RIVER GARDENS; 
to tlie one I expected, ending in nothing less than 
a determination to leave its native element. Had I 
seen a Carp or a Tench quietly walk ont of the fish¬ 
pond and climb a tree, I could not have been more 
astonished than when I saw this creature of the 
water—which, with its fin-like tail and other ap¬ 
pendages, was evidently intended for a denizen of 
that element, quietly crawl up a stick which was 
standing in the vessel, and emerging from the 
water, remain quietly attached to the support it 
had selected, at some inches above the surface of the 
element it thus so strangely and suddenly quitted. 
Its determination appeared the more astonishing, as 
I soon perceived that its finny tail, its legs, and at 
last the whole of its skin gradually hardened and 
blackened, and it appeared to have shared the natu¬ 
ral fate of “a fish out of water.” After watching 
it for some days, without perceiving any further 
change, other matters occupied my attention and 
I entirely forgot the fate of my voracious pet, which 
had met such an untimely end in consequence of 
rashly leaving the proper sphere of its existence. 
Some little time afterwards, I was about to 
empty the jar, and throw away the stick to which 
the dried and hardened form of the victim to getting 
out of hounds was still attached, when I thought I 
6 
