Sea-side studies : at Ilfracombe, Tenby, the Scilly Isles, & Jersey

Front matter

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Preface

could only be given sparingly ; this deficiency has now been supplied, as far as my resources extended ; but no gathering of second-hand references has been allowed to make the labour seem greater than it really was.

A Glossary of technical terms has been drawn up for the general reader ; and this, together with the Illus¬ trations, will, I hope, render the descriptions perfectly intelligible, even to readers unfamiliar with marine animals.

There are two aspects in which Natural History may be regarded — as an amusement, and as a science ; the one being simply delight in natural objects, the other a philosophic inquiry into the complex facts of Life. As this latter was the motive which prompted my visits to the coast, it has naturally assumed a promi¬ nent place in these pages ; and although, throughout, a style of popular exposition is adopted, which aims at being intelligible to all cultivated readers, I have also had a special audience in view, to whom must be sub¬ mitted the appreciation of the new facts and new physiological interpretations herein advanced. Every competent person will see that these novelties are the result of hard work and continuous application ; and I have been careful to indicate the amount and kind of evidence — Observation, Dissection, or Experiment — on which they rest ; so that the source of error, wher¬ ever there is error, may be detected.

PREFACE.

IX

The most startling of the new views, that, namely, on the identity of Growth and Generation, has re¬ cently received striking confirmation in the admirable researches of Professor Huxley on the Aphides — re¬ searches which render the facts I have observed in the development of Polypes less paradoxical than they originally appeared.

Richmond, January 1858.

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Part I. Ilfkacombe And Tenby

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

Chapter I

THE START — ILFRACOMBE — HOW TO HUNT FOR MARINE ANIMALS— NECESSARY EQUIPMENT — A DAY’S HUNT— SEA HARES — TEREBELL2E — ASPECTS OF THE SEA— RETURN HOME — GLASS JARS AND GLASS TANKS— IDENTIFYING ANI¬ MALS— BOOKS NECESSARY FOR THE STUDENT — DELIGHTS OF THE MICRO¬ SCOPE — FOPULAR ERRORS RESPECTING THE MICROSCOPE — EXPERIMENT.

A FEW warm sunny days in April 1856, which flew over our heads like swallows twittering of the coming summer, stirred in my bosom irresistible longings to quit the moil and turmoil of metropolitan crowds for the bright and breezy coast. As I hurried through the noisy streets, or sauntered through the comparatively quiet lanes of Richmond and Twickenham, and looked at the summerlike sky above, I began to understand the migration of birds, and felt some¬ thing of what they must feel, when certain dim imperious influences urge them to quit their present homes, and traverse many a weary league of foam, in search of the resting-place awaiting them somewhere with a warmer smile. I grew impatient to take wing. I asked myself constantly —

“ Why, though ill at ease Within this region I subsist,

Whose spirits fail within the mist And languish for the purple seas ? ”

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

Indeed, I languished for the sea with a sort of zoological calenture. Ill health was but a minor pretext ; the major pretext was an ever-accelerating desire to become more in¬ timately acquainted with the organisation of marine animals, as an aid in those researches in General Physiology which commenced some twenty years ago, and had for the last six years become a passion.

The sea was an old playfellow of mine, and from boy¬ hood our friendship had been continually heightening. It is almost needless to add that, like most boys who live on the coast, I had early visions of being a sailor ; to be a tar seemed the culmination of all earthly ambition ! Indeed, as a preparatory training to that high aim, at nine years old I declined to wrear gloves, and secretly chewed bits of cigar, in guise of a quid, as an evidence of nautical qualification. The tobacco was horrible, but manliness at nine years old dis¬ dains nausea, and I “ stood ” to my quid with the unflinch¬ ing resolution to be afterwards shown in standing to my guns. To rehearse the intensely nautical flavour of my dic¬ tion at that period, and my fatal accuracy in all technical terms, is beyond my power. Enough for the present to say, that whatever else I learned of the sea, I learned little of its inhabitants. Star-fishes and jelly-fish could not fail of being observed. Crabs are hunted and tortured by all amiable boys ; and the bone of the cuttle-fish duly prized. But in regard to its marvels and its inhabitants, the sea was a new acquaintance to make. Mr Gosse and others had made marine zoology fashionable. The Aquarium at Regent’s Park had given glimpses of the wonders and the beauties which

