The naturalist’s dredge, of which Mr. Gosse’s “Aquarium” gives a detailed account, should differ from the common oyster dredge in being smaller; certainly not more than four feet across the mouth; and instead of having but one iron scraping-lip like the oyster dredge, it should have two, one above and one below, so that it will work equally well on whichsoever side it falls, or how often soever it may be turned over by rough ground. The bag-net should be of strong spunyarn, or (still better) of hide “such as those hides of the wild cattle of the Pampas, which the tobacconists receive from South America,” cut into thongs, and netted close. It should be loosely laced together with a thong at the tail edge in order to be opened easily, when brought on board, without canting the net over, and pouring the contents roughly out through the mouth. The dragging-rope should be strong, and at least three times as long as the perpendicular depth of the water in which you are working; if, indeed, there is much breeze, or any swell at all, still more line should be veered out. The inboard end should be made fast somewhere in the stern sheets, the dredge hove to windward, the boat put before the wind; and you may then amuse yourself as you will for the next quarter of an hour, provided that you have got ready various wide-mouthed bottles for the more delicate monsters, and a couple of buckets, to receive the large lumps of oysters and serpulæ which you will probably bring to the surface. As for a dredging ground, one may be found, I suppose, off every watering-place. The most fertile spots are in rough ground, in not less than five fathoms water. The deeper the water, the rarer and more interesting will the animals generally be: but a greater depth than fifteen fathoms is not easily reached on this side of Plymouth; and, on the whole, the beginner will find enough in seven or eight fathoms to stock an aquarium rivalling any of those in the “Tank-house” at the Zoological Gardens. In general, the south coast of England, to the eastward of Portland, affords bad dredging ground. The friable cliffs, of comparatively recent formations, keep the sea shallow, and the bottom smooth and bare, by the vast deposits of sand and gravel. Yet round the Isle of Wight, especially at the back of the Needles, there ought to be fertile spots; and Weymouth, according to Mr. Gosse and other well-known naturalists, is a very garden of Nereus. Torbay, as may well be supposed, is an admirable dredging spot; perhaps its two best points are round the isolated Thatcher and Oare-rock, and from the mouth of Brixham harbour to Berry Head; along which last line, for perhaps three hundred years, the decks of all Brixham trawlers have been washed down ere running into harbour, and the sea-bottom thus stored with treasures scraped up from deeper water in every direction for miles and miles.