50 ANGLERS' EVENINGS. 



prospect but liquidation ahead. But if it be considered 

 that in regard to the subject of the present discussion 

 these conditions, by approximating the tone of my mind 

 to the mental temperature of the fish, tended to exag- 

 gerate my esteem for them, it must also be remembered 

 that the fish had compensating disadvantages. I conceive 

 that the tanks must have been found by them vastly 

 inferior to the deep-blue sea, or the willow-fringed, mossy- 

 cushioned, and ranunculus or lily-dotted stream. No 

 doubt this had a depressing effect upon the fish ; they 

 often looked as though they were attending their own 

 funerals. They were seen under lugubrious circumstances, 

 and must sometimes have found it difficult to keep up 

 their spirits. Still, they seemed to me to succeed won- 

 derfully well, and greatly increased my opinion of their 

 strength of mind. 



Decided evidences of memory were displayed ; for at 

 four o'clock in the afternoon, when hungry, they collected 

 about the surface of the tanks waiting for the hand that 

 fed them. They had no watches, and their appetites 

 varied according to other conditions ; but when they were 

 hungry they did not forget that four o'clock or thereabouts 

 would bring food, nor did they forget whence it would 

 come. They were not always fed at four o'clock ; for 

 various reasons irregularities occurred ; but the fish kept 

 their appointments with the keepers. I have seen fish full 

 of fun and laughing, not with the mouth and lips, but with 

 that most kindly and intelligent of all laughter, the 

 laughter of eyes which twinkled with overflowing frolic- 

 someness. I have seen a crab caress his lady-love and 



