MR. JACK AND A SELECT CIRCLE. A FEW days ago I received an invitation to pay my respects to Mr. Jack and a select circle. I responded immediately by intimating that I should be proud and happy to make the acquaintance; and on the appointed evening presented myself at the place appointed. a vivid recollection of a casus belli between himself and a mussel not many days before. On that occasion the mussel was yawning in a listless, after-dinner sort of way, when Mr. Jack made an effort to seize him with one of his claws, but, unfortunately, was taken as in a un-man-trap, and was seen wildly struggling over the rocks with the mussel, holding on tenaciously, just as long as he liked. The hour of my arrival was somewhat fortunate, as it was late in the afternoon, which, added to the fact of its being a dark wet day in the last month of the year, rendered it necessary for the lamps to be lighted before my introduction could take place. I was accordingly invited to partake of that refreshing and unintoxicating beverage, tea, with all sorts of remarkably good things to eat; and all I heard of Mr. Jack, at that time, was an occasional clicking sound, as if somebody were rapping with their finger nails against a tumbler half full of water, or any other liquor. By-and-by, having done ample justice to tea, et cetera-which et cetera, as Lord Derby says, includes a great deal — having discussed not only eatables and drinkables, but all the topics of the day, from the Civil War in America to Dr. Colenso's book on the Exodus; the period arrived when my introduction was to take place, and I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Jack and a few select friends. Mr. Jack resided in a sort of glass house-a crystal palace, furnished with sundry pieces of rock, sea-weed, and other marine products, and his residence was filled with sea-water. Mr. Jack himself was resting when I first observed him, partly on a piece of shelving rock and partly against the transparent wall of his mansion. His appearance was not remarkably fascinating, and recalled vividly to my mind a circumstance of my childhood, in which, being commissioned to make a purchase of certain marine delicacies known as shrimps, a creature closely resembling Mr. J. both in size and appearance was facetiously planted on the top of my cloth cap by the fish dealer's assistant, and Occasioning me an intensity of horror more easily imagined than described. I remember how frantically I tore off my cap and sent little crabby floundering; and as I stood now, with a magnifying glass in my hand to examine Mr. Jack the more minutely, I thought he looked at me with a malicious grin, as if he had heard the story. Mr. Jack was a small crab, one of those crustaceous animals described by the French Academy as red fish that walk backwards, a definition which a learned naturalist remarked was admirably complete, except in three particulars-the crab was not a fish, was not red, and did not walk backwards. Mr. Jack did not seem particularly well, and rambled about a good deal in a reckless shambling sort of way, rapping at the glass with his claws, as you may hear hasty men do with their knuckles on a tavern table, when the waiter, is such an "atrocious" time getting the steak and catsup-yez, zir! But Mr. J. was not in a hurry for his dinner; on the contrary, he was no sooner presented with a delicate piece of mussel than he bolted from it, as if he had Mr. Jack, however, was in trouble on the evening I saw him, on account of a new coat which he shortly expected. Crabs, you know, change their coats, or, rather, shed their shells at different times, as they can no more live in the shell which fitted them in their youth when they grow older and larger, than you or I could live all our lives long in the fanciful zouave garb of childhood. But with us the changing of our attire is easier than with members of the Cancer family. The crab has to undress before he can hope for a new coat, and wait undressed until the new coat is ready. This was the occasion of Mr. J.'s anxiety. He was experienced, and very well knew the bother. He would on these occasions heave up one of the rocky fragments in his dwelling, and squeeze himself under it, and then begin to wriggle out of his shell-by no means an agreeable operation. He was in the habit of coming out so cleanly, that his shell might readily have been mistaken for himself. His patron informed me, that on one occasion he numbered Mr. J. with the dead, and removed what he supposed to be his remains from the dwelling which he had so long occupied. "Poor Jack," said my friend-they were on terms of intimacy"Poor Jack's gone at last; but, like that Jack, whose surname was Robinson, he was not dead at all,—it was only his shell filled with water, he himself in a disordered déshabille lying concealed