Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/174

Rh the cliff over the mouth of these cavities, greatly increased the romantic effect; after rainy weather, I can well suppose it a fine columnar cascade, though now it was small.

South of these arches, the cliffs become low and shelving, so that it was not difficult to scramble down to the water-side. The wash of the sea, however, was much too great to make it anything of a collecting ground. Besides the smooth Anemone, a few Trochi and Purpurœ, a Tansy or two (Blennius pholis), and other equally common things, no animal life was visible. Algæ were fine, of certain species. Laminaria digitata was waving in great magnificence; and that singular plant Himanthalia lorea, consisting of long and slender thongs springing from the centre of a flat button: Chondrus, Rhodymenia, Ceramium, and Polysiphonia, of common sorts, were all luxuriant in the sheltered nooks between the boulders. I got also some deep-red mossy tufts of the delicate Callithamnion byssoideum, growing on the stems of other Algæ; but on the whole my excursion was fruitless in respect to natural history, though prolific in entertainment.

One is apt to slight, as too mean to be worthy of notice, those objects which, are very common, though they may possess as many points of intrinsic interest as others, which, because they are more rare, occupy a more prominent place in our regard. I have two or three times passed by the Smooth Blenny, Shanny, or, as it is here called, Tansy (Blennius pholis), with somewhat of a contemptuous notice, which really it is