What eager pursuer of marine animals has not gloated over a rock-pool? On all our rocky coasts we find them more or less developed; but it is on these south-western shores, where the compact limestone juts out into promontories, that we find them in perfection. The burrowing mollusca specially favour the limestone; the Saxicava, I think, lives in no other medium; and it is to the operation of this coarse ugly little shell-fish that this rock is indebted for the honeycomb-like excavation which has eroded its surface. Below a few inches this erosion does not extend, for the Saxicava is but a small animal, and its siphons must reach the orifice of its burrow; therefore it never goes deeper into the stone than will allow it comfortably to bathe its red nose in the free water, though it is not at all particular about the angle to the surface at which it bores. The myriads and myriads of these auger-holes that have been bored remain, though the feeble animals perish generation after generation; each new-born shell-fish makes a new bore for itself, never appropriating one ready-made, and so there is a perpetual excavation of the living rock with these shallow auger-holes, always of the same width, or nearly; about half-an-inch. The result is what we see; that the surface of the rock knows no such thing as a plane surface, but a surface covered with smooth borings, running in all directions, so as continually to break in on one another; and that so close together, that the interspaces form narrow knife-edges, and sharp angles and projecting points. A particularly interesting circumstance is, that this honeycombed condition is characteristic not only of that level of the rock which is covered by the sea for some portion of every tide, but of that part, to a certain height, which is never covered at all. The Mollusca, it is true, cannot live wholly deprived of sea-water, and, in fact, there are none in this ever-dry portion, though the burrows by thousands testify that they were there once. We must infer that the coast has been generally elevated; perhaps by slow and imperceptible degrees, by an operation still proceeding but unappreciated; perhaps by some sudden convulsion which took place at a remote era, unrecorded and forgotten.

When once raised beyond the level of the highest tide, the eroded surface appears to have a permanency which defies the action of the elements for an undefinable period; for it seems liable to little change. It is probably comparatively unalterable, or alterable slowly, beneath the level of the lowest tide. But between tide-marks, the perpetual change from wetness to dryness and back again, and the incessant wash of the waves, which frequently beat and dash upon the eroded surface with immense violence, are continually grinding down the projecting points and thin walls of stone, and thus creating a new surface, to be bored afresh by new generations of Mollusca.

It has seemed to me that these burrows have played and are playing an important part in the formation of the numberless rocky basins which we call tide-pools, and in which we marine naturalists so much delight. Let us look at the process. About half-tide level there is a mass of bored rock, from whose burrows the tenants are dying out for want of sufficiently long water-covering. A heavy sea is breaking over it, which has snapped off the thin partition beneath two contiguous burrows, breaking it into several sharply angular bits, which fall into the hole. The whirling and eddying of the waves rattle and roll these fragments round and round day after day, week after week, till at last they are ground to nothing: but an equal effect has been produced on the hollow which held them; its cavity has been widened and deepened by the same grinding action. By-and-by a pebble is rolled in, and being almost large enough to fill the cavity, it does not readily wash out, but grinds round and round with the motion of the sea. So the process goes on, perhaps for centuries, perhaps with long intervals of almost sameness; every stone that is washed-in enlarging the work; while, when once the hollow has become only ever so little larger or deeper than those which surround it, the pebbles will have an increasing tendency to roll in and to stay there. So, at length, the basin is formed, tiny at first;—I know scores not so big as a slop-bowl, which yet have their furniture of elegant little sea-weeds, green and purple, and their tenants of worms, and shrimps, and polyps;—but destined by-and-by to become noble reservoirs in which man may pleasantly bathe, and in which little fishes play and shoot to and fro, and hide under the umbrageous fronds of the oar-weed and tangle that droop gracefully into the ample cavity.

