Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men Part 20

"He's turned giddy!" shouted a man beside us, who, like every one else, was watching the sea-gentlemen with rapt interest.

Why the little sole tried rock climbing I don't know, and I doubt if he knew himself.

Tank 7 is full of Ba.s.se--glittering fish who keep their silver armour clean by scrubbing it among the stones. Like other prettily-dressed people, they look out of the window all along.

At Tanks 1, 2, and 3, your chief feelings will be curiosity and admiration. The sea-flowers and the worms are rather low in the scale of living things. Far be it from you to decide that there are any living creatures with whom a loving and intelligent patience will not at last enable us to hold communion. But though, when you put the point of your little finger towards a Cra.s.sy, he gives it a very affectionate squeeze, and seems rather anxious to detain it permanently, the balance of evidence favours the idea that his appet.i.te rather than his affections are concerned, and that he has only mistaken you for his dinner.

At present our intercourse is certainly limited, and though the _Serpulae_ and _Sabellae_ have their heads out of their chimneys all along, there is no reason to suppose that they take the slightest interest in the human beings who peer at them through the gla.s.s.

But with the fishes it is quite another thing. When you can fairly look into eyes as bright and expressive as your own, a long stride has been taken towards friendly relations. You flatten your nose on one side of the gla.s.s, and Mr. Fish flattens his on the other. If you have the stoniest of British stares he will outstare you. You long to scratch his back, or show him some similar attention, and (if he be a cod) to ask him, as between friends, why on earth (I mean in sea) he wears that queer horn under his chin.

Now with the _Crustaceans_(hard-sh.e.l.led sea-gentlemen) it is different again. So far as one feels friendly towards a fish it is a fellow feeling. You know people like this or that cod, as one knows people like certain sheep, dogs, and horses. And a very short acquaintance with fish convinces you that not only is there a type of face belonging to each species, but that individual countenances vary, as with us. It is said that shepherds know the faces of their sheep as well as of their other friends, and I have no doubt that the keeper of the Great Aquarium knows his cod apart quite well.

And if one's feeling for the _Crustaceans_--the crabs, lobsters, prawns, &c.--is different, it is not because one feels them to be less intelligent than fishes, but because their intelligence is altogether a mysterious, unfathomable, unmeasurable quant.i.ty. There's no saying what they don't know. There is no telling how much they can see. And the great puzzle is what they can be thinking of. For that the spiny lobsters are thinking, and "thinking very seriously about something,"

you can no more doubt than Jack did about the Merrow.

The spiny lobsters (commonly, but erroneously called craw-fish or cray-fish) and the common lobsters are in Tank No. 9.

Ah! that is a wonderful pool. The first glimpse of the spiny lobsters is enough for any one who has read of Coomara. We are among the Merrows at last.

I don't know that Coomara was a lobster, but I think he must have been a crustacean. Even his green hair reminds one of the spider-crabs; though matter-of-fact naturalists tell us that _their_ green hair is only seaweed which grows luxuriantly on their sh.e.l.ls from their quiet habits, and because they are not given to burrowing, or cleaning themselves among the stones like the silver-coated ba.s.se. At one time, by the bye, it was supposed that they dressed themselves in weeds, whence they were called "vanity-crabs."

But the spiny lobsters--please to look at them, and see if you can so much as guess their age, their capabilities, or their intentions. I fancy that the difference between the feelings with which they and the fishes inspire us is much the same as that between our mental att.i.tude towards hill-men or house-elves, and towards men and women.

The spiny lobsters are red. The common lobsters are blue. The spiny lobsters are large, their eyes are startlingly prominent, their powerful antennae are longer and redder than Coomara's nose, and wave about in an inquisitive and somewhat threatening manner. When four or five of them are gathered together in the centre of the pool, sitting solemnly on their tails, which are tucked neatly under them, each with his ten sharp elbows a-kimbo "engaged thinking" (and perhaps talking) "very seriously about something," it is an impressive but _uncanny_ sight.

