130 GLAUCUS; OE, 



specimen of the multitudinous nations of the sea ! 

 From the bare rocks above high-water mark, down 

 to abysses deeper than ever plummet sounded, is 

 life, everywhere life ; fauna after fauna, and flora 

 after flora, arranged in zones, according to the amount 

 of light and warmth which each species requires, and 

 to the amount of pressure which they are able to 

 endure. The crevices of the highest rocks, only 

 sprinkled with salt spray in spring-tides and higli 

 gales,' have their peculiar little univalves, their crisp 

 lichen-like sea-weeds, in m^Tiads ; lower down, the 

 region of the Fuci (bladder-weeds) has its own tribes 

 of periwinkles and limpets ; below again, about the 

 neap-tide mark, the region of the corallines and Algse 

 furnishes food for yet other species who graze on its 

 watery meadows ; and beneath all, only uncovered at 

 low spring-tide, the zone of the Laminariae (the great 

 tangles and oar- weeds) is most full of all of every 

 imaginable form of life. So that as we descend the 

 rocks, we may compare ourselves (likening small 

 tilings to great) to those who, descending the Andes, 

 pass in a single day from the vegetation of the Arctic 



