App] AND SYMBOLS. 15 



tentacles are capable of seizing upon and destroying, by a 

 subtle venom, animals of far more complicated structure than 

 themselves ; and their delicate stomachs have the power of 

 speedily digesting the victim. Small fishes and Crustacea, and 

 all the infinite multitude of minute marine creatures, are seized 

 and paralysed by their deadly arms ; and as the mouth and 

 stomach are capable of almost indefinite dilation, the size of 

 their prey often appears exceedingly disproportionate. In fact, 

 in spite of the extreme delicacy of their tissue, these beautiful 

 Medusae are amongst the most voracious inhabitants of the 

 ocean. They afford another instance of the fact that, whether 

 among fishes or men and women, a beautiful and harmless 

 appearance is not inconsistent with a greedy and poisonous 

 character. N. H. 



A Fine Appearance with a Nasty Character. 



When the peacock appears with its tail expanded, there is 

 none of the feathered creation can vie with it for beauty, yet 

 the horrid scream of its voice serves to abate the pleasure we 

 find from viewing it ; and still more its insatiable gluttony and 

 spirit of depredation make it one of the most noxious domestics 

 that man has taken under his protection. Who has not known 

 peacock-men in every department of life those who, by their 

 admirable demeanour, elegance, suavity, and graces, have irre- 

 sistibly awakened admiration, yet on acquaintance were detected 

 as the possessors of qualities which belied their appearance and 

 rendered them odious? Who has not known acquaintances 

 whose appearance suggested everything that was chaste, refined, 

 and graceful, but whose disposition was in every way unlovely 

 who, like the peacock, were delightful as a spectacle, but in 

 other respects detestable ? A. 



Appearances Fallacious Tests. 



We require to be incessantly discriminating between the 

 reality and the thing that is like the reality. Even the insect 

 and the leaf enforce this lesson. Look at those singular insects 

 of which the herbivorous tribe, Phasmina, is composed, to which, 



