Notices of New Books. 4081 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



c A NaturalisCs Rambles on the Devonshire Coast.' By Philip 

 Henry Gosse. London: John Van Voorst, Paternoster Row. 

 1853. Price 21s. 



(Concluded from page 4062). 



We return with pleasure to the coasts of Devonshire, and think our 

 readers will participate in that pleasure, when we place before them 

 the Naturalist, on his hands and knees, gazing into the wondrous 

 rock-pool at Oddicombe. 



" I took another look at my pretty little rock-basin at Oddicombe. 

 It is a deep, oval, cup-like cavity, about a yard wide in the longest 

 diameter, and of the same depth, hewn out, as it were, from the solid 

 limestone, with as clean a surface as if a stone-mason had been at 

 work there. It is always, of course, full of water, and except when a 

 heavy sea is rolling in, of brilliant clearness. All round the margin 

 are growing tufts of the common coralline, forming a whitish bushy 

 fringe, reaching from the edge to about six inches down ; a few plants 

 of the bladder Fucus are scattered around and above the brim ; and 

 the arching fronds of the sweet Laminaria, that I before spoke of, 

 hang down nearly to the bottom, closely resembling, except in their 

 deep brown hue, the hartVtongue fern that so profusely adorns the 

 sides of our green lanes. Below the coralline level are a few small 

 red sea-weeds, as Rhodymenia palmata; and the dark purple Chon- 

 drus crispus growing in fine tufts, reflecting a rich steel-blue irides- 

 cence. But all the lower parts of the sides and the bottom are almost 

 quite free from sea-weeds, with the exception of a small Ulva or two, 

 and a few incrusting patches of the coralline base, not yet shot up into 

 branches, but resembling smooth pink lichens. The smooth surface 

 of the rock in these lower parts is quite clean, so that there is nothing 

 to intercept the sight of the Actiniae that project from the hollows, and 

 spread out their broad circular disks like flat blossoms adhering to the 

 face of the interior. There are many of these, all of the species A. 

 bellis, and all of the dark chocolate variety, streaked with scarlet ; 

 and they are fine in the ratio of the depth at which they live : one at 

 the very bottom is fully three inches in diameter. 



" There is something exceedingly charming in such a natural viva- 

 rium as this. When I go down on my knees upon the rocky margin, 



XI. 3 A 



