THE UNKNOWN. 



beauty, and where, throughout the year, though 

 there is change, there is no cessation of animal or 

 vegetable activity, there was novelty enough in 

 every day's opimn spolia to whet the expectation 

 of to-morrow. Each morning's preparation was 

 made with the keenest relish, because there was 

 the undefined hope of good things, but I knew 

 not what ; and the experience of each day, as the 

 treasures were gloated over in the evening, was 

 so different in detail from that of the preceding, 

 that the sense of novelty never palled. If the 

 walk was by the shore, the state of the tide, the 

 ever varying wave-washings, the diverse rocks 

 with their numerous pools and crannies and 

 recesses, the cliffs and caves, the fishes in the shal- 

 lows, the nimble and alert Crustacea on the mud, 

 the shelled mollusca on the weed-beds, the echino- 

 derms on the sand, the zoophytes on the corals, 

 continually presented objects of novelty. If I rode 

 with vasculum and insect-net and fowling-piece 

 into the mountain- woods, there was still the like 

 pleasing uncertainty of what might occur, with 

 the certainty of abundance. A fine epiphyte or- 

 chid scents the air with fragrance, and it is 

 discovered far up in the fork of some vast tree; 

 then there is the palpitation of hope and fear as 

 we discuss the possibility of getting it down ; then 

 come contrivances and efforts, — pole after pole is 

 cut and tied together with the cords which the 

 forest-climbers afford. At length the plant is 

 reached, and pushed off, and triumphantly 

 bagged ; but lo 1 while examining it, some elegant 

 twisted shell is discovered, with its tenant snail, 

 crawling on the leaves. Scarcely is this boxed, 

 when a gorgeous butterfly rushes out of the 

 gloom into the sunny glade, and is in a moment 

 seen to be a novelty; then comes the excitement 

 17 257 



