An excellent plan in the country or the sea-side is to persuade and encourage the children of the household to keep a diary. Everything, however humble in the scale of creation, is worth observing and watching, and is worth recording for after-reference. The motions of a beetle or a butterfly; the flight or song of a bird; the burrowing habits of the mole; the evolutions of a shoal of porpoises; or the commotion betrayed by sea-birds when the herring appear, are each and all worthy a place in the observer's diary. For by such recordings have great works on natural history been given to the world. There are several hours in the heat of the day when to be on the beach or indeed out of shelter is impossible, and we have often found, it difficult to suggest employment for these hours at all consistent with the holiday spirit which pervades everything at the sea-side. Lessons are voted a nuisance and a bore; drying sea-weed and pressing plants found in the evening walks soon becomes tiring; but keeping a diary and chronicling the events of each day is something which seems to carry the interest of the holiday-time with it, and is pleasant to refer to afterwards. The capture of special sea-creatures, their habits and progress, perhaps their death, may be recorded, besides the names of other animals or plants seen or brought home. This, to be accurate, necessitates a little search in such books as may be handy; and the bodily rest so induced is often a great boon to the little folks, who fancy they never feel tired, but get hot and feverish sometimes through overdoing it. We have such a diary before us now, and the first entry is suggestive: 'August 10.—Last night the sea was all on fire; we were just going to bed when papa called out that we might go on to the beach with him; and there were lines of bright light all along the waves. We threw handfuls of pebbles in, and the light shot out brighter, almost like fire-works. Papa called it phosphorescence; and to-day we saw all about it under the microscope, and read about it in Mr Gosse's book. It turns out not to be fire at all, but a curious little jelly-fish, which makes this light. I ran with my pail and got some of the water where the light was; and this morning papa put it under the microscope, and we saw one of the tiny little jelly-fishes which made the brightness.'
Of course this appearance is not uncommon on a smooth sea in hot weather, and many have been the conjectures as to its cause. Our little naturalist is right in the main; but phosphorescence is not caused solely by the presence of one species of jelly-fish, but of various kinds of decaying organisms.
A little hand-net made of muslin slung over the side of a boat will often secure numbers of these lovely transparent creatures. 'A tiny beautiful glass-drop!' cries one of the baby naturalists as she looks at a perfect little Beroe floating in the sea-water drawn up in her little wooden pail. 'See!' says mamma, 'how the sunshine changes its colours, and how curiously it is fringed with tiny hairs, which keep moving to and fro.' Nothing can be more graceful than the movements of this beautiful little creature. A little crystal sphere, delicately striped, and marked with two long tentacles or filaments attached to it, which are in truth its fishing apparatus, and are fringed with slender fibres, which contract and expand apparently at will, seeking for the delicate morsels of food which support the life of this ethereal-like creature.
Then on our southern coasts, in the Isle of Wight and elsewhere, we have found other forms of Medusæ, even more charming. The pretty little Turris neglecta was constantly caught in the muslin-net one year. It is like a tiny crystal bell, with an elegant white fringe around it and a bright red coral bead in its centre. The Sarsia prolifera, so funnily described by that humorous and genial naturalist, the late Professor Edward Forbes, is a remarkable instance of the way in which the young ones bud or sprout off from the parent Medusa at certain seasons of the year.
When Professor Forbes wrote his book on the Medusæ, much remained to be worked out and discovered of their nature and organism. He threw out hints of their probable nature, which have been followed up by later naturalists; and no one would have rejoiced more than himself had he lived to see that his own conclusions were not final, but merely the beginning of discoveries which had to be carried on. The whole history of their development would form an interesting subject of thought and investigation for many a long day at the sea-side.
But in seeking for materials for the diaries of our young folks, much that is new and interesting is sure to turn up. One child devotes herself to sea-weeds. She brings them home in her little basket, floats them out in a saucer of fresh-water, and gently introduces half a sheet of note-paper underneath the spray of weed. Carefully lifting it up out of the water, the sea-weed displays itself gracefully on the white paper. If any of the little fronds are out of place, they are gently arranged by means of a camel-hair pencil brush. A bit of linen is laid over the sea-weed, and it is placed between sheets of botanical drying-paper under a press or heavy weight; next day the drying-paper is changed; and in a few days the sea-weed will have dried on its sheet of note-paper and become quite fast. The piece of linen must be carefully removed and the particular specimen named, if it can be identified.
In the diary of our little sea-weed collector we find written: 'In looking for sea-weeds to-day, I found a great many things which I thought were sea-weeds at first, and I tried to dry them in the same way. They were much thicker, however, and would not dry so easily; and I was told they were zoophytes or animals, and not plants or sea-weeds at all. One of them is quite fleshy, and is like a sponge, only very small. I find in Patterson's book that very likely it is really a sponge.' Well done! little naturalist; many an older and wiser head than yours has puzzled over the plant-like appearance of a zoophyte; and surely the history of a sponge from its first stage as a little gemmule to its death and decay in the interior of a flinty sepulchre formed by its own substance, would not be a wearisome lesson. Every department of science is so dependent on another, that no one can now claim to be a good geologist, or botanist, or anatomist who does not know at least something of the other branches of natural history. The rough sketch we have given of some of the occupations and pursuits which may add to the charm of a sea-side visit, is but suggestive of much that cannot be entered upon.
The botany of the sea-coast is special and peculiar, and will repay careful attention. Nowhere else do we see the lovely tamarisk trees forming bright green hedges with their pretty white flowers. The horn-poppy too (Glaucum luteum), with its sea-green leaves and brilliant yellow flower; the sea-holly (Eryngium maritimum) bristling and prickling even through a sea-shore boot; and on the slopes and sandy downs near the sea the beautiful Convolvulus soldenella, with its trailing stem and pretty pink flowers; the tiny sea-shore rose (Rosa spinosissima), the origin of all the garden varieties of Scotch roses, its stems often not rising more than a few inches from the sand in which it grows. Then there is the jointed and fleshy Salicornia, so characteristic of the sea-shore; and the aromatic samphire, only seen growing dangerously on almost inaccessible cliffs. Nowhere have we ever studied the names and habits of plants with the pleasure and enthusiasm we have at the sea-side; partly perhaps, owing to the holiday sensation that must always be associated with the noise of the rushing waves over their shingly bed, in the minds of those who never hear it but when they have thrown work aside for a while. Memories never to be forgotten crowd into the heart at the sight of some well-remembered little plant, growing just where it did thirty years ago, when we were young and enthusiastic, and ready to learn all that we could of the beautiful world, which then seemed made for our delight.
If it ever were the case that the experience of one could be expected to guide others, we would say: Let your young folks read but little during their sea-side holiday; but observe much; write down what they see, and confirm and correct their observations by reference to any good recognised text-book, many of which are now published. The brain will thus get rest, or at least change of work, and will return to its ordinary duties with redoubled vigour and refreshment. The education of our children is now more than ever a puzzling question, and how best to teach them to use their hours of relaxation is involved in it. The naturalist spirit engendered, perhaps, by early rambles on the sea-shore is one to be preciously guarded and cultivated in future life; and those who have most carefully and wisely studied human nature and its tendencies agree as to its beneficial influence on the character.
The suggestions we have thrown together, imperfect as they are, may serve to shew that a sea-side ramble may be made just what the seeker for pleasure chooses it shall be. For the schoolboy and philosopher alike, there is something to be studied and much to be wondered at and admired in every rock-pool, on every mountain-side.