——

 

 

 

 

 

SINGULAR ATTACHMENT OF A
Barre: CAT TO A RAT.
mL yO?

t@/< HE landlord of the only public-
(49 house in the village of Oxton has
a cat, which has been noted as a
first-rate mouser and rat-catcher.
One Sunday morning the cat
caught a young rat, which, instead
of killing, she took into one of the
rooms of the hostelry and put it
along with a kitten she was
ay - nursing. She then lay down and
beg suckled both the cat and the rat,
and appeared to be more fond of the little rat than
of her own offspring. The interesting family were
visited by a number of people living in the district.
The cat continued to nurse the raé until another cat
found its way into the room, and seeing the young
rat along with the kitten pounced upon it, and quickly
killed it.

    

 

 

TREASURES
FROM THE DEEP.

HE sea,’ says a writer who has
deeply studied the subject,
‘contains in its bosom an
exuberance of life, of which
no other region of the globe
affords any idea. Our forests
do not afford an asylum to
nearly so many animals as do
those of ocean. For the sea
has its forests, long marine
herbs, or the floating banks
i of sea-weed which the waves
have detached. If we could plunge our glances into
the liquid crystal of the Indian Ocean, we should
see realised therein the fairy tales of our infancy.
Fantastic shrubs decked with living flowers, the
richest colours glowing everywhere; greens and
browns, the liveliest reds, and the most intense blues.
The sand is sprinkled with sea-hedgehogs and sea-
stars, of fantastic forms and varied colours. The
sea-anemones, like great cactus flowers, adorn the
rocks with their crowns, or spread over the ocean like
a flower-bed of brilliant flowers. The humming-birds
of ocean, small, gleaming fishes, some bright, with a
metallic splendour of blue or yermilion, some with a
gilded green or dazzling silver lustre, play around the
coral bushes. Light as spirits of the abyss, the white
or blue bells of the medusa float through this en-
chanted world.’

But if our English coasts do not present us such a
fairy land as this, they yet provide us with many
wonderful and beautiful things. See, here is an
Oyster. ‘Not much beauty here,’ you say. No, but
much to wonder at. He does not seem well placed
for happiness, though without a doubt he has his
joys. His life is spent between two heavy, stony
plates, with which he can secure himself from ene-
mies. Those lovely things called pearls are, however,

   

 

 

 

his special treasure. They are caused by wounds
made by worms boring through the shells and hurting
their bodies. Pearly matter is thrown out freely on
the injured spot, which soon becomes a pearl of
greater or less size. Or sometimes a grain of sand
gets into the oyster’s house and irritates him, upon
which he coats it over with pearly matter.

Here is a little Crab. It lives, you see, in a hard
shell. The shell does not grow, but the crab does,
and therefore he wants a new shell now and then.
When he feels that he must cast off his old shell he
first of all gets into some hole, where he can lie safely
while he is weak and helpless. ‘Then he goes without
food until he is very thin, and his clothes hang about
him, as we say. In this state a new shell, soft
and elastic, forms about his body. Then the crab
struggles and splits his old shell, and pulls his long
legs out of his boots. When he has got safely over
this strange process the crab increases rapidly in size,
and his new suit becomes in a few days as hard as the
former one.

Here is a Star-fish, or asteria, often called the five-
finger. Its mouth, you see, is in the middle of the
under side, and it is a great devourer of small shell-
fish. . It is considered so destructive to oysters, that
by old laws, every man was liable to be punished
who did not kill the five-finger when he saw it.

And what is this mass of jelly? It is a creature
called the Medusa, or sea-nettle. It has received its
latter name because it makes your skin smart when
you touch it. While the medusa is floating, many
tentacles or nets may be seen hanging from its under-
side. With these it catches food. If you take a
medusa alive, you will find it is impossible to hold it
in your fingers. It will divide into parts and fall
ashapeless mass. Sometimes these strange animals
may be seen below a ship’s keel, glowing like white-
hot cannon balls.

Perhaps the most wonderful creatures of all, if we
consider their works, are the Polypi. These animals
are of a soft, jelly-like substance, sometimes shaped
like a bell or a pill-box. The sea-anemones, as they
are called, belong to this class. Round an opening
or mouth in the upper side are arranged a number of
arms, like the petals of a daisy, by means of which the
creature seizes his prey. ‘he prey is sometimes
quite as large as the polypi itself, but it is sucked
into the interior and there destroyed; the shell, if
there is one, being vomited forth afterwards. This
animal-flower is fixed on a rock, along which it can
slowly crawl.

The polypi form the substances called coral and
madrepore. By their means immense reefs of solid
rock, which stem the mighty waves and form large
islands, are raised in mid-ocean.

One of the most useful treasures of the sea is the
Sponge. It is believed to be an animal, but the
lowest of all animals. No feelings have ever yet
been discovered in the sponge, though it has been
pinched and tortured with redhot irons. It is pierced
in all directions by canals, out of which openings
streams of water are being constantly discharged. It
is supposed the creature sucks the water into its body
by small pores, and gets rid of it when it has drained
it of all its nourishing matter. Our sponges come
chiefly from the Isles of Greece. G. 8. 0.