H

proves that we Engils are a mani. beest race; Vn I appeal to every one whether the stone Engate man be mesta abroad, or at the wa xile, in the least representa la idea of that magullent race! I'm afraid we are disagreable to the backbone At the count we are dismal as well as disagreeable. What an air of wearinews hangs over almost everybody! After the visitors" have had their first walk on the beach, their first two or three hours' ail," from which they return looking very green, and after they have seen the sunset once, they relapse into utter novel reading. Not only do they here read more novels than at home, but they are content to read the novels no one reads at home. Look at that young gentleman who has brought two volumes with him to the Parade, He finds the place so

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dull that he must rend even when

Pasta, Lis per a gale of meats to aves what be Ancher perfectly happy

ye ellery palesa with large TÜRCOG, and

se of well to da” who

Las escaped fr care for a few days; 120 enjoyed his dinner at the hitel resterday, though the port was fruity; estored his breakfast this morning: and now, having read the paper, is sniffing the breezes for an appetite, and is aglow with the pleasant sensa tion compounded of present vigour and boyish associations. He is too old for the circulating library; has outlived straw-hats and coloured shirts; and is supremely indifferent about telescopes. He is happy. He gives a genial glance of interest to everything. He stops us, and politely inquires about the contents of our baskets, listening to the brief details with "dear me! bless me! well, how very singular!" and even thinks he should like to go out collecting himself, if he were younger.

premely interesting, the scene itself If the promenaders are not suis worth a visit. The Capstone

Parade, a walk cut round the Capstone at great expense, offers many pictures. We are at the farther end, nearest the quay, and look back upon old Hillsborough jutting out far into the water, while behind him looms the giant Hangman, grim as his name, and beyond that the purple line of another headland. Between us and Hillsborough stands Lantern Hill, a picturesque mass of green and grey, surmounted by an old bit of building which was once a convent, and which looks as if it were the habitation of some huge mollusc that had secreted its shell from the material of the rock. Mr Gosse, with a proclivity to Exeter Hall reflections sadly dissonant in the writings of a naturalist, cannot help reminding his readers that now a Lighthouse replaces the former centre of "papal darkness." I confess that the thought of the Pope never came into my head, but the thought of the mollusc did; and indeed the houses all about naturally recalled the curious shells and habitats with which our hunting made us familiar. In these mountainous districts, where houses and clusters of houses look so tiny in comparison with the huge limbs of Mother Earth, one is apt to think of man as a parasitic animal living on a grander creature-an epizoon nestling in the skin of this planetary organism, which rolls through space, as a ciliated ovum rolls through a drop of water. In flat districts a town looks imposing; even a single house raises its head with haughtiness. There is nothing around to rival it in height, and we may fondly imagine earth our pedes tal. But our thoughts are otherwise when we see the house lost on the broad side of a noble hill; and still more when, from a little distance, we see a number of houses clustered on the side, clinging to it like so many barnacles clinging to a rock; we then begin to think of our family resemblance to all other building, burrowing, house-appropriating animals. In vain does our pride rebel at the thought of consanguinity with a mollusc; the difference between Brown, with the house he buil Buccinum with the shell he lies in of stepa

mena interposed between the fact of individual existence, and the completion of the building. Brown is aghast at the suggestion, and says he hates metaphysics. This much he will perhaps admit, namely, that whatever other advantages our habitations may have over those of insects and molluscs, it is clear they have not the advantage in architectural beauty subservient to utility. Consider man from a distance-look at him as a shell-fish-and it must be confessed that his habitation is surprisingly ugly. Only after a great many intermediate "steps or phenomena' " does he contrive to secrete here and there a Palace or a Parthenon which enchants the eye.

While thus moralising we have reached our lodgings, and another work begins. Our treasures must be displayed, and, where needful, identified. The animals are to be kept alive, their wants attended to, and their habits watched, that we may form some idea of their theory of life, before we dissect them to learn something of their structure. Jars and phials are emptied into soup - plates of sea-water, previous to a general distribution into pans and vases. A glass tank is very elegant, but expensive. It is ornamented in a quite other style from that of wax flowers, gorgons in old china, or dark specimens of the Bad Masters, which by many are supposed to enliven apartments; but if you intend to keep animals for study, I think a glass tank on many accounts less desirable than several glass vases, which are inexpensive and portable. I had no tank, and of course never thought of transporting one to Devonshire. Up to this time my aquarium had been constituted by finger-glasses, tumblers, and glass sugar-basins; these sufficed for the produce of fresh-water ponds; but now, on the eve of cultivating the more imposing acquaintance of marine inhabitants, I adopted a friend's advice, and laid in a store of glass jars of formidable dimensions-jars such as confectioners use to contain sponge-cakes, almonds, &c. These made an additional hamper to my age, and the "glass, with care, ed my anxiety not a little. I