ILFRACOMBE.

abound on the shore ; and as a student of Comparative Anatomy, I had been led to read extensively respecting the structure and functions of marine animals ; but of direct knowledge I had next to nothing. I had done something with ponds and their inhabitants, and was now desirous of ransacking the sea.

Ilfracombe was the spot fixed on, and a more charming spot England could hardly furnish. At first I knew not how much of the delight with which its beauty thrilled me might be owing to the mere effect of comparison and novelty. After the metropolis, any broadening blue of sea, any bold headland or straggling reef, seems supremely beautiful — and novelty is in itself an integer in all travelling enjoyment. But familiarity only served to deepen my sense of the beauty of Ilfracombe ; the very last look was taken with a reluctance springing from unsatiated desire ; and on reach¬ ing Tenby, also a charming spot, the overpowering sense of disappointment assured me that Ilfracombe was the enchantress she had seemed. I will not describe Ilfra¬ combe, and for two reasons : First, it would occupy all the chapter ; and, secondly, which perhaps is as good a reason as the other, I have no descriptive power. Had I the power, the picture would be tempting, for the charms of the place are manifold. The country all round is billowy with hills, which rarely seem to descend into valleys. The paradox may move your scepticism ; you may bring excel¬ lent reasons, physical, geological, and geographical, to prove that wherever there are hills there must be valleys. Never¬ theless, the abstract force of what must be vanishes before

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

the concrete force of what is ; and at Ilfracombe you will find hills abounding, hills rising upon hills, but not always making valleys. What the French picturesquely call the mouvement du terrain, which suggests hills in motion like the waves, is here seen on every side ; and these waving slopes are in spring-time pale with primroses, or flaming with furze. If you get sight of a bit of earth to vary the verdure, it is of that rich red-brown marl which warms the whole landscape. If you climb one of those hills, the chances are that you come upon a rugged precipice sheer over the sea, unless a green slope leads gently down to it. These breezy hills, and the soft secluded valleys (there are valleys), and the matchless lanes which intersect the land with beauty, afford endless walks of varied delight. The lanes of Devonshire are celebrated ; but what Shakespeare’s works are to the criticisms which celebrate them, these lanes are to their reputation. Were I to enter one of them, and begin describing it, we should never get down to the shore, whither I see your impatient footsteps tend. To the shore, then ! and as we pass, we can take a glimpse of the town.

Handsome the town of Ilfracombe is not ; nor, although picturesquely placed, has it a very picturesque appearance, except under certain lights, and from certain points. The colour of the houses is pale dingy grey ; the lines are all rectangular and mean. Overtopping the whole town in ugliness and pretension, no less than in altitude, are two terraces, which make two factory-like lines of building on the slope of the green hill. You see at a glance that the flounces and shaved poodles live there.

ASPECTS OF ILFRACOMBE.

Yet, as I said, there were lights under which the town looked well ; but what will not light transform into beauty ? One evening, after a shower, I was called away from the Microscope to look at the town under the light of the set¬ ting sun, some peculiar arrangement of the clouds, with a vivid rainbow, having thrown a delicious evening tinge over the houses piled on the sides of the hill, and merged the ugliness of their forms in exquisite floods of colour. In this light Ilfracombe looked handsome. It looked resplendent, like a stupid man in the splendour of a noble deed.

