masonry, of
old Cyclopean walls. Even the mason-wasps and bees are greatly inferior
workmen to these mason _amphitrites_. I was introduced also, in our ebb
excursions, to the cuttle-fish and the sea-hare, and shown how the one,
when pursued by an enemy, discharges a cloud of ink to conceal its
retreat, and that the other darkens the water around it with a lovely
purple pigment, which my uncle was pretty sure would make a rich dye,
like that extracted of old by the Tyrians from a whelk which he had
often seen on the beach near Alexandria. I learned, too, to cultivate an
acquaintance with some two or three species of doris, that carry their
arboraceous, tree-like lungs on their backs, as Macduff's soldiers
carried the boughs of Birnam wood to the Hill of Dunsinane; and I soon
acquired a sort of affection for certain shells, which bore, as I
supposed, a more exotic aspect than their neighbours. Among these were,
_Trochus Zizyphinus_, with its flame-like markings of crimson, on a
ground of paley-brown; _Patella pellucida_, with its lustrous rays of
vivid blue on its dark epidermis, that resemble the sparks of a firework
breaking against a cloud; and, above all, _Cypraea Europea_, a not rare
shell further to the north, but so little abundant in the Firth of
Cromarty, as to render the live animal, when once or twice in a season I
used to find it creeping on the laminaria at the extreme outer edge of
the tide-line, with its wide orange mantle flowing liberally around it,
somewhat of a prize. In short, the tract of sea-bottom laid dry by the
ebb formed an admirable school, and Uncle Sandy an excellent teacher,
under whom I was not in the least disposed to trifle; and when, long
after, I learned to detect old-marine bottoms far out of sight of the
sea--now amid the ancient forest-covered Silurians of central England,
and anon opening to the light on some hillside among the Mountain
Limestones of our own country--I have felt how very much I owed to his
instructions.

His facts wanted a vocabulary adequately fitted to represent them; but
though they "lacked a commodity of good names," they were all founded on
careful observation, and possessed that first element of
respectability--perfect originality: they were all acquired by himself.
I owed more, however, to the habit of observation which he assisted me
in forming, than even to his facts; and yet some of these were of high
value. He has shown me, for instance, that an immense gr