In the pleasant sunny afternoons of this season of the year we may find in tolerable abundance the pretty Cork-wing,[98] in such rock-pools as I have been speaking of. In the shallow hollows of the ledges they shoot hither and thither, the swift movement just catching the collector’s eye; but here they are difficult to capture, owing to the numerous exits and hiding-places among the stones. The deeper basins are pretty sure of containing one or two, and generally of larger size. Here the dip-net can be brought into action, and they are readily taken. But the finest specimens are obtained around the edges of the rocks in the free water, and where there is considerable depth. Here the attentive eye discerns them quietly hovering, some yard or two beneath the surface, deliberately picking their tiny crustacean food from the drooping weeds, or playing to and fro in little parties of half-a-dozen, on motionless or gently undulating fins; a pretty sight to watch. From these seaward edges of the rocks the coarser sea-weeds growing in a thick fringe, when the tide has left them partly exposed, hang their tips in the heaving water; and under this grateful shelter the little Corkwings, as well as other small fishes, their companions, delight to disport themselves, finding copious food in the purple obscurity, and getting many a peep through the latticed leaves at their idler fellows in gamesome play without. If, now, the collector have provided himself with a stiff ring-net, and a long and stout handle, he may sift out, as it were, the tenants of these shades, by collecting, in succession, the drooping weed-tips in the mouth of his net, and lifting it gently through them; when the lovely little emerald fishes will be found, two or three at each dip, struggling and panting and leaping and quivering their helpless fins at the bottom of his bag.

They are entertaining inmates of an aquarium; they play slowly up and down in the corners of the tank, exploring every angle and cranny, hanging in every possible attitude, especially at night. They soon become familiar, and may be preserved in health a long time. They are constantly occupied in searching for, and picking off atoms, invisible to us, with their protrusile lips. These organs are remarkably large, thick, and fleshy, whence has been derived the name of the family, LabridÆ (from labrum, a lip); and, in death, they are generally projected in an uncouth and repulsive form. It is a pity that Yarrell’s figures have been for the most part copied from specimens in this distorted condition, and are therefore hideous caricatures of the little beauties. His Corkwing is a notable example, presenting but little resemblance to the playful emerald in my tank; while the Gilthead and the Sea-wife are still more horrible. It is matter of regret that so large a portion of our pictorial natural history represents death rather than life; while a herd of slavish compilers, who have never seen the creatures on which they obtrude their teachings, copy such imperfect figures, and copy each other, and go on augmenting the distortions, and straying farther and farther from nature, till all vraisemblance is lost in the ludicrous caricature.

In a former work[99] I have narrated the untimely fate of one of these pretty fishes in my possession, through the poison-darts of a Parasitic Anemone.[100] A similar accident befell one lately, which I had kept in my tank for about two months. This individual, about two and a half inches long, active and healthy, made a backward spring, and came in contact with the tentacles of an Anthea cereus, which in an instant enveloped its hinder half, clinging round and over it and quite covering that portion. I was looking on, and after a moment’s glance to see that the fish was perfectly helpless, I removed it with a stick, so that it was free in about half a minute from its accident. But the effect was manifest; it swam away indeed, but irregularly and fitfully, and presently sank down on the bottom; lay awhile, then struggled up for a few seconds, swimming on one side, as if partly paralysed, and frequently turning over belly-up; then sinking obliquely down and hiding its nose between the stones. The fins were white and ragged, and the skin of the hinder part was ruffled up in parts, and the entire hind-half looked diseased. By night it was not to be seen; but the next morning I found it, dead and stiff, and with the whole of the parts that had been embraced by the Anthea turned of a pellucid white, the edges of the fins sloughed away and decomposing.

When we consider that the entire period of contact was no more than half a minute, the power of the subtle poison, injected by the cnidÆ of the Opelet, becomes very manifest; and the accident afforded me another confirmation of what has been fondly denied, the amazing energy of the poison-apparatus in the Actinozoa.

An assiduous searching of these hanging fringes of fuci will be sure to yield a pleasing return of other objects. Neglecting at this moment the Prawns, Æsops, Opossum-shrimps, Spider-crabs, and many other crustacea, not to speak of other classes, let us direct our thoughts exclusively to the fishes. You will get probably one or two specimens of that little bull-headed rogue, the Father-lasher,[101] armed at all points, like a knight in the fair time of chivalry. An impudent little rascal he looks, and right villanous; but whether he is in truth guilty of whipping his paternal parent, this deponent saith not. Big-headed, wide-mouthed, staring-eyed, beset on all sides with hard spines as sharp as needles, which he erects with threatening fierceness as he anticipates your touch, this Lucky Proach, as our northern friends name him, may not invite a close acquaintance; and indeed our fishermen generally jerk him energetically out of the net as soon as they see him, thinking themselves “lucky” to be well quit of his prickles.

