'Where are you going this year?' is a question that meets every one just now, and is suggestive of coming holidays, when the daily work, be it what it may, is put by for a season, and the tired brain is to be rested and refreshed by more or less change of scene and fresh air. 'Where are you going?' suggests to some perhaps the aspirations of an Alpine climber; to the angler, the joys of uninterrupted days of patient watching by the side or in the middle of a limpid stream in one of our home counties, or in the rougher and more exciting rivers of Scotland and Wales. The schoolboy thinks of long rambles in the fields and woods, or a cruise on the river; whilst Pater and Mater familias consider how best to give rosy cheeks and a month's delight to the little faces clustering round their table. It is chiefly this class of holiday-makers that we have in our minds whilst we cogitate the hints in these pages.

Not that the enjoyment of a sea-side ramble is by any means confined to the young of the household. Nothing is more refreshing to the breadwinner of a family than the perfect absence of restraint and sense of freedom which every well-chosen exodus to the sea-side should produce. Instead of the daily hurried breakfast and rush to catch the train or omnibus which takes him to his office or place of business, there is the leisurely and comfortable meal by the side of the open window, through which the sea-breezes waft, bringing health and vigour with them. The voices of children from the beach, full of life and joy, as they build their castles of sand and dig moats for the water to undermine them, are music to the ears usually half-deafened by the sound of cabs and wagons and the noise of crowded thoroughfares; and we do not wonder that there are many who, though they might go farther if they chose, prefer rather the perfect repose and pure sea-breezes of one of our British sea-coast villages. Perhaps after a few days of this delicious sensation of rest and no hurry, the very want of occupation may pall on the spirit of an active man; and he may find that to sweep over the horizon with a telescope, to sail in a boat, to lounge or loll on a shingly beach, varied by trials of skill in throwing stones into the sea, cannot bear constant repetition without a suspicion of dullness, and that after all he wants something more to do.

The task we propose to ourselves is to suggest what can be done at the sea-side likely to interest and please those who, though not naturalists, are intelligent observers, and who believe in the old proverb, that 'Change of work is as good as play.' The young ones of the household soon become interested in fresh pursuits, and are eager to collect materials for an aquarium, or to commence a botanical collection; or perhaps to search for pebbles, shells, or fossils, if their quarters lie in some favourable position. We will suppose an intelligent mother and father who are not naturalists, who do not boast of any scientific letters after their name, and who belong to none of the learned societies of our land, who yet when at home read the current journals and literature of the day, occasionally attend lectures, and believe that the pursuit of science is interesting as well as useful. Perhaps they may have a medical friend or neighbour who is almost sure to possess a microscope, with which he not only is wont to make pathological investigations, but to interest and amuse his friends. He will often exhibit the circulation of sap in a fresh-water plant leaf, perhaps even the circulation of blood in a frog's foot; and many are the pretty objects afforded by the hairs of a leaf, the sections of a stem, or the wings of a beetle. But if by chance this same microscope be transported to the sea-side, with its proper arrangements for the examination of living organisms, the variety and charm to be derived from its use are endless. Almost every drop of sea-water teems with animal life; and an inch of sea-weed will produce tiny shells, animalcules, and curious forms under the microscope invisible to the naked eye. Then the very water brought from the sea and supplied fresh for the morning bath, or carried home by the little ones in their tiny pails with such delight, half-filled with sea-weed, will often afford such marvels in the shape of zoophytes, or tiny jelly-fishes, as only those can imagine who can recollect their first sight of such wonders under the microscope.

It is very possible that the young ones of such a household as we imagine, are the first to excite inquiry as to the objects around them. They are sure to make friends in their sea-side rambles. The boys will be attracted by some gray-headed old gentleman who goes 'sugaring for moths;' or some crusty old geologist who pulls down the cliffs to get at some coveted fossil, or sits on the beach cracking flints to examine their formation, and delights to give a history of their growth to a youthful audience. The little girls of a family party will to a certainty bring home sea-weeds and sea-shore plants in their baskets, and delightedly take in anything they can learn about them. Father and mother begin to think that after all there is a great deal at the sea-side they do not understand, and ignorant as they are, it is not pleasant to confess it all to the youngsters; so a visit is paid to the bookseller for certain books of reputation, such as Gosse's Year at the Shore; and study begins in earnest.