If unblessed with the fatal (but agreeable) gift of beauty, the little town of Ilfracombe, as a compensation, is uncursed with the appearances of pretension. Except on those two unfortunate terraces, it gives itself no airs of fashion, no demure hypocrisies of respectability. It has no magnificent hotels ; it has no popular preacher. It makes nobody miser¬ able. Simplex munditiis ; a plain face, but clean and honest, sirs ! I was continually reminded of some small German town, and the simple honesty and obligingness of the people helped the resemblance. As we enter from the Braunton road, there is a white-washed inn, now untenanted, of the most primitive structure, and bearing the words

BRAUNTON INN,

painted in tall brown letters, all along the frontage, which I never passed without some vague reminiscence of Germany rising up, so exactly does this turn of the road repeat many turns of road I have come upon in my wanderings. An avenue of mountain-ash, with their bright red clusters bril-

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

liant against the hot blue sky, or rows of plum-trees with their purple fruit, pleasing the eye and refreshing the palate during the dusty walk, would have made the illusion com¬ plete.

Let us pass this inn, and turn up the steep hill, on the summit of which stands the handsome church ; we then de¬ scend the slope which leads to the Baths. On the other side of the hedge upon our left rise the soft uplands, and a little behind them the majestic Seven Tors, which with their shaggy heads towards the sea, and their soft-swelling slopes of green towards the land, remind us of some mighty animal which has reared itself on its fore-paws to gaze at the yet mightier ocean. From these uplands you perpetually hear the cry, day and night, of the landrail — -just like the creaking of a wicker-basket — so that you begin to wonder when that unmusical bird takes its repose. On your right hand, the clear Wilder-stream babbles incessantly to the wild-flowers nodding over its ripples. Accompanied by this music we reacli the Baths, and come upon a tunnel, dark, indeed, but with a gleam of light at the end — so we enter. How cool, not to say cold ! The eye is getting familiar with the dark¬ ness when we emerge, and what a thrill runs along all the sentient paths to our souls as the blue of the sea bursts upon us! We lean upon a parapet of rock to watch the weaves running up the rugged face of the cliffs, and falling back in spray. An inarticulate gasp does duty for the highest elo¬ quence. It is enough to drink in with our eyes the scene before us ; anything more than an incoherent exclamation would be out of place. Another tunnel invites us ; through

THE COAST-SCENERY.

it we pass, and come npon a wooden bridge over-arching an ugly-looking spot bearing the name of Tracy’s Cave, which has of course its devout legend to tell, if you are willing to listen. Let the legend be what it may, the place is grim, and at first we tread cautiously as we pass over the bridge of logs ; but soon familiarity reconciles us to this — as it does to small-pox or the income-tax. Before reaching this spot we have come upon another opening, leaned upon another para¬ pet, and had another gaze at the sunset gleaming over the sea. We now step on the wild and rugged shore.

And what a shore ! Precipitous walls and battlements of rock rise on each side, making a bay ; before us, sharply-cut fragments of dark rock start out of the water for some dis¬ tance. Every yard of ground here is a picture. The whole coastdine is twisted and waved about into a series of bays and creeks, each having a character of its own ; and whether we stand on the Tors, and look along the coast — or on the shore, and look up at the rocks, it is always some new aspect, something charming for the eye to rest upon.

“ An iron coast and angry waves,

You seem’d to hear them climb and fall,

And roar, rock-thwarted, under bellowing caves,

Beneath the windy wall.” *

The rock is grauwacke or clay-slate, with occasional streaks of quartz, and the stratification is very various. Look at that reef, round and along which the stealthy tide is crawling ; see how the back of it is ridged with sharp sudden lines cutting against the sky ; or look at that sombre precipice

Tennyson.

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

over which the gull is floating broad- winged, uttering its piteous cry, or startling you with its strange mocking laugh. A little farther and the eye rests on a purple-tinted wall of rock, from the sides of which jut ledges covered with vege¬ tation. The soil here is so generous, that nature seems to be bursting into life through every crevice and on every inch.

There is, however, one serious drawback at Ilfracombe — the complete absence of sands whereon to loll or stroll, or, in the quiet hours of moonlight, to wander nourishing one's middle age sublime with the fairy tales of science and the long results of time. However, sands are poor hunting-grounds ; let us take consolation in that, and enjoy the positive excellences of this place.

