On the Seashore by R. Cadwallader Smith
page 36 of 65 (55%)
page 36 of 65 (55%)
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3. How can you tell a live Shrimp from a live Prawn?
4. How does the Barnacle obtain its food? 5. Give the names of five crustaceans. LESSON VI. PLANTS OF THE SHORE. To pick a bunch of gay flowers you would look in the fields and hedge-rows, and not by the sea. Flowers, as you know, love moist soil, and not dry sand; and, like us, they prefer one food to another. Sand they do not like, and salt is a poison to them. Both of these are enemies to plant life. Also, flowers choose sheltered spots. They do not like rough winds, and the glare of the sun shrivels them up. Yet there are plants with pretty flowers to be found by the sea, and many others with small, dull flowers. These seaside plants have to fight for their lives. The dry, shifting sand, and the salt spray, are enough to kill them, you would think. They have no shelter from the strong sea wind, nor from the fierce glare of the summer sun. The puzzle is, how do they live among so many enemies? For you know that the flowers of the field would at once die if you planted them in salt and sand. They would starve to death. |
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