chisel, or even a knife, you can do it without difficulty, for the
soft slate scales and crumbles under a slight blow.

For an herbarium, it ought to be gummed at once to the paper, for it
becomes so brittle, in drying, that it falls to pieces with the most
careful handling. In the air and light it fades white, but the
elegance of its pinnate branches will well repay any pains you may
bestow upon it.

If you have a lingering belief in its animal nature, steeping it in
acid will cause the carbonate of lime and your credulity to disappear
together, leaving the vegetable tissue clearly revealed.

Between low-water and the Cliff are hundreds of pools rich in
vegetable and animal life--Look at this one: it is a lakelet of
exquisite beauty. Bordered with the olive-colored Rock-Weed, fronds of
purple and green Laver rise from its limpid depths. Amphipods of
varied hue emerge from the clustering weeds, cleave the clear water
with easy swiftness, and hide beneath the opposite bank. Here a
graceful Annelid describes Hogarth's line of beauty upon the sandy
bottom. There another glides over the surface with sinuous course,
rowed by more oars than a Venetian galley, more brilliant in its
iridescence than the barge of Cleopatra, albeit

"The poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails."

We loiter here, forgetful that we are only at the first end of the bow
along whose curve we propose to walk. Let us go on. The firm sand
affords pleasanter footing than the slippery stones we leave behind
us, but it seems bare of promise to the curiosity-hunter. Nevertheless
we will hunt, and quite at variance with my experience will it be, if
we return empty-handed.

Here is something already. Dark-colored, horny, flat, oblong, each
corner furnished with a wiry, thorn-like projection;--what is it? A
child tells you it is a Mermaid's Purse, and, giving the empty bag a
shake, you straightway conclude that the maids of the sea know "hard
times," as well as those of the land. But the Purse is not always so
light. Sometimes it is found to contain a most precious deposit, the
egg which is to produce a future fish.

These egg-cases belong to different members of the Ray family. I saw
one last winter, in which the inmate was fully developed. Should some
old seaman hear me, he might say that I am telling a "fish-story" in
good earnest. He might inform you furthermore, that the object in
question is "but a pod of sea-weed, and that he has seen hundr