Falconer, in anticipating, reversed the simile. The huge animal, struck by the "unerring barb" of Rodmond, has been drawn on board, and
"On deck he struggles with convulsive pain;
But while his heart the fatal javelin thrills,
And flitting life escapes in sanguine rills,
What radiant changes strike the astonished sight!
What glowing hues of mingled shade and light!
Not equal beauties gild the lucid West
With parting beams o'er all profusely drest;
Not lovelier colors paint the vernal dawn,
When Orient dews impearl the enamelled lawn;
Than from his sides in bright suffusion flow,
That now with gold empyreal seem to glow;
Now in pellucid sapphires meet the view,
And emulate the soft celestial hue;
Now beam a flaming crimson on the eye,
And now assume the purple's deeper dye.
But here description clouds each shining ray—
What terms of art can Nature's powers display?"
[BE] "In the Magazine of Natural History" says Captain Brown, in one of his notes to White's Sellorne, "we have a curious account of the pugnacious propensities of these little animals. 'Having at various times,' says a correspondent, 'kept these little fish during the spring and part of the summer months, and paid close attention to their habits. I am enabled from my own experience to vouch for the facts I am about to relate. I have frequently kept them in a deal tub, about three feet two inches wide, and about two feet deep. When they are put in for some time, probably a day or two, they swim about in a shoal, apparently exploring their new habitation. Suddenly one will take possession of the tub, or, as it will sometimes happen, the bottom, and will instantly commence an attack upon his companions; and if any of them venture to oppose his sway, a regular and most furious battle ensues. They swim round and round each other with the greatest rapidity, biting, (their mouths being well furnished with teeth,) and endeavoring to pierce each other with their lateral spines, which, on this occasion, are projected. I have witnessed a battle of this sort which lasted several minutes before either would give way; and when one does submit, imagination can hardly conceive the vindictive fury of the conqueror, who, in the most persevering and unrelenting way, chases his rival from one part of the tub to another, until fairly exhausted with fatigue. From this period an interesting change takes place in the conqueror, who, from being a speckled and greenish-looking fish, assumes the most beautiful colors; the belly and lower jaws becoming a deep crimson, and the back sometimes a cream color, but generally a fine green, and the whole appearance full of animation and spirit. I have occasionally known three or four parts of the tub taken possession of by these little tyrants, who guard their territories with the strictest vigilance, and the slightest invasion brings on invariably a battle. A strange alteration immediately takes place in the defeated party: his gallant bearing forsakes him, his gay colors fade away, he becomes again speckled and ugly, and he hides his disgrace among his peaceable companions.'"
But of color, as I have said, though thus important, the ichthyologist can learn almost nothing from Geology. The perfect restoration of even a Cuvier are blank outlines. We just know by a wonderful accident that the Siberian elephant was red. A very few of the original tints still remain among the fossils of our north country Lias. The ammonite, when struck fresh from the surrounding lime, reflects the prismatic colors, as of old; a huge Modiola still retains its tinge of tawny and yellow; and the fossilized wood of the formation preserves a shade of the native tint, though darkened into brown. But there is considerably less of color in the fossils of the Old Red Sandstone. I have caught, and barely caught, in some of the newly disinterred specimens, the faint and evanescent reflection of a tinge of pearl; and were I acquainted with my own collection only, imagination, borrowing from the prevailing color, would be apt to people the ancient oceans, in which its forms existed, with swarthy races exclusively. But a view of the Altyre fossils would correct the impression. They are enclosed, like those of Cromarty, in nodules of an argillaceous limestone. The color, however, from the presence of iron, and the absence of bitumen, is different. It presents a mixture of gray, of pink, and of brown; and on this ground the fossil is spread out in strongly contrasted masses of white and dark red, of blue, and of purple. Where the exuviæ lie thickest, the white appears tinged with delicate blue—the bone is but little changed. Where they are spread out more thinly, the iron has pervaded them, and the purple and deep red prevail. Thus the same ichthyolite presents, in some specimens, a body of white and plum-blue attached to fins of deep red, and with detached scales of red and of purple lying scattered around it. I need hardly add, however, that all this variety of coloring is, like the unvaried black of the Cromarty specimens, the result, merely, of a curious chemistry.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
The Cornstone Formation and its Organisms.—Dwarf Vegetation.—Cephalaspides.—Huge Lobster.—Habitats of the existing Crustacea.—No unapt representation of the Deposit of Balruddery, furnished by a land-locked Bay in the neighborhood of Cromarty.—Vast Space occupied by the Geological Formations.—Contrasted with the half-formed Deposits which represent the existing Creation.—Inference.—The formation of the Holoptychius.—Probable origin of its Siliceous Limestone.—Marked increase in the Bulk of the Existences of the System.—Conjectural Cause.—The Coal Measures.—The Limestone of Burdie House Conclusion.
The curtain rises, and the scene is new. The myriads of the lower formation have disappeared, and we are surrounded, on an upper platform, by the existences of a later creation. There is sea all around, as before; and we find beneath a dark-colored, muddy bottom, thickly covered by a dwarf vegetation. The circumstances diner little from those in which the ichthyolite beds of the preceding period were deposited; but forms of life, essentially different, career through the green depths, or creep over the ooze. Shoals of Cephalaspides, with their broad, arrow-like heads, and their slender, angular bodies, feathered with fins, sweep past like clouds of crossbow bolts in an ancient battle. We see the distant gleam of scales, but the forms are indistinct and dim: we can merely ascertain that the fins are elevated by spines of various shape and pattern; that of some the coats glitter with enamel; and that others—the sharks of this ancient period—bristle over with minute thorny points. A huge crustacean, of uncouth proportions, stalks over the weedy bottom, or burrows in the hollows of the banks.