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Beautiful Stars of the Ocean
an inch to more than a foot. The snake, seas a very singular species, the aboresor Sand Star, is another species. In most cent Star-fish, is found. Fresh Water Fishing.
It is a pleasant sight when one of these less beginning, perhaps, of a series of dis animals is placed in a glass vessel con- appointments the same in kind. taining sea-water, and its various movements are attentively watched. Then it One of the greatest charms of fieldwill be seen that it has, in fact, several sports consists in breathing the fresh air hundreds of the sucker-like legs, each amid the wilder scenes of Nature. In this one a perfect tube, which, when the respect fishing, especially river-fishing, animal wishes, becomes filled and ex- has even the advantage of shooting and tended, while the fluid is as readily with- hunting, for it not only leads the sportsdrawn into the vesicles of the body. We man amid the most picturesque scenery, have heard of Argus with his hundred consisting of wood and water in every eyes, and of Briareus with his hundred beautiful and fantastic combination of hands, but we are not told that each eye color, grouping, and movement, but it could find a separate object to contem- allows, by its tranquil pauses, the soul to plate, or that each hand could be em- drink deep of the spirit of beauty ever ployed in some distinct manipulation. It haunting such places. Izaak Walton seems, however, as if each leg of this ani- understood all this. We shall take the mal had an independent action, being liberty to quote a passage from his Jasper capable of darting out in various direc- St. Aubyn, which affords an admirable tions, as if, like a living lever, it were picture of salmon-fishing as exercised in seeking the best fulcrum, to render its the highest style of the craft: highest service to the movement now taking place. "All Nature was alive and joyous; the air was vocal with the piping melody of blackbirds and thrushes, carolling in every brake and bosky dingle. The shadowy mists of the faint morning twilight had How Anglers Lose their Bait.
In the possession of a Sea-star it is very easy to witness its voracity; for only let a morsel of fish or of a mollusk be placed not been dispersed from the lower regions, within reach, and thither it will go clasp- and were suspended still in the middle air ing the prey ass on as it is gained with in broad, fleecy masses, though melting its rays, and absorbing it into the stom- rapidly away in the increasing warmth ach, to which there is an opening on the and brightness of the day. A stili faint other side. In the eagerness it thus mani- blue line hovered over the bed of the fests it fulfils its appointed destiny. It long rocky gorge which divided the chasm is one of the scavengers of Nature, ordi- from the open country, floating about like narily working silently in the deep waters, the steam of a seething caldron, and devouring, from tide to tide, the ever- rising here and there into tall, smoke-like accumulating matter, which, left undis- columns, probably where some steeper turbed, would destroy every species of culvert of the mountain stream sent its life. So strong is the predilection of these foam skyward. creatures for garbage, that the angler has "Once at the water's edge, the young frequently wished they would suspend man's tackle was speedily made ready, their vocation, since scarcely has the and in a few minutes his long line went baited hook sank to the bottom of the whistling through the air, as he wielded water than he has felt a "bite" only to the powerful two-handed rod as easily as find that he has caught a Sea-star-a luck- if it had been a stripling's reed, and the
