ANIMAL LIFE 
Shores of the Clyde and Firth. 
CHAPTER L 
THE COMING STORM. 
H O ! we cry, for the enchantments of the sea shore. 
Gazing out upon the far-stretching waters, how 
sublimely grand is the spectacle of beholding its various 
moods and motions. Basking in the golden glitter of the 
morning sun, like a covert lake in the security of its dreamy 
stillness, how peacefully it lies, as calm and harmless as a 
sleeping child ; but suddenly, far away in the distant 
horizon, where sea and sky converge, the calm morning 
blue is changed into a steely grey, and a darker fragment 
of cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, widens and thickens 
into impenetrable gloom, and rolls bank upon bank of 
cloud towards the zenith of the heavens. Yonder, at the 
dark outline of the ocean's verge, we distinctly discern a 
heaving agitation, and the penetrating rays of the mighty 
sun, struggling through the gloom, send forth a watery, 
soul-chilling light, which faintly battles to dispel the gather- 
ing strife, but quickly sickens and dies. 
These be the heralds of the coming storm king, and 
woe to the weak ones who meet him. A gale from the 
south-west is upon us, outstripping the speed of the tempest. 
B 