Yet in truth he makes a funny little tenant of the aquarium. His colours are agreeable; deep rich brown on the upper parts, fantastically patched and clouded with various shades from black to pure white, while the sides and belly are brilliantly silvery or opalescent. His countenance expresses considerable intelligence; and the contrast between his aspect when he is alarmed, and all his spines are laid flat, and when he thinks to carry his point by bullying, and bristles up all his sharp lances, and glares with a threatening goggle, is very amusing. He presently becomes at home; for a day or two he skulks under the rocky ledges, and you see little of him; but soon his characteristic impudence reassures him, and vires acquirit eundo; he makes short hasty sallies into the open, and instantly scuttles back to his retreat; presently you see his great head projecting out of some crevice in the rocks, whence he can command a pretty extensive view; and now that is his selected home, and there henceforward you may pretty surely find him, whenever he is not to be seen engaged in predatory forays in some other quarter of the tank. Now he grows very saucy; not a Blenny or Goby or Pipe can come before his castle-gate but Proach must dash out to have a passage-of-arms with him, returning, in all the pride of conquest, when he has driven the routed foe out of sight, to his rocky fortress, and settling himself in the same watchful attitude as before. Every atom of meat that you drop into the water within his range of vision must be his: you perhaps intended the morsel for the Goby or the Blenny, but Proach sees it, and Proach must have it. They indeed may sail up towards the speck, but Proach dashes up, bristling with indignation at their temerity, and snaps the food from before their very noses. Not one of them can get a bit till Proach is satiated; and I have often seen him lie with a morsel projecting from his mouth for some time, absolutely incapable of swallowing more, before he would relinquish the contest. Now he fears nothing; he will even rush to the surface when he sees you approaching, and, with a sudden snap, seize the meat in your fingers, and drag it away.

Mr. R. Q. Couch gives us some interesting particulars of this little fish, or his brother, the Sea-scorpion; for they are so much alike, both in appearance and manners, that some naturalists do not recognise any specific difference between them. “When caught,” he says, “it makes a croaking kind of noise; opens its gill-covers, and erects the spines of its head, and stiffens its whole body, as if prepared for a vigorous defence. The spines are covered with a skin or sheath, which the creature has the power of drawing from the points and leaving them bare. This fish will live a long time out of water, provided it be kept slightly wet, but soon dies on immersion in fresh water. Those fish that swim deeply are able to sustain life much longer than those that swim near the surface; and the former are more sluggish in their movements, and require less aËrated water for respiration. The more active are surface-swimmers. The immersion in fresh water acts as a poison, death not resulting from any variation in the respirable quality of the water. If a Sea-scorpion, after being taken from the sea, be constantly kept wet with salt water, it will live for a considerable time, the gill-covers acting as if surrounded by water. If the gills be kept wet and the skin dry, the creature gets restless, croaks, the gills move less rapidly than before, and it then dies at an earlier period than when kept altogether moist. If the gills be wetted with fresh water well aËrated, life is not so long retained, but the fish seems more active for a time, and dies at last almost in a state of plethora.”[102]

According to Yarrell, “this species spawns in January, and the ova at that time are very large and of a fine orange-yellow colour. These are deposited near the sea-shore, frequently in the estuaries, and sometimes even in rivers; the fish having prepared itself for this change by its previous residence in the brackish water, after which it appears to be able to bear either extreme. Its food is small crustaceous animals, and it is said to be particularly partial to feeding on the fry of the Blennies.”

On the subject of its instant death, when removed from its native element to fresh water, the same naturalist remarks, alluding to the hypothesis that the speedy death of fishes in general, when removed into the atmosphere, is due to the drying of the delicate membranes of the gills; “the reverse of desiccation takes place in this instance: the gills are bathed with a fluid containing more oxygen than sea-water, and which also yields that oxygen much easier, yet death happens immediately. In this last instance it may be inferred that the fish, unable suddenly to accommodate its respiratory organs to fluids of such different densities as those of pure sea and fresh water, the blood is imperfectly aËrated, the brain is affected, convulsions ensue, and if not released it soon dies.”[103]

You will pretty certainly find in your net, too, twining and writhing about like little snakes, some of the smaller species of Pipe-fishes, often called Sea-adders, and most abundantly the smallest of them, and the commonest in shallow waters,—the Worm Pipe.[104] The pretty Æquoreal Pipe, or as Mr. Couch appropriately names it, the Painted Sea-adder (from the variegated tints of brown and yellow, wherewith its numerous angular plates are individually adorned), is abundant enough all along our southern coast, in deeper water, affecting the extensive beds of zostera, and of sea-weeds, which in many places clothe the bottom. The eminent Cornish zoologist observes of this species, that “in May and June, and frequently in July, and occasionally in August, these fish rise to the surface of the water, however deep it may be, and bask themselves in the sun. They retain their position at the surface by clasping with their tails the cords and buoys of the crab-pots, sticks, or any other substance they may find floating at the surface. The whole of the caudal portion of the body is coiled round the stick or cord, and the heads lie either horizontally or at right angles to the surface. In some seasons the buoy-ropes of the crab-pots are literally obscured by them from the surface of the water down as far as the eye can penetrate.”