in the mud! But Mr. Jack was not the only person to whom I was introduced on the occasion to which I referred. I was shown a large roomanother Crystal Palace-elegantly furnished with sub-aqueous upholstery, and richly decorated in water-colours, where all sorts of interesting creatures lived in common. Then I was shown an infirmary, where these creatures were kept when "poorly," and a nursery, where the young ones learned to swim, and take care of themselves, as their grown-up friends had done before them. Now, you will perceive at once, that what I was shown was an aquarium-a marine aquarium; and the information which I obtained from my intelligent friend, Jack's proprietor, may, perhaps, be useful and interesting to you. The difficulties of keeping a marine tank are nothing like so great as they are sometimes represented to be. Sea-water may be procured in town at sixpence a gallon; may be had cheaper direct from the sea-side, or manufactured, but the easiest plan is to buy it. The tank may be made of an iron framework any size you like, and lined with glass. Then proceed as follows: Put in a layer of sea-beach sand, then some pieces of rock according to taste. Then select your plants. Brown and olive seaweed should be avoided; they cannot endure the narrow limits of the tank. Red and green weeds are the sturdiest, and without doubt the most beautiful. The "sea-lettuce" is recommended by Mr. Gosse, and certainly its broad, vividly-green leaves, delicate as gossamer, are very lovely; moreover, it is easily obtained, and will hardly be sought in vain between tide-marks if the hollows in the rocks are examined. Whatever plants be selected, if they are rooted to the rocks, they must not be torn from their anchorage; the only way to preserve their lives is to chip off the fragment of stone to which they are attached. Therefore, when you go weed-hunting, put a hammer and a small chisel in your pocket. As in the case of the fresh-water tank, it is better to allow your plants time to settle comfortably, and impregnate the water with oxygen before you introduce your animals. According to the above-quoted authority none are so likely to thrive as the following: Fishes. The smaller sticklebacks; young specimens of the grey mullet, which have lived for more than three years in the Zoological Society's aquarium; the blennies and gobies; the spotted gunnel; the smaller wrasses; the rocklings; the flounder; the dab; and the eels. mouth, holding them firmly with its long arms until the work is done. Surely there are few things more interesting than to watch these wondrous creatures of the deep-to bring the sea world into our homes-and examine all its marvels at our leisure. Why not have an aquarium? You cannot afford it? Why, see how cheaply it may be done. Listen to Charles Kingsley on this topic: Buy at any glass-shop a cylindrical glass jar, some six inches in diameter and ten high, which will cost you from three to four shillings. Wash it clean, and fill it with clean salt water dipped out of any pool among the rocks, only looking first to see that there is no dead fish or other evil matter in the said pool, and that no stream from the land runs into it. If you choose to take the trouble to dip up the water over a boat's side, so much the better. So much for your vase. Now to stock it. Go down at low spring-tide to the nearest ledge of rocks, and with a hammer and chisel chip off a few pieces of stone covered with growing seaweed. Avoid the common and coarser kinds (Fuci) which cover the surface of the rocks, for they give out under water a slime which will foul your tank; but choose the more delicate species which fringe the edges of every pool at low-water mark. The pink coralline, the dark blue, ragged dulse (Rhodymenia), the Carrageen moss (Chondrus), and, above all, the delicate green ulva, which you will see growing everywhere in wrinkled fan-shaped sheets, as thin as the finest silver paper. The smallest bits of stone are sufficient, provided the seaweeds have hold of them; for they have no real roots, but adhere by a small disc, deriving no nourishment from the rock, but only from the water. Take care, meanwhile, that there be as little as possible on the stone beside the weed itself. Especially scrape off any small sponges, and see that no worms have made their twining tubes of sand among the weedstems. If they have, drag them out, for they "Crustacea. The strawberry crab; some of will surely die, and as surely spoil all by sulthe swimming crabs; the shore crab; the eat-phuretted hydrogen, blackness, and evil smells. able crab; the hairy crab; the Ebalia; the Put your weeds into your tank, and settle them masked crab; the soldier crab; the broad-at the bottom, which last, some say, should be clawed crab; the shrimps; the true prawns; the Athanas; and many of the Entomostraca. Annelides. The gold comb; the sabellas; the serpulas; the sea-leech; the long worm; and the terebellas. "Moliusca. The sea-hare; the periwinkle; the commoner tops; the purple; the murex; the chitons; the bullas; the scallops; the muscle; the modiloes; the anomia; the oyster; and some of the sand-burrowing bivalves, as Fenus, Mactra, Pullastra, &c. Gastrochona and Saxicava, burrowers in stone, may be readily kept, and are very interesting, especially the former, which I have had in confine ment for many months in more than a single instance, and still possess. Cirripedes.