IN FEATHERS AND FUR. 243 
unnatural mother's behavior. He prefers to attend to the welfare 
of the babies, and in fact he is made on purpose for the work. He 
has neither house nor nest, but he is provided by nature with a 
pocket, which does just as well as either. It is thickly lined with 
fat, and into it he receives the thousand or two of tiny atoms of 
babies, and feeds them with his own fat till they are big enough to 
look out for themselves. There! isn't that an example for the 
world ? 
And even that isn't all Ordinary parents of the fish family, 
eat eggs and little ones, not only of other fish, but of their own, 
while this admirable papa never was known — however hungry — to 
taste one of his own children. A striking virtue, I assure you — in 
fish life. 
When he thinks the little ones — colts, would you call them? 
are large enough to take care of themselves, he starts them in life, 
by bending his tail around like a hook, pressing it against the bot- 
tom of the pocket, and just coolly shoving them out, to take their 
chances in a cold wet world. 
This very unusual conduct is not the only strange thing about 
the Hippocampus ; his looks are as cold as his manners. He has 
the droll fashion of wearing his bones outside, instead of modestly 
covered up with flesh, as most animals do ; or, as some one says, he 
lives inside instead of outside of his bones. So he appears to be 
dressed in a suit of mail. And they are not ghostly looking white 
bones either ; they are of a soft gray color, and ornamented with 
dainty carving. 
This little oddity receives his name from the shape of his head, 
which is ludicrously like that of a horse, and is always carried 
pertly erect in the water. 
The fin on his back looks like a beautiful fan, tipped with deli- 
cate yellow, and is a graceful ornament. His eyes are of a gold 
color, edged with blue, and they are not a pair of slavish twins — 
as most eyes are — looking always the same way; on the contrary, 
they are entirely independent of each other, and he can look two 
ways at once. 
The favorite attitude of the Sea Horse, is holding on to a weed 
with his tail, and from thence darting on his food as he sees it, in 
the shape of worm, fish-egg, or such like delicacy. He has side fins, 
by means of which he can swim, always standing up (as it were) in 
the water. But he soon tires, and then he seizes a plant, and rests. 
