emerald grass, and rich red fallow fields, and parks full of
stately timber trees. Long lines of tall elms run down to the very
water's edge, their boughs unwarped by any blast; here and there
apple orchards are bending under their loads of fruit, and narrow
strips of water-meadow line the glens, where the red cattle are
already lounging in richest pastures, within ten yards of the rocky
pebble beach. The shore is silent now, the tide far out: but six
hours hence it will be hurling columns of rosy foam high into the
sunlight, and sprinkling passengers, and cattle, and trim gardens
which hardly know what frost and snow may be, but see the flowers
of autumn meet the flowers of spring, and the old year linger
smilingly to twine a garland for the new.

No wonder that such a spot as Torquay, with its delicious Italian
climate, and endless variety of rich woodland, flowery lawn,
fantastic rock-cavern, and broad bright tide-sand, sheltered from
every wind of heaven except the soft south-east, should have become
a favourite haunt, not only for invalids, but for naturalists.
Indeed, it may well claim the honour of being the original home of
marine zoology and botany in England, as the Firth of Forth, under
the auspices of Sir J. G. Dalyell, has been for Scotland. For here
worked Montagu, Turton, and Mrs. Griffith, to whose extraordinary
powers of research English marine botany almost owes its existence,
and who survived to an age long beyond the natural term of man, to
see, in her cheerful and honoured old age, that knowledge become
popular and general which she pursued for many a year unassisted
and alone. Here, too, the scientific succession is still
maintained by Mr. Pengelly and Mr. Gosse, the latter of whom by his
delightful and, happily, well-known books has done more for the
study of marine zoology than any other living man. Torbay,