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had the good fortune to see them swimming at ease, bathed 

 in the limpidest of water and the" brightest of sunshine. 

 Aquaria are always dark and gloomy, and their glass walls 

 seem more prison-like than the bars of a menagerie cage. 

 Museum preparations do not tell of the vanished beauty even 

 so well as the lifeless bodies of the fishes themselves, and 

 every angler knows how suddenly the dead fish loses its 

 attractions of texture and color. This change has been well 

 described by Dr. Badham : 



m 



"While blazing breast of humming bird and lo's stifien'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 turned to clay, 

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

 Ere fade their hues like rainbow tints, and soon their beauty'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." 



Mr. Mather. — We have an occasional blind trout in our 

 ponds, and can at once pick them out by their velvety-black 

 color. I have even seen a trout that was black upon one 

 side, when the eye on that side was gone, and there was a 

 distinct line where the colors met on the back. They did 

 not shade off into each other. I have also seen trout which 

 were black, or nearly black, from the nose to the dorsal fin, 

 and lighter from there down ; and also those which were 

 black on one side of the forward half, presenting the appear- 

 ance of having one anterior quarter colored. These fish, it is 

 proper to say, were all tame or pond kept. I never saw any 

 such instances among wild trout. The enemies of wild trout 

 are too numerous and alert to allow a fish to live when its 

 sight is injured, much less when entirely destroyed. 



