peras-stones are also found here. The white sand is used in making china and glass."

The guide now beckoned Agnes to advance; and, turning round the projecting rock, she saw the very Grampus Mr. Russell had spoken of lying on the

shingles, which were a mass of stones projecting through the sea, at some distance from the shore. She was most excessively disappointed at first, as she thought the creature so very ugly; but, in a little time, she began to admire its glossy black skin, and the silvery-grey of the lower part.

"Is it worth any money?" said Mrs. Merton.

"Oh! yes," said the guide; "it weighs three tons

and a half; and the fisherman that found it has sold it for twenty-three pounds."

They now began to re-ascend the path they had taken to descend; and soon reached the summit of the cliff: after which they proceeded along it, till they arrived at the best point of view for seeing the Needles.

"How dreadfully the wind blows!" said Agnes, as she wrapped her cloak more closely round her.

"The wind always blows at the Needles, miss," observed the guide.

"And are those the Needles ?" cried Agnes, as they descended the down low enough to catch a view of these celebrated rocks. "I declare they look more like thimbles."

"That remark has been made before," said Mrs. Merton ; "and yet they appear to me as little like thimbles as needles. The fact is, I think that they are more like mile-stones than anything belonging to the work-table; or, what bears a closer resemblance to them, they are like the awkward stone stiles I have seen, when I was a girl, in Gloucestershire."

They had now reached the point beyond which

Mrs. Merton did not wish to go; and she sat down on the turf, while the guide helped Agnes sufficiently far down the cliffs to enable her to see the birds sitting on their ledges of rock, uttering strange sharp cries, and then chattering, as though they were talking to each other. There were Cormorants, and Gulls, and Puffins, and Guillemots, with several smaller kinds, each sitting on its separate rock, and alternately muttering and shouting, till Agnes's head grew giddy, and she begged the man to take her back to her

mamma.

"Do not most of the birds generally leave you about this season?" said Mrs. Merton to the guide, when they returned.

"They are later than usual this year, ma'am," replied the man. "It was a late summer."

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“I thought there had been five Needles, mamma,' said Agnes;" and I can see only three." "There are five miss," said the man, "but you can very seldom see them all at once, unless you're on the water."

"I wonder how these rocks ever came to be called the Needles?" observed Agnes,-" since they are not conical."

"There was one formerly," replied the man, “that was like a needle exactly. It was above one hundred feet high, and quite thin and pointed. It used to be called the pillar of Lot's wife; but it fell down, and some of the cliffs have fallen down since then, and more will go soon I have no doubt of it. These cliffs are always a-falling, I think."

"I have heard," said Mrs. Merton, "that the name of Needles is a corruption of two Saxon words signifying Undercliffe; and there appears little doubt that these rocks once formed part of the cliff, as you see they are dotted with rows of flints."

Agnes here stooped and gathered a flower from the down. It sprang from a little hollow place in the turf, and was thus sheltered from the cold by the higher part of the hollow. "Oh! do look, mamma," cried she, "I declare I thought there was a bee in the flower."

"It is the Bee Orchis," said Mrs Merton, "which is common on these chalky downs, though it is rarely found in flower later than July."

She then showed Agnes the curious construction of the flower, and told her that the pollen of the Orchis tribe, instead of being like fine dust, was in

wax-like masses.

"Here is another flower," continued she," which is of the same species, but some

thing different, for nothing can equal the variety of nature."

Agnes compared the two and was astonished to find how different they were, though at first she had supposed them to be the same.

They now turned back in search of Mr. Merton; and as they ascended the hill, Agnes began asking her mother some questions about light-houses.

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They are buildings," said Mrs. Merton, "erected