FISH OUT OF WATER 315 



species among their feathered competitors. Nay, there are 

 even fish, like some kinds of eels and the African mud-fish, 

 that scarcely live in the water at all, but merely frequent 

 wet and marshy places, where they lie snugly in the soft 

 ooze and damp earth that line the bottom. If I have only 

 succeeded, therefore, in relieving the mind of one sensitive 

 and retiring fish from the absurd obloquy cast upon its 

 appearance when it ventures away for awhile from its 

 proper element, then, in the pathetic and prophetic words 

 borrowed from a thousand uncut prefaces, this work will 

 not, I trust, have been written in vain. 



