IX. 



To oblige an English correspondent who requested 

 some blocks of stone containing Pholas perforations, 

 the writer, in company with a fellow-student, started 

 betimes for the sea-shore, some four miles' distance. 

 We made for a certain spot, where it was expected 

 the object of our wishes could easily be found. Our 

 equipment consisted merely of a hammer, a bottle, 

 and two chisels, enclosed in a carpet-bag, the better 

 to mask our mission from impertinent curiosity. 



On reaching the shore, it soon became painfully 

 apparent that no pieces of rock could be procured 

 of a character at all suitable for a museum. To make 

 matters still more irritating, a breeze arose, and with 

 it came a furious shower of rain, which soon com- 

 pletely saturated our light costume. At such a time 

 it is laughable to note how faint becomes the poetry 

 of practical zoology how excessively like street 

 puddles are the fairy-grots, as the rock-pools are 

 called ; how unsightly the great, distorted anemones 

 look, too, when viewed from beneath a- large boulder, 



