off in wild despair along the slippery stones, Vesta that most picturesque of temples sometimes falling in their flight, till they reach-blushed with rich crimson; and the grey the Venetian Palace, where, at a spot called olives were struck across by the fading "La ripresa dei Barberi," the race is supposed to come to an end. The prettiest festival connected with the Carnival is the closing scene on the night of the "Moccoli," or tapers, when the Corso seems filled with a swarm of fire-flies, as each person carries a lighted match. The object of the game is to blow out the flames of as many tapers as possible, and to leave your supposed enemies " senza moccolo." For this object storming-parties are arranged to assault balconies or carriages, and in spite of the spirited defence made by laughing girls armed with knotted handkerchiefs, to blow out their tapers and leave them ignominiously senza moccolo!" At the very height of the merriment a gun from St. Angelo proclaims the end of the Carnival, and in an instant all is silence. 66 Among happy memories of many other similar expeditions, one stands out with peculiar freshness. Accompanied, at least part of the way, by my dear friend Wnow a Bishop of the English Church, I made the round, on foot, from Rome to Albano, by the Appian Way; every step being on classic ground, and suggestive of endless historical recollections. From Albano I went, next day, along the Alban Hills, by Tusculum, Monte Cave, and Rocca di Papa, to Frascati; and on the third day, across the Campagna, by Adrian's Villa to Tivoli. What an evening that was at Tivoli when the sun went down in the distant Mediterranean, and the foam of the cataract became a flaming gauze in the reflected splendour; and the Temple of beams, and the Campagna lay like a sea beneath! From Tivoli we started, on an ideally Italian morning, for Horace's Farm. Our road lay up the Valley of the "Præceps Anio," passing broken viaducts and fragments of ancient masonry. After leaving Vicovaro-about seven miles off-we turned to the left, up between the ranges of the Sabine Hills, with no road but a delicious mule-track, passing through copses and fields green with the fresh green of the early wheat. Soft shadows lay on the hills; the valley through which flowed the "gelidus Digentia rivus" was rich in colour, with much broken ground, and trees of chestnut, and oak, and ilex. Convents, castles, and villages, pitched high on promontories, were scattered along the hills; and all was intensely beautiful and Italian. Our mid-day rest was taken under the straw thatch of a shepherd's shelter, into which we had to creep on all-fours. The old fellow seemed immensely tickled by Beggar Boy. the presence of fully suggestive of the ludicrous. He seemed, however, much relieved by finding us such "buoni Christiani," and we parted the best of friends. We, shortly afterwards, overtook another cheery old man on a donkey, and carrying in front of him a portmanteau belonging to the abbot of some distant convent. He insisted on keeping up with us, to the immense disgust of his long-eared charger, and chattered on with a ceaseless prattle concerning his family history, and with many questions as to our own. 66 After passing the Castle of Rocca Giovane, on its high pinnacle, with Bardela-the Mandela of Horace-on the other side of the Digentia, quem Mandela bibit," we see, at the head of the valley, a conical hill, crowned by a town. This is Licenza, and the glen running up to the left is the Rustica, but slightly altered from Horace's "cubans Ustica," whose "lævia Saxa" used to echo the notes of his pipe. When we reached Licenza, with its tumble-down and odorous streets, we discovered that there was no locanda, osteria, or lodging of any kind to be had. Our old friend with the donkey, however, proved useful; for he conducted us to the house of the Custode of the little church-a queer old Sexton of a man, with a thin old wife as his mate-who promised to take us in for the night. Leaving our knapsacks in their charge, we started for Horace's Farm. It lies near the foot of the hill, in a field somewhat elevated above the stream. A peasant drew back some rich mould, and revealed a fine piece of tesselated pavement, and we knew we were standing on the famous Villa of the poet. All around harmonized with Horace's descriptions of his beloved home. Mons Lucretilis threw its broad shadow across the valley, as he pictured it protecting his goats from the fiery heat of summer. There were the arbutus and the thyme which the "deviæ olentis uxores mariti" had nibbled; there grew the vines, festooned then as now from tree to tree, from which was pressed the famous "merum quadrimum" that he loved to open for his cronies. Up the glen, about a mile away and shrouded by a dense thicket of ilex and oak, and chestnut, and brambles, is the "Fons Blandusiæ splendidior vitro," over whose cool beauty he used to revel. One could well fancy the poet as he had sat, perhaps, on this very pavement in the summer evenings, when the long shadow of the hills was tempering the heat, the Sabine "diota" open, and his genial face all aglow at the last jokes brought from the great city, while the slaves or some of the "coloni" stood respectfully aside, half in awe and half