annet momente the extra sixpences rust me to impress on porters and ways the inherent frangi bity of glass. I made myself a tormena to all officials by the impres sive emphasis of my anxiety. And, after all the jars were almost worthless. Experience flatly and peremptorily decided against them, as too deep and unwieldy. I quickly discarded all but the smallest, and bought half-a-dozen glass jars of nearly a foot high, which have proved very serviceable. When an animal dies, and the mortality is great, it is easier to discover and remove the corpse, and change the water from a small jar than from a tank: more over, in jars you can keep your animals separate; and animals are not more amiable to each other than men; the strong devour the weak without any religious scruples. To the jars I added shallow earthenware pans, for actiniæ, and some animals which the actinia would not molest. Our day's produce fairly sorted, the work of identification begins. It is not enough to know we have got a polype, an eolis, or an annelid before us; we also desire to know what species of each; and this is sometimes the work of long and troublesome investigation, because even if the species is not one yet hitherto undescribed, you may have great difficulty in identifying it by descriptions. This tries the patience, but it exercises the faculties, and greatly sharpens your knowledge by forcing attention upon details. And here a word respecting the books you ought to put in your box. For read ing, properly so called, the naturalist has no time while at the coast; but certain books will be constantly referred to. All the books on Natural History, or Comparative Anatomy, you can beg, borrow, and don't steal, will be found of use; but if your portmanteau refuses the burden of many volumes, it is well you should know what will be most serviceable. First, then, as indispensable, there must be an "Animal Kingdom"if not Cuvier's, then Vogt's "Zoologische Briefe," or Rymer Jones's Outlines," or Mr Dallas's recently published volume, "The Natural History of the Animal Kingdom,"

very compact Next you must have MrGosse's little Manual of Marine Zoology"-meant expressly for identification; and you ought to add the very cheap and compendious

Manual of the Mollusca," by Mr Woodward, published among Weale's series of Rudimentary Treatises. If you can lay hands on Johnston's "British Zoophytes," Forbes's "Naked-Eyed Meduse," and "British Starfishes," and Alder and Hancock's "Nudibranchiate Mollusca," you will be set up. I say nothing of works on Histology or Comparative Anatomy, because, if your studies lie in these directions, you will already have possessed yourself of what is necessary.

And now, when all is done, the microscope is taken out, and severer studies begin. The hours spent thus fled like minutes, and left behind them traces as of years, so crowded were they with facts new and strange, or if not absolutely new, yet new in their definiteness, and in the thoughts they suggested. The typical forms took possession of me. They were ever present in my waking thoughts; they filled my dreams with fantastic images; they came in troops as I lay awake during meditative morning hours; they teazed me as I turned restlessly from side to side at night; they made all things converge towards them. If I tried a little relaxation of literature, whatever was read became the starting-point for the wandering fancy, or more obtrusive memory; a phrase like

throbbing heart" would detach my thoughts from the subject of the book, and hurry them away to the stage of the microscope, where the heart of some embryo was pulsating. I could not even look intently, but the chance was that some play of light would transform itself into the image of a mollusc or a polype. THE THINGS I HAVE SEEN IN TAPIOCA PUDDING

!

This intense absorption in one study was wrong, and I tried to vary my employments; but intellectual passions are not obedient to abstract convictions; they will exert their jealous exclusiveness. "No array of terms can tell how much I was at ease" on matters agitating the ma

jority of my countrymen. I utterly declined to look at the Times. What cared I about Palmer and his trial? or about the impending quarrel with America? About as much as the stockbroker towards the close of 'Change, or the Opposition member during the vote of confidence, would care for your attempt to interest him in the extraordinary little organ discovered this morning in the tail of a tadpole-quite unsuspected by anatomists, I assure you."