-The acorn barnacle (Balanus and Chthamalus) and the interesting littlePyrgoma, which is invariably found cemented to the plates of our larger madrepore. 66 66 Zoophytes. Most species of sea-anemone (except the thick horn, Bunodes crassicornis, which is very precarious); both species of madrepore." The periwinkle is one of the most useful members of the aquaria-he is the scavenger the snapper up of unconsidered trifles, which, left alone, would bring the inmates of the tank to grief. The Soldier crab-who quarters himself in the shell of other fish-is also interesting; but there is perhaps nothing so beautiful in appearance as the sea anemone, nor so deceitful; tinged with a variety of bright lively colours, their tentacles very nearly represent the beautiful petal of the carnation or marigold-but it is cruel and voracious as the shark; limpets and small crabs it readily captures, dragging its resisting victims to its covered with a layer of pebbles; but let the beginner have it as bare as possible, for the pebbles only tempt cross-grained annelids to crawl under them, die, and spoil all by decaying; whereas, if the bottom of the vase is bare, you can see a sickly or dead inhabitant at once, and take him out (which you must do) instantly. Let your weeds stand quietly in the vase a day or two before you put in any live animals, and even then do not put any in if the water does not appear perfectly clear, but lift out the weeds, and renew the water ere you replace them. Now for the live stock. In the crannies of every rock you will find seaanemones (Actinia), and a dozen of these only will be enough to convert your little vase into the most brilliant of living flower gardens. There they hang upon the under side of the ledges, apparently mere rounded lumps of jelly. One is of dark purple dotted with green; another of a rich chocolate; another of a delicate olive; another sienna yellow; another all but white. Take them from their rock: you can do it easily by slipping under them your finger-nail or the edge of a pewter spoon. Take care to tear the sucking base as little as possible (though a small rent they will darn for themselves in a few days easily enough), and drop them into a basket of wet sea-weed. When you get home turn them into a dish full of water, and leave them for the night, and go to look at them to-morrow. What a change! The dull lumps of jelly have taken root and flowered during the night, and your dish is filled from side to side with a bouquet of chrysanthemums. Each has expanded into a hundred-petaled flower, crimson, pink, purple, or orange. Touch one, and it shrinks together like the sensitive plant, displaying at the root of the petals a ring of brilliant turquoise beads. This is the commonest of all the Actiniæ (Mesembryanthemum). You may have him when and where you will; but if you will search those rocks somewhat closer you will find even more gorgeous species than him. See in that pool some dozen noble ones in full bloom, and quite six inches across some of them. If their cousins whom we found just now were like chrysanthemums, these are like quilled dahlias. Their arms are stouter and shorter in proportion than those of the last species, but their colour is equally brilliant. One is a brilliant blood red; another a delicate sea blue, striped with pink; but most have the disc and the innumerable arms striped and fringed with various shades of grey and brown. Shall we get them? By all means, if we can. Touch one. Where is he now? Gone? Vanished into air or into stone? Not quite. You see that sheet of sand and broken shell lying on the rock where your dahlia was one moment ago. Touch it, and you will find it leathery and elastic. What, is this all which remains of the live dahlia ? Never mind; get your finger into the crack under him. Work him gently, but firmly out, take him home, and he will be as happy and as gorgeous as ever to-morrow. Let your Actiniæ stand for a day or two in the dish, and then, picking out the liveliest and handsomest, detach them once more from their hold, drop them into your vase, right them with a bit of stick, so that the sucking base is downwards, and leave them to themselves thenceforth. "These two species are quite