54 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



morals, are too far removed from us to be intelligible. 

 I have no doubt the mollusc is a moral individual, but 

 you cannot consider him to be greatly impassioned ; 

 an oyster, or a limpet, may have his theory of life : 

 but you cannot appeal to his finer sensibilities through 

 the medium of music, poetry, or painting. I have 

 some doubts even of the crab in these regions of cul- 

 ture ; but if he cannot soar so high as Art, we see 

 how he touches the confines of Wit by his feeling for 

 the Grotesque. Fish, too, are funny, and far more 

 educable than jDeople suppose. Your fish has a sense 

 of the proprieties ; he will even condescend to con- 

 ventionalism in costume. At least, one I had at 

 Ilfracombe did so. A queer little dolphin-like fellow 

 he was, who, after swimming about the vase for some 

 time, would sink to the bottom, and there, curling 

 his tail round him as a cat does when making herself 

 comfortable, he would look up with his impudent 

 unabashed eyes, and pant away, as if fatigued with 

 his gambols. This curling of himself whenever at 

 rest was very comical, and he looked as if he knew 

 it. When I had him, he was in full black — evening 

 costume ; but on descendino- next mornino- I found 

 him arrayed in an entire suit of light brown — cool 

 morning summer costume ; in the afternoon he again 

 presented himself in full black ; and the next morn- 

 ing he was dead. I grieved for him, and, as a consola- 

 tion — dissected him. 



This was my constant solace, when I found — as, 

 alas ! I often found — that some of my pets had de- 