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I admit this was exclusive-say narrow, if you will. I had really interest in little but what the scalpel and microscope would disclose. Everything was new to me, so that every step was delightful. When I discovered what had long been known to others, the pleasure of discovery was something essentially different from that of mere learning; and when I was fortunate enough to discover what had not been known before, the delight in novelty was heightened by the triumph (surely not a guilty one !) of amour propre. Three months of such study were worth years of lectures and readings -although the lectures and readings were necessary preparations for the full benefit of such study. But thoughts of benefit" are afterthoughts; the real incentive to work is passionate fondness for the work itself; and I know nothing in the shape of intellectual activity which I would exchange for a long day with the microscope. This feeling is beautifully indicated by M. Quatrefages, in that page of his Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste, where

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he describes his residence on the little archipelago of Chaussey, where none lived besides himself and a few fishermen. At night, when the songs and the disputes of the fishermen gradually lapsed into silence, and nothing could be heard but the murmurs of the sea, he sat down at his square deal table, covered with the produce of his day's hunt. There he sat, before a microscope which opened to him the world of the infinitely minute, his pencil sketching the novel forms, his pen hastily tracing the result of his observations. And thus the night advanced, till, with fingers so benumbed that he could no longer hold the scalpel, he crept into his bed as the fishermen were leaving theirs. The passage is too long to quote, but the reader can seek it in the charming book itself, the work of a naturalist - which means, an enthusiast.

One word more, and I cease. Johnson said that he who would acquire a pure English style must give his days and nights to Addison. I have some doubts whether the prescription is likely to be followed, or, if followed, likely to effect its purpose; but its language may be borrowed to suit my turn. He who would learn the exquisite delights Nature has for those who ardently pursue her, and would acquire a deep sense of reverence and piety in presence of the great and unfathomable mysteries which encompass Life, must give his days to laborious searchings on the rocks, his nights to patient labour with the microscope.

MARCH! April! May! June ! July-Yes, Tickler, I acknowledge that it is too bad, indeed. On the first of each of the aforesaid months, the sagacious little creature, who knew that the new Maga made its appearance on those days with clock-work regularity, frisked about the room with the utmost glee for some time; but as soon as he had heard the usual question-" Do Tickler's Adventures appear this month?" answered "No-I don't know what papa can be about,"-all his vivacity disappeared, and he hid himself under the sofa, where he would lie as if asleep, but in reality vexed and melancholy. On one of these recurring disappointments I happened to be at home, and was so touched by the dog's manifest chagrin, that I resolved to lay aside, for an evening or two, my Essence of Everything, that

was to work such a revolution in public opinion concerning its patient and gifted author, and prepare my notes of Tickler's disclosures for appearance in Maga. Here they are then, quite correct, for I read them all over to him without his having altered a word; but, to be candid, he did show a little pique on finding that I had not retained sundry moral reflections of his, with which he had thought proper, thinking them very fine, to encumber the thread of his story. But I thought it savoured of presumption for a dog to lecture mankind; and besides, I once dropped a hint to him of this nature, viz., that if story-tellers and historians will be content with supplying premises, their readers will draw the proper inferences, or I would not give a dog's hair for their brains.

"Tell it me quite in your own way, Tickler," said I, as soon as I had set down the poker, after arranging the fire. On this he sate up in my wife's easy-chair, with a modest air; and after clearing his throat, and giving a half-suppressed cough, like that of a nervous public speaker, he thus began:

"When Jiggins and I went out that morning, I felt in capital spirits, it was so fine and bright, and he seemed disposed to let me do as I pleased. Let me run whichever way I might, if I suddenly stopped to look after him, I found he was not looking after me. Nothing could be nicer than this, and I thought I would look after myself, as I always believed I could. I was full of fun; witness how I chased a kitten from area to area, till it jumped on the back of a fat cook that was stooping

to get coals out of the cellar, and who gave a shriek that made me scamper down the street faster than I ever did before. I almost ran against Jiggins, who did not seem to notice me, being so busy talking to a woman who must have been his wife, they looked at each other and talked so angrily. At that moment I caught sight of one of the nicest little dogs I had ever seen. She ran up to me, and then ran off, and I followed her down a sort of mews, where two rough-looking men were standing. One of them whistled to the pretty little dog, who stopped; so did I the two men came up, and one of them called me by my name, so I felt quite comfortable while he patted my back and tickled my ears. But while he did this, a thing happened so sudden and awful! Oh, sir, the other man had a small dirty carpet