The little Worm Pipe may also lay claim to the title of “painted;” for its anterior parts especially are generally marked with spots of pure white bounded by a border of black, while the cheeks and throat are covered with a delicate flush of purple. The habit mentioned by Mr. Couch of curling the tip of the tail around objects in the water is manifested quite as strongly by this more slender and more flexible species, which does not possess any trace of a fin at the tail-tip. This prehensile organ is in a moment whipped round the stem of any sea-weed or similar object with which it comes into contact; and thus moored, the pretty Pipe throws its little body into all sorts of elegant contortions, hanging freely down, or elevating itself almost perpendicularly, at pleasure.[105]

The fins in this genus of fishes are very small and feeble. Some of them have a pair of excessively minute pectorals, an almost invisible anal, and a tiny fan for a caudal. All have a short delicate dorsal, and several have no other fin than this, of which section the Worm Pipe is an example. Yet, according to the Swedish naturalist, Fries, the young of this species possess at their birth both caudal and pectorals, the former extending far up on the body, both on the dorsal and ventral edges. All these are in after life absorbed except sufficient to form the permanent dorsal. This fin, in the whole family, is excessively filmy, and is, during the action of swimming, fluttered with a very rapid screw-like vibration.

Slight as are the organs of motion, they are sufficient for the Pipe-fish’s ordinary exigencies; and Mr. Patterson has recorded an interesting example of their capability to achieve movements of an unusual kind. He had captured the finest of our species,[106] which he had committed to a basin of sea-water. “One of the long-bodied crustacea, which are abundant during fine weather, and had been captured at the same time, was placed in the same vessel. It was a species of Gammarus, and about an inch in length. The Gammarus would seem to have got tired of swimming, and, for a resting-place, it fixed itself on the back of the Pipe-fish, close to the tail. The fish had not been a consenting party to this arrangement, and soon evinced its dissatisfaction, by lashing the tail with great violence on each side, to dislodge the intruder. He, however, kept his hold; and so soon as the fish ceased for a few seconds, he crept a little further up on the back, as if aware that the velocity of movement was less near the centre of the circle. The fish lashed the water again with great violence, but without any good result; and so soon as it stopped, the Gammarus crept up a little nearer to the head. The Gammarus seemed to be the marine prototype of the old Man of the Mountain, whose pertinacity, in retaining his place on the back of Sinbad the Sailor, is a portion of that lore of our boyhood, that is never afterwards forgotten. The Pipe-fish then changed its tactics. Instead of lashing with its tail, it gave to its whole body the kind of movement it might have had if fixed on a Lilliputian spit, and in the act of being roasted. The body was made to revolve round and round on its longitudinal axis; but the Gammarus still held on, and, at each interval of rest, made a few steps further in advance. This was more than once repeated, until, pitying the poor Pipe-fish, we removed the cause of its annoyance to another vessel.”[107]

Among these pleasing little fishes some very remarkable deviations from the ordinary economy of animals occur, though not quite unique. In almost all the Mammalia of Australia, as is well known, the female has an external pouch or false belly, into which the young is transferred at a very early period of embryonic life, and there matured. In the Pipa, or Surinam Toad, the eggs are laid by the female, and placed on the broad back of the male, cells being then formed in the skin, which receive the eggs till they are hatched. Somewhat like the latter is the case of the Pipe-fishes, among which it is the male that acts as wet-nurse. Along his belly runs a groove, formed by two flaps of skin, within which the eggs, when laid by the female, are placed, and in which they are safely carried till the birth of the infant fry.