The evening of my arrival was spent in reconnoitring the coast and its promises. What a flutter agitated me as I bent over the many rock-pools, clear as crystal, and some¬ times enclosing perfect landscapes in miniature. It seemed as if I should have nothing to do but stoop and fill my jars with treasures ; for I had read in numerous books descriptions from which the inference was, that nothing could be easier than collecting “ marine store." “ You stroll along the beach and pick up so-and-so," is the pleasant phrase of these writers, wishing, we must suppose, to make science appear easy. Now the truth should be told. It was quickly forced on my conviction that, although after a gale you may go down to the shore and find many things, mostly dead, which you will carry home with interest — for “ 'tis an ill wind that blows nobody molluscs ” — yet hunting among the rocks is not easy, nor always safe, nor certain to be successful. You

HUNTING EQUIPMENT.

must make up your mind to lacerated hands, even if you escape bruises, to utter soakings, to unusual gymnastics in wriggling yourself into impossible places. You can only do this at certain tides. And, after all, you may return empty-handed, unless you are very modest in your desires. I did, indeed, behold a stout gentleman, who had been reading Mr Gosse, severely deluding himself into the idea that he was “collecting/’ because he was gasping among boulders with a pickle-bottle in one hand and a walking-stick in the other : but I am not firmly persuaded that he carried home much worth his trouble.

Let me mention the proper equipment for a day’s hunting, and you will see that the pickle-jar and walking-stick theory is primitive, and somewhat inefficient. It is necessary to take with you from London, or any other large town, in or near which you may live, a geologist’s hammer (let it be of reasonable size), and a cold chisel ; to these add an oyster-knife, a paper-knife, a landing-net, and, if your intentions are serious, a small crowbar. We now go to market for a basket. It must be tolerably large, and flat-bottomed. Having made that small investment, we turn into the chemist’s and buy up all the wide-moutlied phials he will sell us — those used for quinine are the best ; but as he pro¬ bably will only have two or three to sell, we must take what we can get. The short squat bottles, with wooden caps, now sold for tooth-powder, are very convenient. We lay hands on half-a-dozen of these, and having laid in three or four earthenware jars (not to be too abstract in our diction, let us frankly say jam-pots), we return home to construct our

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

collecting-basket, which is clone in this primitive fashion : A loop of string serves to keep a large jam-pot at one end of the basket, at the other end another loop sustains a large phial ; at one side a loop is made for hammer and chisel ; opposite are two more phials. Mr Gosse, in his Aquarium, I think, describes the basket he uses ; but as you must order this to be made for you, my plan is sufficiently serviceable, and costs no trouble. The basket ready, we are now equipped. No ; there is still one little implement. A piece of brass wire, the end twisted into a ring of two or three inches diameter, to which is fastened a canvass bag, makes a convenient little net to be used in pools too small to admit the landing-net.

The brief note in my journal which records the results of my first visit always amuses me when it catches my eye : “ On the rocks. Found some Actiniae and SerpulaeA The idea of finding Serpulae will make even the amateur smile as he remembers how difficult it is to avoid these swarming Annelids, whose shells, sharp as lancets, cut the hands in fifty different places before many stones are turned ; but to my inexperienced eye there were only the empty shells of Serpulae to be found, until I came upon some in the water with their little fans expanded, and these were pounced on with great eagerness. The Actiniae spoken of were the com¬ mon Smooth Anemone — not even the Strawberry variety — (if you will face a long name, it is M esembryanthemum ) — and these which I bagged with great glee, I soon learned to pass by with no more regard than if they had been sea-weed. So much of our enjoyment depends on the difficulty of obtaining

THE GLOSS OF NOVELTY.

