CHAPTER III. 

 SOME POETIC FISH-FANCIES. 



AMONG the foreign fishes if any fish can be called 

 "foreign" to our islands the shark, whale, sword-fish, 

 flying-fish, remora, nautilus, and "crimson" murex ("the 

 far-famed fish that gives the fleecy robe to Tyrian dye," and 

 " wounded strikes a purple stain"), afford the poets some 

 excellent touches of sea-life Nature. 



The fiction of the "keeled" nautilus is far too beautiful 

 for any one to regret its survival, and the passages in which 

 our poets pass on to our time the legend of this mariner of 

 fancy are very dainty. Montgomery's lines that begin 



" Light as a flake of foam upon the wind, 

 Keel upward from the deep emerged a shell 

 Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is filled " 



are a delightful rendering of the myth, while Charlotte 

 Smith's poem to the nautilus is so charming that it is no 

 excessive generosity to forgive her adding a " tapering mast " 

 and " silken " sail to the rigging of the crafc in which the 

 little manner is supposed to "scud before the freshening 

 breeze " 



"Where southern suns and winds prevail, 

 And undulate the summer seas, 

 The nautilus expands his sail 

 And scuds before the fresh'ning breeze. 



