OR, GLIMPSES BENEATH THE WATERS. 



These, and other wonders of still greater beauty, 

 will reward the persevering student who learns 

 to see them; but then he must learn. Even the 

 intellectual giant, Shakspeare, could not see clearly 

 many of the minuter things of Nature. In his 

 line upon the slow-worm, for instance, vulgarly 

 called the blind-worm, which he describes as 



The eyeless, venomed worm/' 



are concentrated two mistakes ; in the first place, 

 the minute eyes of this little creature are brilliant 

 in the extreme, and not very difficult to discover, to 

 the naturalist who has learnt to see nature ; and, in 

 the second place, it has no venom, its tiny bite being 

 perfectly harmless. In another place he speaks of 



The blind- worm's sting. ''^ 



But it is useless to multiply examples of the phy- 

 siological errors of great men who had not learned 

 to see Nature; or, Milton's errors in regard to the 

 leaf of the Banyan-tree, and many others, might be 

 readily cited. 



There are many glorious things to be seen in the 

 sea, but we have to learn to see them; and those who 

 find they cannot see with their own eyes, must do so 

 through the more gifted sense of others. To many — 

 how many, unguided by an able Cicerone — the fields 



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