THE CRITIC CRITICISED. 125 



mud fish, in which, half buried and perdu, it hides and watches, 

 tiger-like, for its prey. The naturalist meets with many things to 

 puzzle him, and it has always puzzled us to account for the large 

 size of this animal's head and mouth, altogether disproportioned to 

 the size of the rest of the body. No matter how insatiable the 

 cravings of the brute's maw to use a Miltonic word no matter 

 how gluttonous soever of appetite, the head and mouth, and 

 number and size of teeth, do seem unnecessarily formidable, mon- 

 strous indeed, for any conceivable work that they can be called 

 upon to perform ; and yet there is unquestionably good reason for 

 it all, if we could only find it out. It may interest some of our 

 readers to know that the sea-devil belongs, ichthyologically, to 

 the Acanthopterygious family of fishes. Acanthopterygious ! what 

 a staggerer to any one except a learned ichthyologist at a Spelling 

 Bee. 



Mr. Mortimer Collins and others are recently down, somewhat 

 hypercritically we can't help thinking, on Mr. Tennyson's occasional 

 natural history references throughout his poems. The fun is that 

 in almost every instance in which fault is found with him, Mr. 

 Tennyson is right and his critics wrong ! Here is one example of 

 this hypercriticism in which Mr. Mortimer Collins is fairly hoist 

 with his own petard. Mr. Tennyson writes 



" In spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast." 



Upon which Mr. Collins comments " As a fact, that fuller crimson 

 comes in autumn, as all know who watch the half-shy, half- 

 familiar bird 



" That ever in the haunch of winter sings." 



Here Mr. Mortimer Collins is partly right and largely wrong, 

 w^jile Mr. Tennyson is altogether right. It is true that our native 

 song-birds, moulting in autumn or early winter, assume at this 

 season a thicker, warmer, fresher plumage after all the wear and 



