FOOT-NOTES FROM A PAGE OF SAND. 297 
though strange and unusual in exterior, so infrequently that 
they hardly claim our present attention. In the structure of 
their seed-vessels and seeds they are objects of curious in- 
terest and beauty, but require a quick eye to detect the 
condition favorable to secure specimens, which when col- 
lected, must be submitted to the microscope to satisfy the 
enquirer. t 
If our excursion and lesson has convinced us that in the 
distribution of plants, the ocean, which to many, shuts out 
the chance of minute observation, forms no exception to the 
law of vegetation; each part of its vast bosom bearing, like 
the earth, its appropriate flowers, plants and fruits, a day or 
two among the sea-weeds will be well employed. 
FOOT-NOTES FROM A PAGE OF SAND. 
BY DR. ELLIOTT COUES, U. S. A. 
Ir those whom fashion and the weather drive from city 
follies and vices to the vices and follies of the seaside ; who 
live in hotels and carriages and fancy the society of their 
kind the only sort desirable or possible, —if such read at 
all by the sea shore, it is not from the broadest and most elo- 
quent page before them. With eyes to see, blind; deaf, with 
ears to hear; to them, a blank, a void, beyond the titillation 
of social scandal. Others go out of doors afoot, looking 
and listening; in every object by their pathway a familiar 
thing; with every vibration of the air, a well known voice; 
with every odour a reminiscence. Alone by the sea? There 
is no solitude—no escape for the naturalist, even though in 
a weak moment he wish it, from a multitude—no disentang- 
ling of self from the web of animate creatures of which he 
is one slender thread. 
The sea, we know, is teeming with life—full of shapes 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. IV. 38 
