

THE TAUTOG. 



TAUTOG, CHOGSET AND PARROT-FISH. 



While blazing breast of humming-bird and lo's stiffen'd wing 



Are bright as when they first came forth new-painted in the spring. 



While speckled snake and spotted pard their markings still display. 



Though he who once embalm'd them both himself, be turn'd to clay, 



On fish a different fate attends, nor reach they long the shore 



Ere fade their hues like rain-bow tints, and soon their beaut3''s o'er. 



The eye that late in ocean's flood was large and round and full, 



Becomes on land a sunken orb, glaucomatous and dull ; 



The gills, like mushrooms, soon begin to turn from pink to black. 



The blood congeals in stasis thick, the scales upturn and crack ; 



And those fair forms, a Veronese, in art's meridian power, 



With every varied tint at hand, and in his happiest hour. 



Could ne'er in equal beauty deck and bid the canvas live. 



Are now so colourless and cold, a Rembrandt's touch might give. 



Badham. 



' I ■'HE Wrasses and Parrot-fishes, are among the most gorgeously 

 apparelled of the inhabitants of the waters. Nature has not conferred 

 on the Labri, said Lacepede, either strength or i:)Ower, but they have 

 received instead, as their share of her favors, shapely proportions, and 

 activity of fin, and are adorned with all the hues of the rainbow. " Le feu 

 du diamant, du rubis, de la topaz, de I'emeraude, du saphir, de I'amethystes 

 du grenat, scintille sur leurs ecailles polies, il brille sur leur surface en 

 goutte, croissans, en raies, en bandes, en anneaux, en ceintures, en zones, 

 en ondes ; il se mele a I'eclat de Tor et de I'argent, qui y resplendit sur 

 des grandes places, les teintes obscure, les aires pales, et pour ainsi 

 decolorees." 



