DECEMBER, 1882. 255 



highest it met a keen temperature, and, although but a 

 short time stationary, when it fell it left the grasses on 

 the seaturf with little icy tablets, beautifully engraved, 

 sitting on their summits. Such lots of them too, like the 

 little groups of white marble-topped tables on a Parisian 

 boulevard ; the fairies will no doubt be coming there for 

 a cold " chop " as they emerge from the pantomime. 

 For there are such preparations for Christmas festivities, 

 and so many wonderful drop-scenes. A beautifully deli- 

 cate rose-pink slid over the mountains all around this 

 afternoon, with a winking haze over the purplish 

 shoulders of the hills. The foreground is lightly dusted 

 with snow, with now a black foreshore shading into 

 purple, and then breaking suddenly into grayish blue on 

 the further waters. 



Mussels have been very frequent on the hills of late, 

 and we wondered whether future naturalists would 

 consider them as evidence of the recent elevation of the 

 land. Times are bad, and the crow kind have been 

 obliged to take largely to the shore supply of viands, so 

 they frequently carry mussels to the hills to break upon 

 the rocks and devour at their leisure. Potatoes also are 

 not infrequent, showing how important birds are in the 

 spreading of vegetation when such large roots are borne 

 lengthened distances into the wilds. 



He is dead ! In spite of comfortable quarters and 

 care he has given up the struggle in disgust, and we have 

 just been transferring his remains to the spirit world. 

 And so the question is not yet quite settled to our satis- 

 faction, how long a skate takes to arrive at that condition 

 of maturity represented by the complete absorption of 

 the umbilical sac, and consequent readiness to commence 

 life as an aggressive unit in the animal world. 



