LAST YEARS. 307 



"together have swept the whole coast within reach of 

 "this place (St. Marychurch) as with a besom. Even 

 " Mesembryanthemum occurs only in wretched little 

 " examples, few and far between. . . . From all that you 

 " say, I imagine that the point of Cornwall and the Scilly 

 " Isles, being beyond railways, would offer many a scene 

 "such as you have beheld, rich to profusion in marine 

 " zoology, and unrifled by the rude hands of man ; and* 

 "old as I am, I am stimulated to try. As soon as we 

 "had read your letter, mother suggested whether we 

 " might not run down ourselves for a few days ; and I 

 "am not sure that we shall not put the posse in esse. 

 " Please to give me a little more detail on the practical 

 "aspects. . . . Could I reach the cleft knife-like point of 

 " rock which you found so prolific in nivea and miniata ? 

 " The pale-green anemone, with banded tentacles and a 

 " Sagartia habit, which you found on the rock that you 

 " reached by swimming — was not this Sagartia chryso- 

 " splenium ? This is a species which I have never seen. 

 "Refer to plate vi. of Actinologia Britannica, and tell me 

 "whether it was this. ... I am all agog as I read. 

 "The case of the launce you found swallowed by an 

 " Anthea is not without parallel in my own experience." 

 It was only a flash in the pan, however ; in the next 

 letter I was told that " even early September is no time for 

 elderly persons to be away from home, in a wild remote 

 country." The real zoological awakening had not come. 



These years were not, however, in any sense quiescent. 

 They were amply filled with amateur occupations — the 

 cultivation of orchids and the study of astronomy being 

 the most prominent. When Philip Gosse had passed sixty 

 years of age, his health became settled, and he enjoyed 

 life to a higher degree than perhaps ever before. On 

 February 18, 1875, he wrote : — 



