JELLY-FISHES . 355 



Soon doomed herself a ruthless foe to find, 

 "When in th' Actinia's arms she lies entwin'd. 

 Here prison 'd by the vase's crystal bound, 

 Impassable as Styx's ninefold round, 

 Quick she projects, as quick retracts again, 

 Her flexile toils, and tries her arts in vainer 

 Till languid grown, her fine machinery worn 

 By rapid friction, and her fringes torn, 

 Her full round orb wanes lank, and swift decay 

 Pervades her frame till all dissolves away. 

 So wanes the dew, conglobed on rose's bud, 

 So melts the ice-drop in the tepid flood: 

 Thus too shall many a shining orb on high 

 That studs the broad pavilion of the sky, 

 Suns and their systems fade, dissolve, and die." 



While we have been admiring our lovely little Cydippe, 

 and comparing notes with other observers and admirers, 

 other species as small, as transparent, as sprightly, and 

 scarcely less elegant, have been impatiently waiting for 

 their share of admiration; shooting to and fro, tossing 

 their little bells of ductile glass about, and alternately 

 lengthening and snatching in their sensitive tentacles, in 

 astonishment at our stoical indifference to their charms, 

 and saying, s uo more, with the little urchin whose feelings 

 were hurt by the neglect of his papa's visitor "You don't 

 notice how beautiful I be?" 



A thousand pardons, sweet little Sarsia! We will now 

 give you our undivided attention; and for this end we 

 must take the liberty of catching you and of transferring 

 your translucency to isolated grandeur in this other glass. 

 Ha! but you don't want to be caught, eh? And so you 

 pump and shoot round and round the jar as the spoon 

 approaches! Truly you are a supple little subject, diffi- 

 - cult to catch as a flea, and difficult to hold (in a spoon) 



