302 THE OCEAN. 



V>y which tlie overliow of animal life could h« 

 checked. 



" Harsh seema the ordinance, that life by life 

 Should be sustained ; and yet when all must die. 

 And be like water spilt upon the ground, 

 Which none can gather up, — the speediest fate. 

 Though violent and terrible, is best. 

 0, with what horrors would creation grcan. 

 What agonies would ever be before us, — 

 Famine and pestilence, disease, despair, 

 Anguish and pain in every hideous shape, 

 Had all to wait the slow decay of Nature ! 

 Life were a martyrdom of sympathy; 

 Death, lingering, raging, wiithing, shrieking torture; 

 The grave would be abolished ; this gay world 

 A valley of dry bones, a Golgotha, 

 In which the living stumbled o'er the dead, 

 Till they could fall no more, and blind perdition 

 Swept frail mortality away for ever. 

 'Twas wisdom, mercy, goodness that ordain'd 

 Life in such infinite profusion, — Death 

 So sure, so prompt, so multiform to those 

 Th;it never sinn'd, that know not guilt, that fear 

 No wrath to come, and have no heaven to lose." 



Before we leave these charming regions, we will for 

 a moment notice a few other of the various tribes of 

 living beings that make the sea their home. A curious 

 example of instinctive stratagem occurs in a little 

 crab [Hyas ?) which is common upon the shore- 

 reefs. It is about six inches in circumference, of a 

 dull-brown hue, the body and legs entirely covered 

 with stiff, curved bristles. It covers itself with 

 decaying vegetable rubbish, mud, sand, &c., and 



• Pelican Island. 



