specimen was useless. The Picked Dogfish is also provided with two short, sharp spines one on each dorsal fin. Many other fish are furnished with spines, either upon the fins or as horns, or in sharp projections from the gill-covers. The spines of the Greater and Lesser Weaver inflict most painful wounds, and cause such agony that it is commonly reported they are in some way venemous. This has been denied, and demonstrated to be impossible; yet it seems difficult to account for the following facts upon any other hypothesis. Sir W. Jardine, in speaking of the greater weaver, says,

"It is much dreaded by the fishermen on account of its sharp spines, which are usually considered as venomous, but without any sufficient reason, as they are quite devoid of all poisonous secretion. Mr. Couch states that he has known three men wounded successively in the hand by the same fish, and the consequences have in a few minutes been felt as high as the shoulder."

Again, in treating of the lesser weaver, "If trodden on by bathers, as frequently happens, it inflicts," says Dr. Parnell, "a severe and painful wound, causing the part to swell and almost immediately to assume a dark brown appearance, which remains for five or six hours."

In the teeth of the confident assertion of great authorities it would be rash to say that any poisonous secretion exists. But if the above facts be quoted as proofs or instances of the absence of venom, they would appear to be singularly infelicitous

ones.

Perhaps one of the most formidable weapons possessed by any fish is the natural and terrible pair of shears formed by the jaws of the Shark. The only parallel weapon of offense that can be cited as used by man would, perhaps, be the spiked portcullis, but the future may present us with steam shears with blades ten feet long, and intended to receive cavalry-who knows? There is no telling where the ingenuity of modern inventors in the destructive line may lead us. But there are not many instruments so efficient for their purpose as the tooth of a shark. It is difficult to handle one freely without cutting one's fingers; and when we consider the tremendous leverage of a shark's jaws employed against each other like scissors, armed with rows of lancets, it is evident that nothing

in the shape of flesh, gristle, or bone could withstand them. Their capacity, too, is equal to their powers, for a pair of jaws taken from a shark of not more than nine feet long has been known to be passed down over the shoulders and body of a man six feet high without inconvenience. It was thought to be an act of very unusual strength and dexterity on the part of the Emperor Commodus to cut a man in two at one blow, but the jaws of the white shark find no difficulty whatever in executing that feat. The vast number of teeth contained within the shark's jaw has been accounted for by some writers on the hypothesis that they are erected when the shark seizes its prey, at all other times lying flat on their sides. It is now, however, more generally admitted that the shark only employs the outer row of teeth, and that the inner ones are a provision of nature against an accident which is, and must be a very common one when the implements are considered, and the force with which they are employed-namely, the breaking of a tooth. In this case the corresponding tooth on the inside becomes erect, and is by degrees pushed forward into the place of the broken one-a wondrous and very necessary provision to keep so delicate and powerful an apparatus as the shark's jaw always in order. The voracity of the shark forms an endless resource for the writers on the marvelous whose bent lies towards natural history. Whole ships' crews have been devoured by sharks ere now, while their omnivorousness is extraordinary. This is well exemplified by the observation once made to me by an old tar, who was dilating on the variety of objects he had found at one time or another inside the bellies of sundry sharks. "Lord love ye,

sir," quo' Ben, "there bain't nothin' as you mightn't expec' to find in the insides o' a shirk, from a street pianny to a milestone."

Continuing the description of the variety of weapons exemplified in fishes, we have a rival of that terrible scourge, the knout, in the tail of the Thresher, or Fox-shark (Alopias Vulpes.) The upper lobe is tre

Witness the story of the Magpie schooner, very well told in the "Shipwreck" Series of the Percy Anecdotes. This vessel was capsized in a squall, and most of the crew took refuge in a boat, surrounded by sharks at the time, and every man, which was upset by over-crowding. They were

save two, who managed to right the boat and escape, was devoured by the sharks.

mendously elongated, being nearly as long as the body of the fish, and amazingly muscular. It is curved like the blade of a scythe in shape, and the blows which it can and does inflict with this living flail can be heard at a great distance. A herd of dolphins are scattered as though they were mere sprats by one stroke of the thresher's tail, and stories of the combats between the whale on the one side and a combination of threshers and sword-fish on the other are too common to need more than a reference here. The form of battle usually consists in the sword-fish stabbing the whale from beneath, and so driving him up to the surface, when the fox-sharks spring upon him, and with resonant blows from their fearful knouts drive him below

again upon the weapons of their allies.

