BABBICOMBE BEACH. 5 



Forbes' Star-fishes and Naked-Eyed Medusee, John 

 ston's Zoophytes, Sponges, and Introduction to Con- 

 chology, Yarrell's Birds, and Fishes, Alder and 

 Hancock's Nudibranch Molkisca, Swainson's Maha- 

 cology. Grant's Outline of, and Owen's Lectures on, 

 Comparative Anatomy, Audouin and M. Edwards' 

 Littoral de la France, Harvey's Marine Algee, and his 

 beautiful little Sea-side Book, and a few minor works 

 on the same or kindred subjects. I was not long in 

 discovering that with such aids to inquiry, an ample 

 field was before me, and that I should not lack abun- 

 dant materials of entertainment and instruction for 

 myself, and, as I hope, for others also. 



It was on the very first afternoon, that is to say, on 

 the 30th of January, 1852, that I set forth to see what 

 promise the shore might afibrd. A zigzag road, such 

 as a carriage can traverse, leads down the steep from 

 Babbicombe to the beach below. The beautiful coast 

 stretches away before us ; first appear the bluff red 

 headlands from Petit Tor northward, in distinct pro- 

 minence, but each becoming more dim than its prede- 

 cessor: the white houses of Exmouth shiniug in the 

 full afternoon sun on the blue hazy shore ; thence the 

 blue becomes fainter, more hazy and watery, and the 

 band of coast itself slenderer, till at length it can only 

 be discerned by the eye carefully tracing it from the 

 visible part onward. In front expanded 



The peaceful main, 

 One molten mirror, one illumin'd plane 

 Clear as the blue, sublime, o'erarching sky. 



Montgomery. 



The rocks to the right presented little to reward 



