CHAPTER XIV. 



THE MURRAL. 



"Ah me! what perils do environ 

 The man (? fish) that meddles with cold iron ! " — 



Bctleh's Htdibbas. 



Hike is another gentleman whose acquaintance is worth your 

 cultivating, but how to write his name is the puzzler. In the 

 absence of lucid and authoritative instructions in orthography, 

 such as those volunteered to the judge, " Put it down a wee, my 

 " lord, put it down a wee ;" it would seem, like Samuel Weller's 

 name, to have depended " upon the taste and fancy of the 

 " speller." 



The Murral, misspelt also marrel, rnurl, morrul, in the various 

 untutored efforts to transliterate the Hindustani name, is the 

 Ophiocephalus, or snake-headed, of Ichthyoligists, and the Viral, 

 misspelt Verarl of Tamil, Hal Mars of Assam, and Owlu minu, I 

 am told, of Coorg, and, to make all sure, here's his honours like- 

 ness. 



His acquaintance is worth cultivating, for he grows to 2 and 

 3 feet in length, and is not bad eating. He is as fidl of bones as 

 a pike, but then he ought to be brought to table as full of stuffing 

 also, so that you may be of a forgiving disposition. 



He is very like a pike in more ways than one. He is long- 

 shaped like a pike ; has a mouth full of teeth like a pike ; like 

 him basks in the sun at the surface, though very tolerant of cold 

 also; and like a pike roams about at times for his food, instead of 

 waiting stationarily behind a rock, for it to be brought down to 

 him by the stream. This is the natural consequence of his li\ ing 

 chiefly in ponds, ami in the still pools in livers, where there is 

 little or no stream to bring things past a stationary object: ami 

 the consequence also of his food not 1.. ing such as would naturally 