The lasso is a weapon of some efficacy amongst various people. A form of lasso was even used by the Hungarians, and with great effect in the War of Independence. It consisted of a kind of long-lashed whip, with a bullet slung at the end of the lash. And we have a sort of living lasso in the foot of the Cephalopod. The cephalopods are the polypes of Aristotle, and belong to the molluscs. They are of the first order of invertebrate, or spineless animals. Mollusca Cephalopoda is the style and titles of the family Cephalopoda, in English meaning "foot-headed"—that is, its organs of locomotion, or the greater part of them, are attached to its head, whence they radiate for the most part in long, tough, and pliant tentacles or arms, of great muscular powers. On these tentacles are placed rows of suckers of very singular construction, which singly or simultaneously adhere with great tenacity to any object they come in contact with. The arms are extended in all directions when seeking prey. In the centre of them, in the middle of the stomach as it were, is the mouth of the creature, which is fully as curious as the rest of its anatomy, and consists of a large and strong hooked beak, similar to a hawk's or parrot's. A fish or other creature comes within reach, and is instantly lassoed by one of the tentacles, the others winding around it also to secure it in their folds. It is compressed tightly and drawn down to the beak, which rends and devours it at leisure, escape from these terrible folds being almost impossible.

The arms are also the means of propul

sion, and are used as oars, by the aid of which the octopus manages to progress through the water with considerable rapidity. Mr. Wood, in his popular natural history, treats on this point as follows: "All the squids are very active, and some species, called 'flying squids' by sailors, and ommastrephes by naturalists, are able to dash out of the sea and to dart to considerable distances;" and he quotes Mr. Beale to show that they sometimes manage to propel themselves through the air for a distance of 80 or 100 yards, the action being likened to a something which might be achieved by a live corkscrew with eight prongs. In the account given in Bennett's Whaling Voyage they are often spoken of as leaping on board the ship, and even clear over it into the water on the other side. Nature has also furnished the cephalopod with another curious weapon of offense, or defense rather, in the shape of a bag of black fluid, or sepia, commonly termed by fishermen the ink-bag; and what a dreadful weapon of offense or defense ink may be, in many cases, there are few of us unaware. The cuttle when closely pursued sends out a cloud of it to hide him from view, and escapes under cover of it.

Some of the cephalopods possess extraordinary powers of muscular contraction, as the common squid, for example, which is spread out at one moment in a body and volume larger round than a large man's fist, and the next moment will contract itself so that it can easily pass through the cork-hole in a boat or the neck of a winebottle. Great sensational attraction has been directed to the octopus by the tremendous description of the combat in Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea. No doubt a large octopus, such as are found in the Pacific and elsewhere, and which sometimes have arms of eight or nine feet in length, could drown a man with the greatest ease, if he had no weapon and was caught by one under water. From remote ages the deeds of the polypus have been chronicled by poets and writers of strong imaginative powers; and thus we have, probably, the partially fabulous story of the Lernæan hydra, which, if it ever existed at all, had its origin no doubt in the impossible deeds of some improbable octopus. Then there is the story of the king's daughter and the noble diver, who dived for a gold cup and the love of his princess, but profited by nei.

ther, since he never came up again, being supposed to have been lassoed by some monster octopus at the bottom of the whirlpool, and many other well-known stories. The beast forms a very great attraction at the Crystal Palace aquarium, where the ladies, of course, insist on calling him "the Devil Fish" (but that distinguished title belongs to another fish ;) and where he is poked up daily for their inspection, it being one of his diabolical tendencies to dwell" under ebon shades and low-browed rocks." What a life for a poor devil who wants nothing but solitude and retirement, to Be a show devil and at the beck and call of the ladies !

Amongst other offensive powers commanded by fish and men alike is the very remarkable one of electricity; it is slightly used in warlike as well as useful purposes. But the possible uses to which we may put electricity ourselves hereafter as an offensive weapon we can not at present even guess at. It is a powerful agent to several kinds of fish, and yet ichthyologists are greatly at fault to settle the exact purpose for which it is given to them-whether it be for the purpose of killing the animals they prey on, or of facilitating their capture, or whether it be intended to render them more easy of digestion.