it, that these Actiniae, which I still hold to be exquisitely beautiful, and far more intrinsically beautiful than very many of the rare species, to obtain which one nearly dislocates one's limbs, wriggling through crevices, or runs a risk of “ catching one’s death ” by standing in a pool dripped on from a thou sand orifices above — these Actiniae, I say, are left untouched because they are abundant, and do not demand the chisel. Perverse, ungrateful human nature ! What should we not think of daylight, or of woman’s patient love, if it were not given with such generous abundance ? Ask the prisoner, or the man who has scarcely known the mother’s ceaseless ten¬ derness, the wife’s surpassing love. The coquette knows this by instinct, and she draws adventurous seekers after her. What a coquette is the Daisy ( Actinia bellis ), who displays her cinq-spotted bosom, beautiful as Imogen’s, in the crystal pool. You are on your knees at once ; but no sooner is your hand stretched towards her, than at the first touch she disap¬ pears in a hole. Nothing but chiselling out the piece of rock will secure her ; your labour is the price paid for the capture, and the captive is prized accordingly ; if as much labour had been given to the Smooth Anemone, she would have seemed as lovely in your eyes.

There is something sad in the fugitive keenness of pleasure. I shall never feel again the delight of getting my first Actinia. No rare species can give that peculiar thrill. There is a bloom on the cheek which the first kiss carries away, and which never again meets the same lips. No partridge is worth the first which falls by your gun ; no second salmon is ever landed with the same pride as the first. Even printer’s

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

ink has a perfume when your first “ proofs " arrive. Who will revive within me that flutter which deprived me of all coolness and presence of mind, as first I saw the long grey serpent-like tentacles of Anthea cereus waving to and fro in a clear pool ? Who will restore the enthusiasm of that moment when my eye first rested on a clump of Clavelince (Plate I., fig. 4), almost as translucent as the water in which they stood ? And wherefore, three weeks afterwards, could I not be induced to stop and pick up either of these, unless of very magnificent pretensions ? If nature were not more inexhaustible than man's curiosity, we should come to the end of our hunting pleasures in a few years. As it is, our lifetime is too brief.

If these first thrills can never come back to us, there is ample compensation in the new vistas which open with increasing knowledge ; the first kiss may be peculiar in its charm, but as the years roll on, we learn to love more and more the cheek on which we first found little besides that charm. Knowledge widens, and changes its horizon ; and as we travel, we pass under newer skies lighted by serener stars. In direct contact with Nature we not only learn reverence by having our own insignificance forced on us, but we learn more and more to appreciate the Infinity on all sides ; so that we cannot give ourselves up to one small segment of the circle, no matter how small, without speedily discerning that life piled on life would not suffice to travel over this small segment of a segment. And yet the very immensity of the world of Life is a source of encouragement. Compared with what is accessible to us, the knowledge, even of the wisest,

CONTACT WITH NATURE.

is as that of a child ; but if, instead of comparing what is with what is to be known, we compare our knowledge with our previous ignorance, the rapidity of progress becomes the keenest motive for endeavour. A few months at the coast, under proper conditions, will make us acquainted with all, or almost all, the principal forms of life ; and where so much is still to be observed, each may hope to contribute some¬ thing new to the general stock, and thus all be benefited.

A very few days of resolute study sufficed to substitute definite ideas for that haze which necessarily overhangs mere book knowledge, and repeated failures helped to educate both eye and mind in the art of finding animals, and of identifying them. At first, not only did I frequently mistake sea-weeds for polypes, but instead of filling jars and phials with ease, as anticipation had prefigured, I often came home with very meagre results — and this in a place abounding in treasures. The truth is, one has to learn many little details about the animals — where to look for them, how to see them when there, and how to secure them when seen — before one's basket returns home well stocked. Luck is something, of course : if there is only one bunch of sea- grapes (eggs of the cuttle¬ fish) thrown on shore, only one person can bag it. But it is the knowingest hunters that are the luckiest. They know how to profit by good fortune. You may perhaps be inte¬ rested if I sketch a day’s hunting, and into it condense most of the details, the knowledge of which may abridge your own labours, and increase your success on taking to the sport.

