(Of a jelly-fish.) “Let me look. If you hold it up to the light, you see it is nearly transparent, and the surface is marked with numerous angular spaces.”
(Of a sand-worm.) “Oh—in this respect the little Pectinaria resembles the fresh-water Melicerta we find abundantly on the weeds in the canal at home.”
(Of a sea-mouse.) “Oh, papa, I do think here is a sea-mouse lying on the shore. Bah! I don’t much like to touch it.”
The childish simplicity and ladylike grace of these expressions need no comment; but the clergyman’s education of his children in gentleness is the point peculiarly striking to me in the books, collated with my own experience in the case of the boy and the squirrel. The following two extracts are sufficiently illustrative:—
“ ‘Well, papa,’ said Jack, ‘I am tired of sitting here; let us now go and hunt for peewits’ eggs.’ ‘All right, Jack, and if you find any you shall each have one for your breakfast in the morning. When hard-boiled and cold, a peewit’s egg is a very delicious thing, though I think the peewits are such valuable birds, and do so much good, that I should not like to take many of their eggs. We had better separate from each other, so as to have a better chance of finding a nest.’ Soon we hear a shout from Willy, whose sharp eyes had discovered a nest with four eggs in it; so off we all scamper to him. See how the old bird screams and flaps, and how near she comes to us; she knows we have found her eggs, and wishes to lure us away from the spot; so she pretends she has been wounded, and tries to make us follow after her. ‘Now, Jack, run and catch her. Hah! hah! [[79]]There they go. I will back the peewit against the boy. So you have given up the chase, have you? Well, rest again, and take breath.’ ”
“ ‘Well, Mr. Parry Evans, how many salmon have you counted in the pool?’ ‘There are seven or eight good fish in, sir, this time; and one or two will be ten or eleven pounds each.’ Look at the dog ‘Jack’; he is evidently getting a little impatient, as he sees in the retiring water of the pool every now and then a salmon darting along. And now Mr. Evans takes the silver collar off, and sets ‘Jack’ free; and in a second he is in the middle of the pool. Now for the fun! Willy and Jack[6] tuck up their trousers, take off their shoes and stockings, and with nets in their hands enter the water. Bah! it is rather cold at first, but the excitement soon warms them. There goes a salmon, full tilt, and ‘Jack’ after him. What a splashing in the water, to be sure! There is another dog learning the trade, and ‘Jack’ is his tutor in the art; he is a brown retriever, and dashes about the water after the salmon as if he enjoyed the fun immensely, but he has not yet learned how to catch a slippery fish. There! there! see! see! good dog; now you have him! No! off again; well done, salmon! Now dog! have at him!
“How immensely rapid is the motion of a frightened salmon ‘Quick as an arrow’ is hardly a figure of speech. Bravo, ‘Jack,’ bravo! Do you see? He has caught the salmon firmly by the head. Good dog! Mr. Parry Evans is immediately on the spot, and takes the fish from old ‘Jack,’ whom he kindly pats on the back, holds the salmon aloft for us all to see, and, consigns him to the basket which his man is guarding on the shore. See, see, again! off they go, dogs and men, and soon another salmon is captured; and there is lots of fun, meanwhile, in catching the mackerel and garfish. Well, the sport of catching [[80]]the various fish in the pool—there were nine salmon, averaging about five pounds each—lasted about half an hour. ‘Jack’ behaved admirably; it was wonderful to see his skill in the pursuit; he generally caught hold of the salmon by the head, on which he gave one strong bite, and the fish was rendered helpless almost instantaneously. Sometimes he would catch hold of the back fin. When the sport was finished, we went to survey the spoils; and a nice ‘kettle of fish’ there was. I bought one salmon and the gurnard; the rest were soon disposed of by Mr. Evans to his numerous visitors, all of whom were much pleased with the sport. But wait a little; some of the fish lie on the sand. I will look for parasites. Here, on this salmon, is a curious parasite, with a body an inch long, and with two long tail-like projections three times the length of the creature itself. It is a crustacean, and related to the Argulus foliaceus.”
The reverend and learned author will perhaps be surprised to hear that the principal effect of these lively passages on me has been slightly to diminish my appetite for salmon, no less than for sea-side recreations. I think I would rather attend my pious instructor, in discourse on the natural history of the Land. I get his ‘Country Walks of a Naturalist,’ therefore, in which I find a graceful preface, thanking Mr. Gould for permission to copy his Birds of England; and two very gummy and shiny copies (so-called) adorning the volume.
Now there was boundless choice for the pleasing of children in Gould’s marvellous plates. To begin with, the common sparrow’s nest, in the ivy, with the hen sitting:
The sparrow’s dwelling, which, hard by,