90 FISHES OF FANCY. 



the same scene twice.) Sounds of water trickling here, plashings 

 there, bubbling up from springs, or sluicing down the salmon ways, 

 filled the air, and every now and again the ear could catch the sudden 

 splash of pike meeting pike, or flurry of reconnoitring lobsters un- 

 expectedly colliding. Far away in the distance were lights and what 

 seemed to be human figures moving to and fro — Naiads and Tritons, 

 no doubt, but strangely provided, for folk of that kind, with long- 

 handled brooms and poke bonnets ; yet as I sat there watching them 

 sweeping the sea floor and dusting the rocks, with the figures of the 

 ocean-monsters looming up between me and them, I became aware 

 that the great sea-things were talking together. The white whale had 

 the floor, and it spoke in a dull, plaster-of-Paris voice, while ever and 

 again the husky voices of narwhal and shark, sturgeon and sun-fish, 

 speaking as one who was stuffed with hay might speak, murmured a 

 subdued " House-of-Lords " applause. 



I caught but little of what was said. So many trout were hatching 

 in the ponds close by that it was difficult to follow the speaker. But 

 the drift of the bulky one's utterances was unmistakable. It was 

 grumbling consumedly. Whoever had heard of such nonsense as 

 studying the manners and customs of whales and sharks on dry land ? 

 Why was not the Exhibition held off the Dogger Banks in thirty 

 fathoms of good sea-water ? There was the place to see things as they 

 really were. The right way to study the manners and customs of a 

 shark (and the white whale was quite sure the honourable exhibit 

 from Otaheite would agree with him) was for the public to get into 

 water out of their depth, for he had been informed that sharks always 

 turned over on their backs before disposing of swimmers, and the 

 public would thus have the opportunity of seeing both sides of the 

 shark. At present they could only see one side, as the late Frank 

 Buckland had cemented the other down to the blocks they lay on. 

 Or how could any one arrive at an intelligent appreciation of his friend 

 the sting-ray unless they met him at home.'' and what was the dis- 

 tinction between an electric eel and any other kind, if the former had 

 no opportunity of illustrating the difference 1 " If the British public is 

 so interested in us and our ways, why don't they come down and see 

 us in our daily lives, let their children play with live lobsters in the 

 cracks of the rocks, tickle the torpedo fish, and play bo-peep with an 

 octopus ? They would learn more in one afternoon intelligently 

 devoted to romping with a spider-crab than in a whole life spent out 

 of water." At least so the white whale thought — and all the other sea- 

 things agreed with him. 



Some of his remarks struck mc as being both ingenious and just. 