We witnessed such a conclave, sitting in a close circle, face to face, waving their long antennae; and as we watched, from the shadowy caves above another merrow appeared. How he ever got his c.u.mbersome coat of mail, his stiff legs, and long spines safely down the face of the cliff is a mystery. But he scrambled down ledge by ledge, bravely, and in some haste. He knew what the meeting was about, though we did not, and soon took his place, arranged his tail, his scales, his elbows, his c.o.c.ked-hat, and what not, and fell a-thinking, like the rest. We left them so.

Most of the common lobsters were in their caves, from which they watched this meeting of the reds with fixed attention.

In their dark-blue coats, peering with their keen eyes from behind jutting rocks and the mouths of sea caverns, they looked somewhat like smuggler sailors!

Tanks 10 to 13 have fish in them. The Wra.s.ses are very beautiful in colour. Most gorgeous indeed, if you can look at them in a particular way. Tank 32 has been made on purpose to display them. It is in another room.

No tank in the Aquarium is more popular than Tank 14. Enthusiastic people will sit down here with needlework or luncheon, and calmly wait for a good view of--the cuttle-fish!

Cuttle is the name for the whole race of cephalopods, and is supposed to be a corruption of the word cuddle, in the sense of hugging.

They are curious creatures, the one who favoured us with a good view of him being very like a loose red velvet pincushion with eight legs, and most of the bran let out.

Yet this strange, unshapely creature has a distinct brain in a soft kind of skull, mandibles like a parrot, and plenty of sense. His sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell are acute. He lies kicking his legs in the doorway of his favourite cavern, which he selected for himself and is attached to, for a provokingly long time before he will come out.

When he does appear, a subdued groan of gratified expectation runs through the crowd in front of his window, as head over heels, hand over hand, he sprawls downwards, and moves quickly away with the peculiar gait induced by having suckers instead of feet to walk with.

Tank 15 contains eels. It seems to be a curious fact that fresh-water eels will live in sea-water. I should think, when they have once got used to the salt, they must find a pond very tasteless afterwards. They are night-feeders, as school-boys know well.

Tank 16. Fish--grey mullet. Tank 17. Prawns.

If with the fishes we had felt with friends, and with the lobsters as if with hobgoblins, with the prawns we seemed to find ourselves among ghosts.

A tank that seems only a pool for a cuttle-fish, or a cod, is a vast region where prawns and shrimps are the inhabitants. The caves look huge, and would hold an army of them. The rocks jut boldly out, and throw strange shadows on the pool. The light falls effectively from above, and in and out and round about go the prawns, with black eyes glaring from their diaphanous helmets, in colourless, translucent, if not transparent armour, and bristling with spears.

"They are like disembodied spirits," said my husband.

But in a moment more we exclaimed, "It's like a scene from Martin's mezzo-tint ill.u.s.trations of the _Paradise Lost_. They are ghostly hosts gathering for battle."

This must seem a most absurd idea in connection with prawns; but if you have never seen prawns except at the breakfast-table, you must go to the Great Aquarium to learn how impressive is their appearance in real life.

The warlike group which struck us so forcibly had gathered rapidly from all parts of the pool upon a piece of flat table-rock that jutted out high up. Some unexplained excitement agitated the host; their innumerable spear-like antennae moved ceaselessly. From above a ray of light fell just upon the table-rock where they were gathered, making the waving spears glitter like the bayonet points of a body of troops, and forming a striking contrast with the dark cliffs and overshadowed water below, from which stragglers were quickly gathering, some paddling across the deep pool, others scrambling up the rocks, and all with the same fierce and restless expression.

How I longed for a chance of sketching the scene!

Prawns are not quite such colourless creatures in the sea as they are here. Why they lose their colour and markings in captivity is not known.

They seem otherwise well.

They are hungry creatures, and their scent is keen.

The shrimps keep more out of sight; they burrow in the sand a good deal.