How wondrously diversified are the modes ordained by the Divine Wisdom for maintaining the economy of creation! What a depth is there in that revelation concerning the everlasting Son, “in whom we have redemption,”—that “all things were created by Him, and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together (s???st??e).”[108]

I have taken in similar circumstances a little fish which is considered very rare on our shores, the Butterfly Blenny.[109] The Mediterranean coasts of Europe are its proper home, where it resorts to the tufts of weeds, feeding on minute Crustacea and Mollusca. Yarrell cites three examples as having been obtained by dredging off South Devon, and one from which his own figure was taken, which was obtained among the rocks of Portland. As he alludes to no other British examples, he probably knew of no more. Mr. R. Q. Couch, in his Notes on the Fishes of the Land’s End, says, “A single specimen of this fish was taken by a trawl-net in 1845, but the spot on the first dorsal fin was so obscure as scarcely to be noticed.”

The form is thick-set, as is that of the other more common species of the genus; the forehead is, however, rounded and less abrupt, which imparts to it a different physiognomy. The fins are ample, with the exception of the ventrals, which in all this genus consist of two rays each; the pectorals very large, nearly circular, transparent and colourless, with pearly rays. The dorsal is divided into two portions, of which the first is elevated like a tall sail, the first ray standing up a long way beyond the membrane. Its colour is smoke-brown, deeper at the summit; towards the hind end of this portion there is a large round black spot, surrounded by a well-defined pale ring; very conspicuous, indeed, in my specimens, and strikingly suggestive of the eye-spots in the wings of many butterflies and moths. As if conscious of its beauty, the fish travels with all sail set, and thus shows its characteristic mark to advantage.

The body is varied with different hues of brown, black, and grey, the deeper colours forming transverse bands on the upper parts; while along each side run two rows of spots of pearly azure, defined by a dark edge.

Just in front of each eye there is a small appendage which looks like a small horn, with the tip and edge cut into segments; it is but a projection of the skin. Several other species of the genus have similar ornaments on various parts of the face and head: I have no conception of their use in the economy of the tribe.

There is a curious peculiarity in the eye of this fish, which I do not perceive in the Shanny, nor in any other species. On looking cursorily at it, you would suppose that it had a very widely-opened pupil, surrounded by a white line, which appears to be the interior edge of the iris. But on watching it with a lens, the whole of this dark area within the white circle is seen to be prominent, convex, and opaque, of a substance which reflects the richest metallic lustre, sometimes turquoise blue, but changing in other lights to a bronzed or gilded appearance; not, however, as if burnished, but as if dusted with metal filings. In the centre of this area a pupil alternately opens and closes, expanding and contracting circularly, with a regular systole and diastole, a little more quickly than the periodic opening and shutting of the gill-covers, but nearly corresponding therewith. The contraction of this pupil is perfect, so as completely to conceal it, and the expansion is irregular in extent, though regular in time; sometimes it is but just perceptible, when the next opening will be as wide as usual. Occasionally, the motion ceases, the area displaying no trace of a pupil.

Mr. Ross of Topsham, an excellent marine zoologist, has observed a highly curious habit in the commonest of the Blennies. It is the Smooth Shan, Shanny, or Tansy,[110] of our southern shore-bays. I was aware that these little fishes were capable of enduring with impunity a protracted exposure to the air, which would be fatal to many, but I did not suppose that the habit was normal and constant. The facts reported are of great interest.

“A specimen of the fish,” says Mr. Ross, “was brought to me on the 3d of June. On placing it in a glass vessel of sea-water, it appeared perfectly quiet for some hours, but at length became restless, and made frequent attempts to throw itself out of the water. It then occurred to me, that on a former occasion, when by the sea-side, I had a Gattoruginous Blenny, in a vessel with some ActiniÆ and SerpulÆ, which regularly passed a portion of its time on a stone; I therefore placed one in the glass. The Blennius pholis immediately leaped on it completely out of the water. It therefore appears that these changes are necessary to its existence. On going to the front of the house, I perceived that it was near low water. Knowing that it would flow till ten o’clock that night, I watched the movements of my little captive, and as the clock struck, had the gratification of seeing it plunge again into its natural element. It has now been more than five months in my possession, and has proved throughout that period a regular and correct tide-indicator. I was well aware that these fish are constantly left by the receding tide on the rocks, remaining concealed in small basins or holes, under the weed, till the returning flood; still I was not prepared to see a fish voluntarily quit the water, and pass so large a portion of its existence in a different element, and by instinct alone time its change of position so exactly.”[111]

This is a highly curious observation; but, as to Mr. Ross’s inference that “these changes are necessary to its existence,” I may remark that I have been in the habit of keeping the Shanny for long periods in my tanks, without any opportunity for such alternations.