Mr. Couch, in speaking of the properties of electricity and the digestive capability of the Torpedo, has the following: "One well-known effect of the electric shock is to deprive animals killed by it of their organic irritability, and consequently to render them more easily disposed to pass into a state of decomposition, in which condition the digestive powers more speedily and effectively act upon them. If any creature more than others might seem to require such preparation of its food, it is the cramp ray, the whole canal of whose intestine is not more than half as long as the stomach." This is certainly very curious, and if it should be found that the same deficiency in point of digestive accommodation exists in the gymnotus and the other fishes of electric powers, the hypothesis would be converted almost into a certainty. In hunting up authorities to verify this curious fact, we find in the article on the gymnotus in Chambers's Encyclopædia, that "all the gymnotida are remarkable for the position of the anus, which is so very far forward as in the elec trical eel to be before the gill openings," which

would certainly seem to confirm Mr. Couch's supposition.

Of the tremendous powers which can be given off in one shock it may be stated that Faraday, having made experiments with the specimen which was shown several years ago at the Adelaide Gallery, estimated that an average shock emitted as great a force as the highest force of a Leyden battery of fifteen jars, exposing 3500 inches of coated surface.

There are five different fish endued with electrical powers. Of the torpedo there are two species-the old and new British torpedo; one of the Gymnotus elec tricus, or electric eel, as it is called; and two of the Malapterurus-namely, M. electricus of the Nile, called Raash, or thunder fish, by the Arabs, and the Malapterurus Beninensis-the smallest of the electrical fishes, found in the Old Calabar River, which falls into the Bight of Bénin on the coast of Africa. The latter fish is a comparatively recent discovery, having been known to us only some fifteen or sixteen years. We have no very good account of either of these latter fish. A specimen of the last was sent to me three or four years ago. It is a curious little fish about five or six inches in length, and very much resembles the Siluride in general appearance, about the head especially. It has long barbules, three on each side of the mouth, and has a very bloated, puffy appearance, caused, it is to be presumed, by the electric apparatus, which is deposited between the skin and the frame of the fish. In the torpedo the electric battery is placed in two holes, one on either side of the eyes. Here a number of prismatic cells are arranged in the fashion of a honeycomb, the number being regulated by the age of the fish. These represent the jars in the battery, and they are capable of giving out a terrible shock, as many an incautious fisherman has experienced to his cost. We may trust also that the torpedos with which our coasts and harbors are likely to be thronged, will be capable of giv ing off even a severer shock; and though gunpowder and gun-cotton will be the shocking agents in these cases, yet electricity will play no unimportant part in their process. Formerly quacks galvanized their patients by the application of the natural torpedo, applying it to the joints and limbs for gout, rheumatism, etc. That the electricity is true electricity has been proved

by a host of experiments. The electrometer has shown it, and needles have been magnetized just as if a battery had been employed.

There are many other points of similarity which might be enlarged upon; but if

one were to attempt to set down all the strange and various considerations which come under cognizance in this subject, they would soon swell the matter much beyond the limits of a magazine article. [From Frazer's Magazine.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE WHITE OWLS OF GARSTANG.

"As she fled fast through sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her played,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She looked so lovely, as she swayed

The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly wealth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips."

THIS state of affairs could not last. "Look here," I say to Queen Titania, we must cut the Lieutenant adrift." "As you please," she remarks, with a sudden coldness coming over her manner. "Why should we be embarrassed by the freaks of these two young creatures! All the sunshine has gone out of the party since Bell has begun to sit mute and constrained-her only wish apparently being to show a superhuman courtesy to this perplexing young Prussian."

"You very quickly throw over any one who interferes with your own comfort," says my Lady calmly.

"I miss my morning ballad. When one reaches a certain age, one expects to be studied and tended-except by one's wife."

"Well," says Tita, driven to desperation by this picture of Von Rosen's departure, "I warned you at our setting-out that these two would fall in love with each other and cause us a great deal of trouble."

Who can say that this little woman is wanting in courage? The audacity with which she made this statement was marvelous. She never flinched; and the brown, clear, true eyes looked as bravely unconscious as if she had been announcing her faith in the multiplication table. There was no use in arguing the point. How could you seek to thwart or influence the firm belief that shone clearly and steadily under the soft eyelashes.

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Come," I say to her, "is Von Rosen

to go; or is he to hang on in the hope of altering Bell's decision? I fancy the young man would himself prefer to leave us-I don't think he is in a comfortable position."

My Lady appeared a trifle embarrassed -was there some dark secret between these two women?

"A young man," she says, with a little hesitation, "is the best judge of his own chances. I have asked Bell; and I really can't quite make her out. Still-you know -a girl sometimes is in a manner frightened into saying 'no,' the first time she is asked-and there might be” She stopped.

