it is graphic, 

 of the experiences oi these summer weeks, and of the 

 results to his aquarium collections. His very delightful 

 and almost uniformly brilliant and successful visit to 

 Pembrokeshire came to a close on August i8. These 

 eight weeks were among the most enjoyable o{ his life. 

 His bodily condition was unusuall}- good, and Mrs. Gosse 

 was in better health than she had been for two }*ears past ; 

 while he was actively and constantly making additions of 

 a more or less important character to the existing know- 

 ledge of seaside zoolog}-. His important discoveries, lead- 

 ing to a redistribution of genera, and the naming of many 

 new species, of British sea-anemones, belong to this summer 

 of 1S54, although they were not then published. 



In the course q{ the summer, as he was exploring the 

 caverns of St. Catherine's Island, he was accosted by a 

 gentleman who introduced himself as the Bishop of Oxford, 

 and who entered with great gusto into the pleasures of the 

 seashore. The acquaintance thus oddly formed ripened 

 into a daily companionship as long as they were both at 

 Tenby, and after they parted, Dr. Wilberforce and my 

 father kept up a desultory correspondence for a while. 

 Another and more permanent friendship formed at Tenby 

 was that with Mr. Frederick D}-ster, the zoologist ; from 

 whom he bought, for £10, the microscope which he con- 

 tinued, regardless of modern improvements, to use until 

 near the end of his life. His acquaintance with Professor 

 Huxley, then a young surgeon whose investigations into 

 the oceanic Hydrozoa, on board H.iM.S. Rattlesnake, had 

 recently given him scientific prominence, and whose 

 contributions to his own collection Gosse records in Tenby, 

 began in this year : but his principal scientific or literar}- 