I catch at the same time, and at the same place, but under different conditions, a tiny fish of the same family, possessing remarkable delicacy of appearance. It is the Freckled Goby of Yarrell, Spotted Goby of Pennant, le Boulereau blanc of the French, the Polewig, and the Pollybait of the Thames fisherman.[112] Yarrell tells us that it is most plentiful in the Thames, doubtless coming up with the tide, for I do not think it would live with the admixture of any great quantity of fresh water. It is used for the baiting of the hook in the line-fishing, like most other minute fishes that can be taken in sufficient numbers, and with sufficient certainty, by means of the net.

Here I find it in the wide pools that lie in the hollows of the ledges, with a bottom of sand, and not more than an inch or two of water. Under an August sun this becomes, during the three or four hours that the receding sea of spring-tides leaves it, quite tepid; often standing at blood-heat, or even higher. In these shallows the Freckled Goby lies, companion of the Sand-shrimp, which in size, translucency, and colouring, it closely resembles. It remains quite still, as if conscious of its safety-point, for it is with difficulty visible, even if your eye is resting on the very spot; what little of colour it has being exactly that of the surrounding sand. When danger comes too close, it shoots to another part, and you detect that something indistinct passed rapidly along; it does not, however, habitually seek the shelter of the fringing weeds, as a Prawn would, but suddenly becomes still in the open space, settling close down upon the sand, just as the Shrimps do. It is rather harder to capture than one would suppose; but I find the surest way is to place the mouth of the net obliquely on the bottom, a few inches in front of the fish, without disturbing him; then, approaching him with my hand from behind, he leaps in and is secured. When taken it is a pretty and attractive little species; very pellucid, showing the stomach and intestine quite plainly through the muscles, as a dark mass; and even the brain, which also is darkish, probably from the number and fulness of the blood-vessels which supply that important organ. This apparition of the internal viscera in a vertebrate animal strikes one as something unusual and remarkable.

The entire surface of this translucent and almost colourless body is studded with minute specks of rust-red, and with still smaller ones of opaque pale yellow, which are visible only with the aid of a lens. Nothing can be more sand-like than this aggregation of red and yellow dots, and surely we must look upon it, in conjunction with the habits of the little feeble fish, as a special provision for its safety, ordained by Him whose tender mercies are over all His works. The eyes are very prominent, and set in very thick and dark orbits; the pupil is surrounded by a crimson iris. Great size and prominence of the eyes is quite characteristic of the fishes of this family. It may be that their habitual residence in the shallows exposes them peculiarly to the attacks of enemies; and the size of the eye may be connected with a greater power or quickness of sight, indicating a proportionate development of the optic nerve. But this is only a conjecture.

The pectorals, as usual, are large, but quite colourless, and hence can scarcely be discerned, or only like a film of clear talc. The two dorsals are ordinarily carried, when at rest, depressed quite down to the back, but are elevated in swimming. The tail is crossed vertically by bands of red dots. Like most of the sand-loving creatures, the Freckled Goby does not long survive captivity in a tank. Perhaps, however, this may be because our aquariums are not specially arranged with a view to their instincts. A very wide shallow vessel, with a bottom of sand, and a piece or two of rough rock for shadow, stocked with Freckled Gobies, Weavers, Sand-launces, Shrimps, Venuses, Naticas, etc., might do well. But these will not do with an ordinary collection of rock-loving things.

What Crantz says of the coast of Greenland is not less true of our own rocky sea-margins. “These shores are the best and grandest school for the study of fishes. Here the naturalist may attain a fundamental acquaintance with them, and discover the nature and instincts of each species. It would prove a spacious field of observation for a curious, inquiring mind, which would often fall into a train of profound meditation, as he surveyed the nature and function and relations of the inhabitants of the vast ocean, from the minutest insect, scarce perceptible to the eye, to the monstrous whales, together with the seemingly fabulous great sea-monsters, and the equally inconceivable zoophytes, or” [as then supposed] “half-animal sea productions. Yet, after all, the most speculative and penetrating human mind will never be able to pry so deep into the manifold wisdom of God in his creatures as to search them out to perfection; even the meanest of them, and such as are before every one’s eyes. But, for that very reason, because we are so imperfect, we are never satiated with the study of nature, nor weary of rendering that praise to the Lord of Nature which He expects from His creatures.”