amused at the easy humour and easier morals of their master. Or, there he may have wandered among his vines, blowing up old "Davus," and putting things quite as much wrong as right-a sort of Tom Moore in a toga, a polished, sensuous, selfish, melodious lyrist-with the same "carpe diem" philosophy, but removed from the Irish singer by a whole hemisphere as respects intellectual power. When we returned to Licenza we found supper ready for us in the shape of a frit tata, followed by one or two thin slices of presciutto, or bacon, toasted by the old woman before the fire at the end of a long stick, each slice being handed for consump tion as it became ready. After a cheery chat with the decent couple we retired to rest in a large and clean bed, in a room against whose walls lay piled a great number of pictures. I have often wondered what these pictures were, or by what chance they had come there. The only hindrance to sleep arose from our room being above the stable in which some mules continued kicking and squealing, and from the ceaseless tinkling of goat-bells, and the cries of shepherds, who began their duties some time about 3 A.M. Next morning we started for Monte Gennaro, on a light breakfast of bread about the size of one's finger and half a cup of coffee. We had a long day before us, for we were to cross Monte Gennaro, and walk, if possible, the twenty miles to Rome on the other side. The morning was delicious and the ascent charming, especially when we reached the Pratone-a park-like meadow, dotted with fine Spanish chestnuts, and used for the summer feeding of cattle. The view from the summit was magnificent, stretching from the Neapolitan frontier on the south to Soracte and the Umbrian hills on the north, and including the Volscian and Alban ranges, with the Campagna and Rome, and the distant blue of the Mediterranean. An exceedingly steep path, down a "corry" called the "Scarpellata," led us to the Campagna some time after mid-day. We had been on foot since six in the morning, and the want of food produced a sense of exhaustion which almost overcame us, so we formed a compact that we were in turn to become beggars, and apply for help should any house or human being appear. After some miles' walk a house, eerie and decayed looking, was seen on the right, and as my turn came first I started, and feeling very much like a demoralised tramp, with humble mien I knocked at the door. My reply was the flying open of the wooden shutters of a window above me, and the appearance of a gun with the rough head of a Campganuolo above it, who would listen to no entreaty, but vowed that he would shoot me if I did not scampare more subito than I had come. With our hearts in our shoes we resumed our journey. By-and-by a shepherd was seen far off on our left, and W set off to try his luck. cheery wave of his hand told me he had succeeded, and I hastened to join him. The shepherd - lanky and thin A fellow, grinning from ear to ear, and unable to suppress his " Corpo di Bacco !" "'Spetto di Bacco!" when he heard we had come over Gennaro from Licenza. He gave us his whole store of black bread, with his bottle of water, and enjoyed with many a grin the spectacle of our voracity. Never was a silver scudo more willingly bestowed or more gratefully received than when we dropped one into the hand of our friend, who showered his "tante grazie" and "buono viaggio's after us as we hastened with reinvigorated steps on our way for Rome. SPRING-TIDE AT GAIRLOCH, WEST ROSS. A Study of small Shells. BY Y the way, some people know as little | calm weather becomes very still during that about spring-tides as about small shells. half-hour. When it is ended there occurs a I lately read in a thrilling narrative of escape remarkable thing which I have never seen from drowning-" It was neap-tide, and the mentioned in books, but I think many shoresea was very far out." Evidently the writer naturalists and bait-gatherers must know it. supposed that neap-tides are the very low It is a sort of shudder of the sea, as though tides, just as spring-tides are the very high it awoke; there is a sudden strong susurrus ones. Of course, the truth is that spring--the sound of that wonderful Latin word tides both rise very high and fall very low; while neap-tides are the tides of least variation, when, in short, the tides are nipped, and do not fall very low. Once a fortnight there is a series of spring-tides, but, for reasons astronomical, some are much better than others. The half-hour of lowest recess of a first-rate spring-tide is precious to naturalists. You may chance to find them then at the edge of the sea, working, as if for dear life, under rock ledges and among seaweeds; and, wading as deep as they can, with bare arms they lift great stones from the bottom, and examine them for their living treasures. The sea in tells you its meaning, the wash-sh of a swift little wave breaking all along the shore and rising in every crevice at your feet, the first impact of a resistless power. At such a time I found myself at Gairloch, on the shore of Western Ross, beyond that gem of Scottish lakes, Loch Maree. Naturalists divide every fore-shore into its upper, middle, and lower "littoral zone." I cannot write this paper without using a few hard