THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 199 



forms, in the stream as in tlie ocean ; but wliat if a 

 correspondence were opened between a few fishermen 

 — of whom one should live, say, by the Hampshire 

 or Berkshire chalk-streams ; another on the slates 

 and granites of Devon ; another on the limestones 

 of Yorkshire or Derbyshire ; another among the yet 

 earlier slates of Snowdonia, or some mountain part 

 of Wales ; and more than one among the hills of 

 the Border and the lakes of the Highlands. Each 

 would find (I suspect), on comparing his insects with 

 those of the others, that he was exploring a little 

 peculiar world of his own, and that with the excep- 

 tion of a certain nimiber of typical forms, the flies of 

 his county were unknown a hundred miles away, 

 or, at least, appeared there under great differences of 

 size and colour ; and each, if he would take the 

 trouble to collect the caddises and water-crickets, 

 and breed them into the perfect fly in an aquarium, 

 would see marvels in their transformations, tlieir 

 instincts, their anatomy, quite as great (though not, 

 perhaps, as showy and startling) as I have been 

 trying to point out on the sea-shore. ^loreover, each 



