a

little cables employed in mooring a muscle; each cable is scarcely two inches long, but they are all spun by herself, and the tongue is the instrument which not only produces these numerous threads, but serves also instead of arms and legs on other occasions. The Limpet, when she has occasion to unmoor, finds means to disengage herself without any great effort, and to move from her place by the same muscle by which she adhered so firmly to her anchorage. Even Oysters are said not to be destitute of the power and the instinctive sagacity to turn themselves round when thrown irregularly into a vessel of water, so that the concave shells may remain downmost, in order to retain their favourite liquor.

Uses of Shell-fish.

From the number of animals which prey upon insects, it was inferred, that the principal object the Creator had in view in the formation of these, was the subsistence of many of the larger orders of creatures; so, from the numerous herds of shell-fish, which, in a great degree, resemble insects, and every where abound among the beds of the ocean, and the extraordinary digestive faculties of the finny tribes, we have reason to conclude, that the former were principally intended and brought into existence for food to the latter. We will, however, mention a few particulars in which the crustaceous tribes may also be said to be otherwise serviceable.

The Hawk's-bill Turtle is valued on account of its shell, from whence our most beautiful snuff boxes, and other trinkets, are said to be formed. The Green Turtle, as a wholesome and highly delicious food, has become such a valuable article in commerce, that our West India vessels are now generally fitted up with conveniences for importing them alive. The Land Crab is said to be regarded as a delicacy in Jamaica; and it is even asserted that the slaves are often entirely fed upon them. Among the shell-fish on the Waterford coast, the Murex, which gave the Tyrian purple, is said to exist. We need not mention in what estimation the Lobster, the Crab, and other shell-fish, are held among ourselves; and the delicacy of flavour which makes the Oyster prized as an article of food. In the Oyster, also, is found that beautiful substance called Mother of Pearl; but as the pearl fishery is one of the most destructive employments (the art of war excepted,) in which the human species can be engaged, it is much to be lamented that what is principally used in the formation of trinkets should continue to be procured at the expence of so much human misery.

The pearls are searched for by Divers, educated to it as a profession; they descend from fifty to sixty feet, each bringing up a net full of Oysters. The pearl is most commonly attached to the inside of the shell, but is most perfect when found in the animal itself.

The exertion undergone during this progress is so violent, that, upon being brought into the boat, the Divers discharge water from their mouths, ears and

nostrils, and frequently blood; this does not, however, hinder them from going down in their turn, and the poor creatures will often make from forty to fifty plunges a day. But the violence of the exertion (by which, although the most robust and healthy are generally chosen for this employment, yet they seldom survive it five or six years,) is not the only thing the Pearl divers have to dread; they are also exposed to the attacks of the sharks, who, if they are not successful in every attempt to extinguish at once the vital spark, and so put an end to a life so little to be envied, frequently deprive these unhappy beings of a limb, and suffer them only to escape from their jaws in a mutilated state!-Read this, ye dashing fair ones! and think, as ye enter the ball room under a profusion of glittering ornaments, that, to procure that costly bracelet, an unhappy fellow creature was doomed to the slavery of the diamondmines; and that beautiful pearl was procured at the peril of another's life.—And all this while so many of the transcendent beauties of creation, placed by the Almighty within our reach, pass unregarded.But this is of a piece with the general conduct of man, who is ever apt to lose the substance in grasping at the shadow.

CHAP. XIII.

FISHES.

"Who can old Ocean's pathless bed explore,
And count her tribes that people every shore?"

"From icy oceans, where the whales
Toss in foam their lashing tails."

were

Ir the Ostrich, the Emu, and the Cassowary, remarkable for their size, and claimed our first attention among the feathery tribes, in consequence of their apparently constituting part of that link which unites the quadruped to the volatile race, the Whale deserves our immediate notice on entering among the finny tribes; not only on account of its enormous bulk, which has occasioned it, in its movements, to be compared to a mountain in motion, but for the resemblance that it bears to the four-footed class of animals in its internal structure, and that superior in stinctive sagacity which it displays in its conjugal attachment, and care of its offspring. In bulk, the Whale may be said to exceed every animal of which we have any certain description. They are in the arctic regions at present from sixty to ninety feet long; but formerly, when the captures were less frequent, and they were not so much thinned before arriving at a larger growth, they were said to be found of the enormous length of two hundred and fifty feet; and in the Indian Seas they are still seen one hundred and fifty feet in length. Yet, notwithstanding

its amazing bulk, this creature must not be considered as a huge unwieldy mass; for, according to La Cepede, it swims at the rate of thirty-three feet in a second, and it is computed that it might circumnavigate the globe, in the direction of the equator, in forty-seven days, even allowing it to rest by night during that time! It is believed to be extremely long-lived; and the method of catching these huge animals is said to be one of the boldest enterprizes of man. As the whale fishing has, however, been so fully described in a variety of publications, within the reach of the greater part of our readers, we shall pass it over for the present. But, large as the whale is, what is its size in comparison with the Kraken ? if such an animal exists; which is said to be "a mile and a half in circumference ;-that, when it appears above the water, it resembles a parcel of small islands and sand-banks, on which fish disport themselves, and sea-weeds grow ;"—and that, "when he sinks, which he does gradually, a dangerous swell succeeds, and a kind of whirlpool is actually formed in the water."

Far from being disposed to set bounds to the power of the Almighty, by denying the possibility of the existence of such an animal, we would conclude in the words of Goldsmith, that "to believe all that has been said of those animals would be too credulous, and to reject the possibility of their existence, would be a presumption unbecoming mankind"

In the internal conformation of its parts, and in a few of the external ones of the Whale, there is such