enough to give a beginner amusement; but there are two others which are not uncommon, and of such exceeding loveliness that it is worth while to take a little trouble to get them. The one is Bellis, the sea-daisy. It is common at Ilfracombe and at Torquay, and, indeed, everywhere where there are cracks and small holes in limestone or slate rocks. In these holes it fixes its base, and expands its delicate browngrey star-like flowers on the surface; but it must be chipped out with hammer and chisel, and at the expense of much dirt and labour; for the moment it is touched it contracts deep into the rock, and all that is left of the daisy flower, some two or three inches across, is a blue knob about half the size of a marble. But it will expand again after a day or two of captivity, and well repay the trouble it has cost. "The other is Dianthus, which you may find adhering to fresh oysters, in any dredger or trawler's skiff, a lengthened mass of olive, pale rose, or snow-white jelly; the rose and the white are the most beautiful. If you find one, clear the shell on which it grows of everything else (you may leave the oyster inside if you will), and watch it expand under water into a furbelowed flower furred with innumerable delicate tentaculæ, and in the centre a mouth of the most beautiful orange. "Next, your sea-weeds, if they thrive as they ought to do, will sow their minute spores of millions around them; and these as they vegetate will form a green film on the inside in the glass, spoiling your prospect. You may rub it off for yourself if you will, with a rag fastened to a stick; but if you wish to be saved trouble, set three or four live shells to do it for you. Look among the beds of sea-weed for a few of the bright yellow or green sea-snails, or conical tops, especially that beautiful pink one spotted with brown, which you are sure to find about shaded rock-ledges at dead low tide, and put them into the aquarium. "You have two more enemies to guard against,-dust and heat. If the surface of the water becomes clogged with dust, the communication between it and the life-giving oxygen of the air is cut off; and then your animals are liable to die. A piece of muslin tied over the mouth of the vessel will guard against this, but a better defence is a plate of glass, raised on wire some half inch above the edge of the tank. You must guard against heat by putting a curtain of muslin or oiled paper between the vase and the sun." I THE ODD BOY. BOYS AND MEN. the walk in good voice. Bother, I don't like it. I like to see a boy walk like a boy, talk like a boy, eat and drink and play like a boy; when he tries to look like a man, he generally succeeds in looking like a muff! Young Sterling is the fellow that I would set upon as a model would as soon think of learning ethics from the "Miss and master came to town" of a moral pocket-handkerchief, as pay the least regard to any of them. But look at Sterling; he is always spruce and spicy in his toggery, always well up in his lessons, and scorns crib; he likes sweets, and says so; he is a jolly hand at cricket,-his bowling, young Mudge's father says, and he is a great authority, is equal to anything at Lord's; as to pulling, I am considered good, but he is a stunner. He is very generous, share and share alike with him, whatever "goodies" come in his trunk; then he is always straight and truthful, what he says he says, what he says he sticks to. He knows how to punch your head, if he has a mind for it, not that he cares for fighting, but when Tomlins the Big was going to lick Mudge the Little, for nothing at all, Sterling did go in, and gave Tomlins enough to last him for a month of Sundays. Now the doctor disapproves of fighting, of course,-nobody wants to fight if they can help it, and when he heard of the row-it was Constrictor blabbed-Sterling was told to mention all particulars: well, that would have got Tomlins into another row-so he would not-and took the blame and the punishment on himself. Well, this sort of thing is a precious sight more manly than putting yourself in a full-grown covering, cutting the sweets, giving the go-by to all fun, and clapping a smoke in your gills, which makes you feel horrid. HAVE a thing or two to say, and I mean to say them. I think I can write as well as some fellows-absit invidia-who make a a noise in the world, or think they do. Out upon them, say I; a drum makes noise enough, but it is jolly empty! I have seen some fellows with no more brains than a cock-boy, if it was not that I hate model boys, and chafer-not so much I fancy-carry off all the honours, bag all the prizes, clean walk over the course, and have everything their own way, ab ovo usque ad mala-and did they not suck the eggs-they would have undertaken to coach their grandmother in that curriculum I know; and did they