238 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



This tidal basin became one of the most constant of his 

 haunts, and he nourished a jealous and almost whimsical 

 affection for it, suffering from a constant fear that its 

 crystal beauty might be profaned. Every day the high 

 tide renewed its freshness, and then, retreating, left the 

 basin to settle into glassy calm. " Procul, o procul este ! " 

 my father used to murmur, affecting the airs of a lapwing 

 when idle men or lads approached the scenes of his 

 devotion. Strangely enough, this exquisite little freak of 

 nature survived, untouched, for nearly twenty years after 

 its discovery. At last, one day when my father climbed 

 up to look into it, behold ! some thrice-wretched vandal 

 had chiselled a channel on the seaward side, not very 

 deep indeed, but enough to destroy its unique regularity 

 of form. He never went to it again. 



Early in February he began to feel a marked improve- 

 ment in health. He bought a hammer and chisel, and 

 spent many hours every day in chipping off fragments of 

 rock bearing fine seaweeds and delicate animal forms. 

 These he preserved in vases and open pans, and thus 

 began to carry out his dream of a marine vivarium. He 

 found the under surfaces of the pebbles on Babbicombe 

 beach singularly rich in those fantastic and gem-like 

 creatures, the nudibranch mollusca, of which he set about 

 forming a considerable collection, in correspondence with 

 Alder and Hancock, the historians of those graceful sea- 

 slugs. With the very first dawn of convalescence, he 

 returned to his literary work. He started in March a fifth 

 volume of the series of handbooks for the S.P.C.K., this 

 time on the Mollusca ; and before this he began to put his 

 daily observations into the shape which finally assumed 

 the dimensions of A Naturalists Rambles on the Devonshire 

 Coast. 



It was singular that on wholly untrodden ground, and 



