TO THE COAST. 3 



"Why not try Marychurcli? It is very high, 

 and the air is hracing. Moreover you will he within 

 an easy walk of the shore at several points; the 

 coast round is indented with coves and inlets; 

 most of it is very rocky, and will give you plenty 

 of hollows and dark pools, full of sea-weeds and 

 zoophytes, interchanged now and then with sandy 

 and shingly heaches. Try the South first; you 

 will then be as well situated as now for reaching 

 the North coast, should the air not suit you." 



The counsel seemed sound and seasonable. The 

 next day the luggage was sent off to the Torquay 

 station, and we all, (wife, self, and little naturalist in 

 petticoats) followed by easy stages. 



And very pleasant it was to us to find ourselves at 

 the end of January in the midst of the "Devonshire 

 Lanes." No frosts had as yet sullied the verdure of 

 the hedge banks, or nipped the shrubs in the sweet 

 cottage gardens. Indeed frost seems here almost 

 unknown, if we may judge by the myrtles dressed in 

 their glossy foliage of deepest green, reaching up to 

 the eaves of the houses, and the fuchsias, not always 

 of the most common varieties, whose thick roughened 

 trunks have evidently braved the open air through 

 many winters. As we trudged, despite the tenacious 

 red mud that lay ankle-deep, along the narrow lanes 

 around Marychurch and West-hill, lanes that were 

 even now dark with the tall hedges, and the roadside 

 trees that met over our heads, we felt that we had left 

 the reign of winter far behind us. The high sloping 

 banks were fringed every where with the long pendent 

 fronds of the hart's tongue fern ; the broad arrowy 