After a while, the superior intelligence of the elders enables them to master many minor subjects of interest, and to put them in the position of instructors to the children, who are sure to follow them up with avidity. In a little time a sort of extempore aquarium is likely to be formed in the sitting-room or on the outside balcony, if there be one. We can see the row of soup-plates and pie-dishes which serve as domestic rock-pools for their inhabitants. Paterfamilias gets much interested in these, and is found to wait more patiently than usual for the brewing of his morning cup of tea whilst he examines the curious creatures thus imported into his presence. Poking up a sluggish sea-anemone, clearing off dead bits of sea-weed, or removing some unpleasant defunct mollusc, occupies these normally irritating intervals of time. After breakfast, whilst placidly enjoying the fragrant weed, so delicious to the smoker at the sea-side, the boys, who have often seen the fun, inaugurate a battle-royal between two hermit crabs, who, being the very cuckoos of the sea, spend their lives in the shells of other creatures, and have no rightful dwelling-place of their own. The scientific name of the hermit crab is Pagurus, but unlike other members of his class, he has only a portion of his body incased in armour. His hind-parts are soft, covered only by a delicate membrane; but his nature is warlike; and could he not by his own ingenuity supply the wrong done him by Nature, he would fare ill in this combative world; accordingly, he selects an empty shell of convenient size, into which he pops his tender tail, fastening on by hooks on each side, and having thus secured his rear, he scuttles over the sea-bed, a grotesque but philosophic marauder. The impossibility of Pagurus living long without a covering to his extremity is taken advantage of by young and fun-loving naturalists. Selecting two nearly of a size, and removing them from their appropriated shells, they are dropped into a vase of sea-water, and one of the shells, usually a whelk-shell, is placed between them, first breaking off the point of the shell. At once the skirmish begins. One makes direct for the shell, and having first poked in an inquiring claw and found all safe, slips in his tail, and fastening on by his hooks, scuttles away rejoicing. In the case we recall, he was not left long in undisturbed possession. His rival approached with strictly dishonourable intentions, and they both walked round and round the vase, eyeing each other with malignity. No exhibition ever produced more laughter than this amusing and after all, harmless combat, which lasted a full half-hour. The skirmish only terminated when another shell more perfect than the original one was thrown into the water, and the tender tail of the inhabitant poked, so as to make him vacate and enter the new abode, leaving the dilapidated shell to shelter his enemy, who made the best of it, curled up his tail, and reposed in peace after his fatiguing campaign.

In a very short time aquariums multiply, books are read, and excursions are organised to various rock-pools and silent sea-caves, where it is said curious creatures from the deep may be found and secured. We have already in former papers said much about the inhabitants of sea-water aquaria; but the variety that can be found and retained and studied in a temporary arrangement at the sea-coast is much greater than any collection which will bear transportation and town-life. At the sea-side, if one lovely anemone should sicken and fade, it can be removed at once, thrown back into its native element to have a chance of recovery, and its place easily supplied. Queer little fishes which lurk under stones will often live for a long time in a pan of water; and one we once kept in this way had individual habits and ways which were most amusing. After swimming about for some time in an inverted propagating glass resting in a flower-pot, he would sink to the bottom, and then curling his tail round him as a cat would do when making herself comfortable, he would look up with his unabashed eyes and pant away, as if fatigued with his gambols. It was in the evening we caught him, and he was then in full black—evening costume; but next morning we found him arrayed in an entire suit of light brown—cool morning-dress. In the afternoon he again assumed his black appearance.

An excellent plan in the country or the sea-side is to persuade and encourage the children of the household to keep a diary. Everything, however humble in the scale of creation, is worth observing and watching, and is worth recording for after-reference. The motions of a beetle or a butterfly; the flight or song of a bird; the burrowing habits of the mole; the evolutions of a shoal of porpoises; or the commotion betrayed by sea-birds when the herring appear, are each and all worthy a place in the observer's diary. For by such recordings have great works on natural history been given to the world. There are several hours in the heat of the day when to be on the beach or indeed out of shelter is impossible, and we have often found, it difficult to suggest employment for these hours at all consistent with the holiday spirit which pervades everything at the sea-side. Lessons are voted a nuisance and a bore; drying sea-weed and pressing plants found in the evening walks soon becomes tiring; but keeping a diary and chronicling the events of each day is something which seems to carry the interest of the holiday-time with it, and is pleasant to refer to afterwards. The capture of special sea-creatures, their habits and progress, perhaps their death, may be recorded, besides the names of other animals or plants seen or brought home. This, to be accurate, necessitates a little search in such books as may be handy; and the bodily rest so induced is often a great boon to the little folks, who fancy they never feel tired, but get hot and feverish sometimes through overdoing it. We have such a diary before us now, and the first entry is suggestive: 'August 10.—Last night the sea was all on fire; we were just going to bed when papa called out that we might go on to the beach with him; and there were lines of bright light all along the waves. We threw handfuls of pebbles in, and the light shot out brighter, almost like fire-works. Papa called it phosphorescence; and to-day we saw all about it under the microscope, and read about it in Mr Gosse's book. It turns out not to be fire at all, but a curious little jelly-fish, which makes this light. I ran with my pail and got some of the water where the light was; and this morning papa put it under the microscope, and we saw one of the tiny little jelly-fishes which made the brightness.'

Of course this appearance is not uncommon on a smooth sea in hot weather, and many have been the conjectures as to its cause. Our little naturalist is right in the main; but phosphorescence is not caused solely by the presence of one species of jelly-fish, but of various kinds of decaying organisms.

