In the aquarium, however, spite of
this good beginning, we have to record a failure. "The masters could
not, and the boys would not, attend to it; and our best octopus, after
coming to the top of the water, and spitting a last farewell at sundry
lookers-on, died; and with him died the attempt."
We are quoting from a letter of a correspondent to _The Times_, and we
cannot better conclude this part of the subject than by a graphic
paragraph from the same hand:
Again, there were the birds, many always on shore and marsh; but when
the herring-fry passed up the bay the birds positively possessed it.
There was a wilderness of glistening wings in the air, a restless bank
of floating feathers on the sea--a mile of wings and glancing foam of
life, with many a strange wild cry, giving the high notes to the deep
bass of the waves. How often from the marsh, or somewhere, dreamland
or ghostland, came the plaintive wail of the curlews; then the
dotterels would run and flit about the sands; and, not least, the
herons, measuring out their dominions with their lordly arch of wings
in leisurely pride of sovereignty, passed grandly on their way; or,
ever and anon, a thousand plover, as with one soul, would turn and
glance in the sun far away.
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