"You think the Lieutenant should ask her again ?"

"No, I don't," says Tita, hastily, "but it is impossible to say-she had nothing to urge against Count Von Rosen-only that Arthur would consider himself unjustly treated

So-ho! Is that the reason ?" No, no, no!" cries the small woman, an agony of fright. "Don't you go and put any wrong notions into the young man's head

"Madam," I say to her, "recollect yourself. So far from wishing to interfere in the affairs of these two young people, I should like to bundle them both back to London, that we might continue our journey in peace. As for the Lieutenant's again proposing to marry Bell, I consider that a man who twice asks a woman to become his wife, forgets the dignity of his sex."

Tita looks up with the most beautifully innocent smile in her eyes—and says sweetly

"You did yourself."
"That was different."
"Yes, I daresay."

"I knew your heart would have broken if I hadn't."

"Oh!" she says, with her eyes grown appalled.

"In fact, it was my native generosity that prompted me to ask you a second time; for I perceived that you were about to ask me."

"How many more ?" she asks; but I can not make out what mysterious things she is secretly counting up.

"But no matter. There is little use in recalling these by-gone mistakes. Justice is satisfied when a fool repents him of his folly."

At this moment Bell enters the room. She goes up to Tita, and takes both her hands.

"You are laughing in a perplexed way. You must have been quarrelling. What shall we do to him ?"

"The falling out of faithful friends is generally made up with a kiss, Bell," it is remarked.

"But I am not in the quarrel," says Miss Bell, retreating to the window; and here there is a rumble of wheels outside, and the phaeton stands at the door.

"You two must get up in front," says Tita, as we go out into the white glare of Ormskirk. "I can watch you better there."

By this dexterous manoeuvre Bell and the Lieutenant were again separated. The young lady was never loth to sit in front -under whatever surveillance it placed her; for she liked driving. On this cool morning-that promised a warmer day, after the wind had carried away the white fleece of cloud that stretched over the sky --she pulled on her gloves with great alacrity, and, having got into her seat, assumed the management of the reins as a matter of course.

"Gently!" I say to her, as Castor and Pollux make a plunge forward into the narrow thoroughfare. A handbarrow is jutting out from the pavement. She gives a jerk to the left rein, but it is too late; one of our wheels just touches the end of the barrow, and over it goes-not with any great crash, however.

"Go on," says the Lieutenant, from behind, with admirable coolness. "There is no harm done-and there is no one in charge of that thing. When he comes, he will pick it up."

"Very pretty conduct," remarks my Lady, as we get out among the green fields and meadows again, "injuring some NEW SERIES.-VOL. XVI., No. 3.

poor man's property, and quietly driving away without even offering compensation."

"It was Bell who did it," I say.

"As usual. The old story repeated from the days of Eden downward. The woman thou gavest me-of course, it is she who must bear the blame."

66

'Madam, your knowledge of Scripture is astounding. Who was the first Attorney-General in the Bible?"

"Find out," says Tita; and the Lieutenant bursts into a roar of laughter, as if that was a pretty repartee.

"And where do we stop to-night ?" says our North-country maid, looking away along the green valley which is watered by the pretty Eller Brook.

"Garstang, on the river of Wyre." "And to-morrow we shall really be in Westmoreland ?"

"To-morrow we shall really be in Westmoreland. Wo-ho! my beauties! Why, Bell, if you try to leap across Lancashire at a bound like that, you'll have us in a canal, or transfixed on a telegraph-post."

"I did not intend it," says Bell, "but they are as anxious as I am to get north, and they break into a gallop on no provocation whatever."

Indeed, the whole nature of this mad girl seemed to have a sort of resemblance to a magnetic needle-it was continuously turning to the North Pole, and that in a tremulous, undecided fashion, as if, with all her longing, she did not quite like to let people know. But at this moment she forgot that we were listening. It was really herself she was delighting with her talk about deep valleys and brown streams, and the scent of peat-smoke in the air of an evening. All the time she was looking away up to the horizon, to see whether she could not make out some lines of blue mountains, until Tita suddenly said

My dear!"

'Meaning me, ma'am ?"

"No, I mean Bell. Pray keep a firmer hand on the horses-if a train were to come sharply by at present-and you see the road runs parallel with the railway-line for an immense distance."

"And so should we," says Bell, lightly. "There is no danger. The poor animals wouldn't do any thing wicked at such a time, just when they are getting near to a long rest."

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