words; littoral zone just means the beach between high and low tide-marks. Those plants and animals which live in the "upper littoral" want no more of the sea than an occasional bath, or even merely its by species which prefer to be half their time salt spray. The middle region is inhabited under water, and the lower by those which were all put into a pill-box of the smallest agree with being usually submerged. Below size used by druggists it was scarcely twothe littoral we come upon the great lami-thirds full. The leading shell was a dwarf narian zone, the region of waving laminaria, form of our smallest winkle-Littorina nerior sea-tangle. The best view of this sub- toïdes a species which may almost be said marine forest is from a boat, and you may to dislike the sea, though it cannot live far have dipped an oar at low-water among its from it. There were 603 of this tiny winkle. olive-brown fronds. These are not uncovered Next came Lasaea, a red and white bivalve at ordinary tides, but a low spring-tide reveals (L. rubra), with 439, mostly full grown. them. Changed and weird is then the aspect Small as it is you may, with care and a good of the sea, and the searcher has access to lens, open its valves and count a score of what he calls the " upper laminarian." It is young ones within, each having a shell like but little harm after all that he ever does, if we that of its parent. Skenea (S. planorbis) was take into account the prodigality with which third with 106 shells, each like a short and the shore is furnished with life. But should not quite flat coil of brown rope. But a a storm rage when the spring-tide is low, the large skenea is less than the head of a small waves tear up the tangles by hundreds, and pin, and these were all young. The rest pile them, with their countless freight of were a few specimens of the fry of all our living shells and other creatures of God, in other British winkles and of the common irretrievable ruin on the strand. mussel. Rissoa-so named from a naturalist of Nice, M. Risso-is a genus of humble spiral-shelled molluscs which feed upon decaying seaweeds. Two specks in the parcel showed themselves under the lens, by the bands which encircled their whorls, to be the young of Rissoa cingillus—the Rissoa with the little belts around it. At Gairloch I found that the rocky shore, while not precipitous, was yet so steep that the various zones and their subdivisions, which on a level beach may easily occupy a mile, were compressed into a very small space. Every few steps in a downward scramble brought one to a new vegetation and new forms of animal life. In particular it was obvious that innumerable molluscs of the smaller and therefore less-known species found shelter and food among the seaweeds that densely clothed the rocks. These molluscs seemed brought to my hand that I might look at them. It occurred to me that no shell-gatherer, so far as I knew, had ever made it his study to know with exactness a compact little shore like this, to determine all the species of those myriads of living shells, to note their distribution and relative abundance, and to estimate the number of individuals. It was necessary first of all to devise a right method of investigation. To examine the whole shore was impossible and unnecessary. Plainly I must take samples. The rocks just below high-water mark were covered with a thick stubble of lichina, a small plant resembling the lichens of the land. Various species of minute sea-shells nestled plentifully at its roots. As much of the lichina as two hands could hold was soon scraped from the rocks, wrapped in paper, and called Parcel No. I. Though months passed before I had leisure to scrutinise my prize, I may here state the result. When all the lichina and broken plates of barnacles and other débris had been removed, there remained 1,220 perfect shells, which had been alive when captured; and when they It would weary the ordinary reader to go through such details in the rest of this paper. I only seek to give him a glimpse into a world of life, of whose existence he was perhaps scarcely aware. Parcel No. 2 was an equal quantity of a small seaweed with a long name, Polysi phonia fastigiata, which fringes common wrack between tides with its thick and branching tufts. Nothing can be simpler than the process of separating thousands of shells from such a handful. You put your seaweeds in a basin of cold fresh water, and all the molluscs instantly let go and fall to the bottom. When those of this parcel were dried, the little pill-box was again in requisition: they exactly filled it. If anybody wants precision, there were 42 minims of shells. It may give a new thought to some one to read that there were in that box about 12,500 shells, each of them a marvel of beauty, and each of them only the external skeleton of a highly organized creature which secreted and built up that shell bit by bit as its soft body grew larger, and which mixed in the colours and lined it with mother-of-pearl. The little skenea, which began to appear in our first parcel, reached here the extraordinary development of about 11,800 specimens, of which 138 were grown up, while all the rest, to the unassisted eye, were like dust, and weighed only eleven and a half grains. The |