It is spring-tide. Little or nothing can be done during neap-tides, because it is among the rocks near extreme low-

1 G

SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

water that the prizes are found. The common Smooth Anemone, and the Daisy indeed, may be had not ’far from high-water-mark in many places ; and Anthea cereus may also be found at some distance from low-water ; but for the superb Crassicornis, or the lovelier “Gems” and “Trogs”

( Gemmacece and Troglodytes) — for Polypes and the rarer molluscs, we must not be far from low-water-mark. The morning is brilliant. A light breeze carries the large clouds over the lazy blue, tempering the heat of the sun ; and our spirits are high, as we clatter through the tunnels on to the shore. There are three of us ; and as we pass that young lady seated on a ridge, sketching Hangman's Head, she eyes us askance, and although politeness keeps in the secresy of her own bosom the translation of that look, I know how it would run in the vernacular : “ Well ! how people can make them¬ selves such guys ! ” And she who says this is, I pledge you my word, a guy of the first water. I know one when I see one, though I can't describe female costume. Her complexion was dubious, not to say spotty ; and from it stood a nose not aquiline — to tell the truth, it was a turn-up, — and probably some subtle sense of harmony made her turn up very much the sides of her stone-coloured felt hat, which, with its float¬ ing ribbons and feather, may be said, in painter's phrase, to have “ carried off ” the nose. I also remember the three deep flounces of her Manchester muslin, and a general appearance of flying ribbons and miscellanies. If I allude to the personal appearance of this future mother of good but not handsome citizens, it is because her criticism of us forced us to consider from what pedestal of elegance we were regarded. Not that

OUR COSTUME.

I insinuate any idea of our not having looked somewhat queer. Our costume was but indifferently adapted to the drawing-room, and would have obtained small suffrage on the Boulevard des Italiens, the Prater, or Pall-Mall. You shall judge. We are a lady and two men. The lady, except that she carries a landing-net, and has taken the precaution of putting on the things which “won’t spoil,” has nothing out of the ordinary in her costume. We are thus arrayed : a wide-awake hat ; an old coat, with manifold pockets in unexpected places, over which is slung a leathern case, containing hammer, chisel, oyster-knife, and paper-knife ; trousers warranted not to spoil ; over the trousers are drawn huge worsted stockings, over which again are drawn huge leathern boots. Mine are fisherman’s boots, and come a few inches over the knee. The soles are Avell nailed, which is of material service in preventing our slipping so much on the rocks. Now these boots, with the worsted stocking peeping above, are not, it is true, eminently aesthetic. I will not recommend them as objects for the Journal des Modes ; but if you consider the imperfect success which will attend any hesitation as to walking into the water, and through it, — or if you reflect on the very mitigated pleasure of feeling the water trickle into your boots, — you will at once recognise the merit of such boots as I have just described, covered with liquid india-rubber, and well greased. Never mind the inele¬ gance : handsome is as handsome does !

In this costume we wooed the mermaids. We brought a crowbar, to turn over the heavy stones which could not other¬ wise be moved, but which are worth moving, because it is

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SEA-SIDE STUDIES.

under such that rarities will be hidden. It is nearly half¬ past eleven, and the tide will have quite run out in half an hour or more. We ought to have been here a little sooner, but there is still nearly two hours’ opportunity before us — so, to work ! Over these jagged rocks we spring, stride, scramble, and crawl. Whew ! there was an escape ! This fucus is so slippery and treacherous : had it not been for the well-nailed soles, I should have perhaps tumbled into that gully, — and as the height is six or seven feet, the fall could not have been soft. The mere simo-estion has made me a

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little nervous, and I begin to doubt whether these cockney legs were meant for such progression, and whether the right man is here in the right place, — when the shout of “ Here's a Crass /” banishes all reflections, and in a flurry of scram¬ bling I clamber to the spot.

“ Where ? Let me see it/’

“ In that pool.”

“ I see nothing.”

“ That is because I disturbed him. He has drawn in his tentacles, and covered himself with a coating of stones, mud, and mucus ; but take off your coat, tuck up your sleeve, and you will feel him at the bottom. Got him ? ”