400 PEOSE HAXIEUTIOS. 



Frail objects of man's anxious care, 



Alas ! Kke yon, how vain 

 Is friendsMp's joy, that brittle ware, 



And Love, that vase of porcelain. 



But to return to the subject of our memoir j the mursena 

 is a small fishj and seldom measures more than two feet 

 and a half or three feet, though much larger ones have 

 been caught; the bulkiest specimen on record, if not 

 apocryphal, is that chronicled by Strabo, weighing eighty 

 pounds. In shape and general appearance the mursena 

 so closely resembles an eel, that but for a very different 

 assortment of teeth, and for certain, spots or blotches 

 diffused over the body, a common observer might easily 

 mistake it for an obese species of that genus. This fish, 

 however, is much easier to flay than the common eel, 

 and when flayed, presents a much whiter flesh ; the eyes, 

 too, will be found, on inspection, considerably larger, and 

 she has, further, a very singular and characteristic trick, 

 recorded by Belon, of gaping like a goose. Her habitats 

 are estuaries and the open sea; in both situations, ac- 

 cording to Rondolet, she manages to lie concealed so 

 well during the winter, as to be seldom procurable. This 

 fish, as Theophrastus informs us, exists, like the common 

 eel, for a considerable period out of water, and avails 

 herself of this power, to go occasionally on terra firma 

 to meet a male viper by moonUght, who, before joining 

 company, takes the laudable precaution of depositing his 

 venom under a stone, and as soon as his fishy friend 

 has wished him good-night, recovers and carefully re-ab- 

 sorbs it. 



The mursena manifests early a decided tendency to 

 grow corpulent, and as life advances becomes so bloated 

 as to be unable to keep her back under water, which, in 

 consequence, is torrified by the sun: 'non valet exustum 

 mergere sole cutem,' as the great Latin epigrammatist 

 informs us. From this propensity of the body to float, 



