LAST YEARS. 311 



" at the beach, there was no one ; and so I scrambled 

 "across to Babbicombe. There I found Thomas just 

 "come in from fishing, who had been delegated by 

 " Harris to take me. So he pulled me along shore to 

 " Hope's Nose, and proved a very agreeable and service- 

 " able young fellow, entering heartily into my wishes. 

 "There were some good crevices just below the rifle 

 " targets, and some at Black Head. Yet I got but little, 

 " till Thomas suggested some little pools which he knew 

 " to be rich on the islet called Flat Rock, about a mile 

 " off Hope's Nose. I accordingly climbed the rock, and 

 " soon found the rough leprous-barnacled surface hol- 

 " lowed in dozens of little shallow pools, overspread 

 "with fucus. The bottoms of these were studded with 

 " numbers of the pretty Sagartia nivea^ which I have not 

 " seen for years. They were all burrowed in the honey - 

 " combed limestone, and hard to chisel out ; however, I 

 "obtained seven. In one pool there was a colony of 

 " Bunodes gemmacea, unusually large ; I took three of 

 " these. Many pools were still unexplored. I had pre- 

 viously taken a nice mass of the emerald variety of 

 " Corynactis viridis, and many good masses of fine 

 " algae. The weather was mild, and fairly fine ; very 

 " calm ; the sea smooth, and brilliantly clear. I enjoyed 

 " the trip greatly." 



He made no pause through the depth of this winter, but 

 collected on the shore during every fine day. December 

 29 saw him stalking " an immense-disked [Sagartia] bellis 

 versicolor" under Oddicombe Point, and January 1 found 

 him turning stones on the beach at Livermead. The re- 

 fluent tide of his zoological ardour was at its height, nor 

 can it be said to have slackened through the greater part 

 of 1877. When he worked on the shore, Mrs. Gosse, as 

 she will relate, was commonly his companion ; when he 