You know one has to look for fresh-water shrimps in a brook if one wants to find them.

In Tank 18 are our old friends the hermit-crabs. As a child, I think I believed that these curious creatures killed the original inhabitants of the sh.e.l.ls which they take for their own dwelling. It is pleasant to know that this is not the case. The hermit-crab is in fact a sea-gentleman, who is so unfortunate as to be born naked, and quite unable to make his own clothes, and who goes nervously about the world, trying on other people's cast-off coats till he finds one to fit him.

They are funnily fastidious about their sh.e.l.ls, feeling one well inside and out before they decide to try it, and hesitating sometimes between two, like a lady between a couple of becoming bonnets. They have been said to be pugnacious; but I fancy that the old name of soldier-crabs was given to them under the impression that they killed the former proprietors of their sh.e.l.ls.

With No. 18 the window tanks come to an end.

In two other rooms are a number of shallow tanks open at the top, in which are smaller sea-anemones, star-fish, more crabs, fishes, &c., &c.

Blennies are quaint, intellectual-looking little fish; friendly too, and easy to be tamed. In one of Major Holland's charming papers in _Science Gossip_ he speaks of a pet blenny of his who was not only tame but musical. "He was exceedingly sensitive to the vibrations of stringed instruments; the softest note of a violin threw him into a state of agitation, and a harsh sc.r.a.pe or a vigorous _staccato_ drove him wild."

In Tank 34 are gurnards, fish-gentlemen, with exquisite blue fins, like peac.o.c.k's feathers.

No. 35 contains dragonets and star-fish. The dragonets are quaint, wide-awake little fish. I saw one snap at a big, fat, red star-fish, who was sticking to the side of a rock. Why the dragonet snapped at him I have no idea. I do not believe he hurt him; but the star-fish gradually relaxed his hold, and fell slowly and helplessly on to his back; on which the dragonet looked as silly as the Sultan of Casgar's purveyor when the hunchback fell beneath his blows. Another dragonet came hastily up to see what was the matter; but prudently made off again, and left the star-fish and his neighbour as they were. I waited a long time by the tank, watching for the result; but in vain. The star-fish, looking abjectly silly, lay with his white side up, without an effort to help himself. As to the dragonet, he stuck out his nose, fixed his eyes, and fell a-thinking. So I left them.

In Tank 38 are some Norwegian lobsters; red and white, very pretty, and differing from the English ones in form as well as colour.

The green anemones in Tank 33 are very beautiful.

The arrangement of most of these tanks is temporary. As some sea-gentlemen are much more rapacious than others, and as some prey upon others, the arranging of them must have been very like the old puzzle of the fox, the goose, and the bag of seed. Then when new creatures arrive it necessitates fresh arrangements.

There is not much vegetation as yet in the tanks, which may puzzle some people who have been accustomed to balance the animal and vegetable life in their aquaria by introducing full-grown sea-weeds. But it has been found that these often fail, and that it is better to trust to the weeds which come of themselves from the action of light upon the invisible seeds which float in all sea-water.

The pools are also kept healthy by the water being kept in constant motion through the agency of pipes, steam-engines, and a huge reservoir of sea-water.

It is not easy to speak with due admiration of the scientific skill, the loving patience, the mindfulness of the public good which must have gone to the forming of this Public Aquarium. With what different eyes must innumerable "trippers" from the less-educated ma.s.ses of our people look into tide pools or crab holes, during their brief holiday at the seaside, if they have previously been "trippers" to the Crystal Palace, and visited the Great Aquarium.

Let us hope that it may stir up some sight-seers to be naturalists, and some naturalists to devote their powers to furthering our too limited friendship with the sea-gentry. How much remains to be done may be gathered from the fact that we can as yet keep no deep-sea Merrows in aquaria, only sh.o.r.e-dwellers will live with us, and not all of these.

And so insuperable, as yet, are the difficulties of transport, that "distinguished foreigners" are rare indeed.