THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



123 



monsters, strange and foul. At high water, the ruins are almost en- 

 tirely covered, an angular spur projecting here and there, barely 

 marking its presence. But at the full ebb, it forms a bold, broken 

 mass, stretching a third of the distance across the bay, and being en- 

 tirely covered with Fucus, while the blocks are tilted into steep inclines, 

 no very secure foothold is formed for those who attempt its exploration. 

 But not much collecting is to be done at the breakwater, it is far pre- 

 ferable to idly gaze over the side of the boat, watch the shoals of small 

 fish swimming merrily about, vanishing in the shadow of a block, and 

 anon appearing in some unexpected place. Or to make frantic jabs 

 with an oar in an often ineffectual attempt to dislodge the great pink 

 Echinidae, Echinus sphava, that stud the blocks like mushrooms in a 

 field. There are also the deadly white polyparies of Alcyonium digitatum 

 hanging downwards, while the lovely expanded zooids seem to clothe 

 their common domicile with a filmy haze. Occasionally one may see 

 an enormous white plumose anemone, with its crown of innumerable 

 tentacles, vieing in beauty with its near neighbour and ally, Telea 

 cvassicornis, one or two specimens of which may with difficulty be dis- 

 cerned blooming deep down — death traps for the unwary. 



On Good Friday morning we visited the rocks on the north side of 

 the bay, and though we would be understood to speak of a plurality 

 of persons, yet, so great was the difficulty experienced in arousing the 

 Doctor from his slumbers, that the expedition numbered but two souls. 

 Very shortly after 5 a.m. saw us hard at work, peering into nooks and 

 crevices and turning stones, left wet and glistening by the tide. The 

 morning was very cold, but ones blood speedily circulates with renewed 

 vigour, as the gymnastic evolutions consequent upon an attempt to 

 stand upright on a slippery rock, both hands being hampered with wea- 

 pons of the chase, and hence practically unavailable as balancing poles. 

 But it is astonishing how nimble one becomes in a very short time and 

 after a slight experience of shore collecting, slippery rocks and 

 boulders, present not the usual impedimenta, and may be traversed 

 with speed and ease. Then there is always the question of boots. 

 In the hot days of summer, wet feet are not the inconvenience, nor 

 are they attended with the danger accruing from soaking hose in the 

 colder season of the year, insomuch that a pair of old boots will 

 answer the purpose tolerably well. But collecting for any length of 

 time is most uncomfortable when the water finds ingress to the feet. 

 A good, sound pair of half "Wellingtons" are; the handiest, and so 