not munch the apples? Go it, ye pippins! I don't know what is Greek for that, or I would give it you. But look here, these fellows won everything by just trying to be exactly what they were not, and what they never would be -men! That was the notion. Why look at young B. Constrictor, who went into high collars, and took to specs, and broke into coat-tails before he was fifteen-aliquid inane. What came of it? he has settled down as a curate somewhere, but can no more preach a sermon than a pig can dance the polka, and he has them all ready made and posted to him for about a shilling a piece. It was always his way to try to be what he was not; he used to talk as if he could play cricket-catch him at it! as if he could pull or steer-catch him at it! as if he could walk ever so far-oh my poor feet! Yes, I think so, very like a whale, as one man says to t'other in the play. He was a make-believe and a sham, and I hate shams. Look at young Sterling; he was not ashamed to be hungry-he did not go in for not liking pudding-but Constrictor always did. "No thank you, doctor," he used to say, when asked to have a twist at the sweets; "no, I'm obleeged; " he always uttered that word as they say George the Fourth used. When I heard him refuse pudding-not plum-duff, you know, where the raisins have to shout to one another, "Hallo, Malaga, here am I here, where are you?- but regularly good stuff, then I said no good would come of it. When I saw him a little while afterwards break out into tails and stick-ups, I said he was a gone coon ! Dum vivimus vivamus. Whilst we are boys, let us be boys. Upon my pegtops, nowadays, there is no difference between just chipping the shell, and turning out a full-sized cock of There, I have said my say. There are some young tadpoles at our's trying hard to be taken for frogs; let them look out; there is time for them to mend - Dum vita est, spes est. Yours ever, AN ODD BOY. P.S. I shall write to you again if you put this in. P.P.S. I wonder what Bumptious would say if he knew I wrote this? P.P.P.S. Old Bumptious is the doctor. THE THE MINER AND THE PIXIES. I. IN EIGHT PARTS. HERE are no such things as pixies, my man, said the traveller, with a friendly smile of contempt, "so, if you wish me to believe you are going to cut a rich lode, you must give me some better reason than having heard the 'little people' at work." Now there is no faith so cherished by the miners of Devon and Cornwall as their belief that the pixies, or "little people," as they call them, work continually in the mines; and they listen eagerly for the sound of their tools, as they tinkle against the black rocks in those lonesome depths, for they know then the rich lode is near at hand. "Ef your honour would go down tha shaeft," answered the vexed miner, "and crup through tha wast level t' tha back of Timnoodle's lode, your honour would hear 'em at work yourself." "Much obliged," replied the traveller, swinging himself round from the edge of the shaft with a quick jerk, "but I can't say the little people have sufficient attraction for me, to draw me down that hideous, damp, dark hole." "Et's very purty to hear 'em," persisted Zacky Rosvear, the miner, looking wistfully at the traveller. There esn't more waetur in tha level than 'ull cover your fut, and tha shaeft es a auncommon comfortabul waun to go down." "Thank you, thank you," answered the stranger, quickly, "I don't want to test its com forts. Here's a shilling for you, that's something more substantial than pixies, I expect. Such fanciful beliefs are quite out of my way. The three great Faiths of this country, my man, are the Forge, the Furnace, and the Factory; but Fairies-bah! you should leave such shadows to fools." He nodded to Zacky, and walked off to another part of the mine; an air of intense respectability, substantiality, and ponderosity pervading his step. What was not earth in him was evidently mammon. He seemed to chink money at every pore as he walked, while his eye, as it glanced quickly around, appeared to calculate the money value of each object it encountered, and to esteem it accordingly. Nevertheless, he was a sour man, full of contempt and likeness, always sneering and cynical, although self-confident. His chiefest delight, apparently, was to deprive others of the self-satisfaction he so intensely enjoyed himself. Having just done this with regard to Zacky, he was in a good humour, which added to his expression a strange tinge of cruelty. "I haven't goet his comfort and faith in iron, and smoke," said Zacky, looking after him, and shaking his head, “and yet he must needs taake away mine in purtier things. I wonder of this es a good shillin'. Aw iss, he's good, that's something," saying which, Zacky put it in his pocket, and trudged homewards. But his thoughts were full of the stranger, and a cer |