38
CHAPTER VI.
"Of gay and curious shells
Corallines and fresh seaweeds spreading forth their
delicate branches."
But we must not forget that other parts of the coast demand our attention now, for although we prefer the bracing breezes of Warrnambool, there are many who run down from the hot streets of Melbourne to spend a few days or weeks in the quietude of Geelong, for gloomy though it may appear to some, the searcher after a knowledge of Marine objects will find plenty that is novel, much that will interest him in Corio Bay. "However dull," says Edward Forbes, "a country may seem, however uninteresting its human population, the creatures that live on its surface, or swarm amid the waves that wash its shores, afford a constant and inexhaustible source of amazement and instruction. The Naturalist is at home everywhere, and finds a museum where the ordinary voyager sees nothing but a waste. In the Polar regions he is intensely happy, but in the tropics he is in Paradise itself. No district is so poor and barren, but it has treasures for him, and none so rich, but that all its gold would fail to prevent his rushing after a new butterfly, or climbing the rocks after a new flower."[1] To impress this fact on our readers is the aim of these pages, which will we trust assure them that there is much to be learned,