A little hand-net made of muslin slung over the side of a boat will often secure numbers of these lovely transparent creatures. 'A tiny beautiful glass-drop!' cries one of the baby naturalists as she looks at a perfect little Beroe floating in the sea-water drawn up in her little wooden pail. 'See!' says mamma, 'how the sunshine changes its colours, and how curiously it is fringed with tiny hairs, which keep moving to and fro.' Nothing can be more graceful than the movements of this beautiful little creature. A little crystal sphere, delicately striped, and marked with two long tentacles or filaments attached to it, which are in truth its fishing apparatus, and are fringed with slender fibres, which contract and expand apparently at will, seeking for the delicate morsels of food which support the life of this ethereal-like creature.

Then on our southern coasts, in the Isle of Wight and elsewhere, we have found other forms of MedusÆ, even more charming. The pretty little Turris neglecta was constantly caught in the muslin-net one year. It is like a tiny crystal bell, with an elegant white fringe around it and a bright red coral bead in its centre. The Sarsia prolifera, so funnily described by that humorous and genial naturalist, the late Professor Edward Forbes, is a remarkable instance of the way in which the young ones bud or sprout off from the parent Medusa at certain seasons of the year.

When Professor Forbes wrote his book on the MedusÆ, much remained to be worked out and discovered of their nature and organism. He threw out hints of their probable nature, which have been followed up by later naturalists; and no one would have rejoiced more than himself had he lived to see that his own conclusions were not final, but merely the beginning of discoveries which had to be carried on. The whole history of their development would form an interesting subject of thought and investigation for many a long day at the sea-side.

But in seeking for materials for the diaries of our young folks, much that is new and interesting is sure to turn up. One child devotes herself to sea-weeds. She brings them home in her little basket, floats them out in a saucer of fresh-water, and gently introduces half a sheet of note-paper underneath the spray of weed. Carefully lifting it up out of the water, the sea-weed displays itself gracefully on the white paper. If any of the little fronds are out of place, they are gently arranged by means of a camel-hair pencil brush. A bit of linen is laid over the sea-weed, and it is placed between sheets of botanical drying-paper under a press or heavy weight; next day the drying-paper is changed; and in a few days the sea-weed will have dried on its sheet of note-paper and become quite fast. The piece of linen must be carefully removed and the particular specimen named, if it can be identified.

In the diary of our little sea-weed collector we find written: 'In looking for sea-weeds to-day, I found a great many things which I thought were sea-weeds at first, and I tried to dry them in the same way. They were much thicker, however, and would not dry so easily; and I was told they were zoophytes or animals, and not plants or sea-weeds at all. One of them is quite fleshy, and is like a sponge, only very small. I find in Patterson's book that very likely it is really a sponge.' Well done! little naturalist; many an older and wiser head than yours has puzzled over the plant-like appearance of a zoophyte; and surely the history of a sponge from its first stage as a little gemmule to its death and decay in the interior of a flinty sepulchre formed by its own substance, would not be a wearisome lesson. Every department of science is so dependent on another, that no one can now claim to be a good geologist, or botanist, or anatomist who does not know at least something of the other branches of natural history. The rough sketch we have given of some of the occupations and pursuits which may add to the charm of a sea-side visit, is but suggestive of much that cannot be entered upon.

The botany of the sea-coast is special and peculiar, and will repay careful attention. Nowhere else do we see the lovely tamarisk trees forming bright green hedges with their pretty white flowers. The horn-poppy too (Glaucum luteum), with its sea-green leaves and brilliant yellow flower; the sea-holly (Eryngium maritimum) bristling and prickling even through a sea-shore boot; and on the slopes and sandy downs near the sea the beautiful Convolvulus soldenella, with its trailing stem and pretty pink flowers; the tiny sea-shore rose (Rosa spinosissima), the origin of all the garden varieties of Scotch roses, its stems often not rising more than a few inches from the sand in which it grows. Then there is the jointed and fleshy Salicornia, so characteristic of the sea-shore; and the aromatic samphire, only seen growing dangerously on almost inaccessible cliffs. Nowhere have we ever studied the names and habits of plants with the pleasure and enthusiasm we have at the sea-side; partly perhaps, owing to the holiday sensation that must always be associated with the noise of the rushing waves over their shingly bed, in the minds of those who never hear it but when they have thrown work aside for a while. Memories never to be forgotten crowd into the heart at the sight of some well-remembered little plant, growing just where it did thirty years ago, when we were young and enthusiastic, and ready to learn all that we could of the beautiful world, which then seemed made for our delight.

If it ever were the case that the experience of one could be expected to guide others, we would say: Let your young folks read but little during their sea-side holiday; but observe much; write down what they see, and confirm and correct their observations by reference to any good recognised text-book, many of which are now published. The brain will thus get rest, or at least change of work, and will return to its ordinary duties with redoubled vigour and refreshment. The education of our children is now more than ever a puzzling question, and how best to teach them to use their hours of relaxation is involved in it. The naturalist spirit engendered, perhaps, by early rambles on the sea-shore is one to be preciously guarded and cultivated in future life; and those who have most carefully and wisely studied human nature and its tendencies agree as to its beneficial influence on the character.

The suggestions we have thrown together, imperfect as they are, may serve to shew that a sea-side ramble may be made just what the seeker for pleasure chooses it shall be. For the schoolboy and philosopher alike, there is something to be studied and much to be wondered at and admired in every rock-pool, on every mountain-side.