But close at hand, on that umbrageous bough, sits the fond partner of his joys and sorrows, so that it is in no spirit of selfish solitary musing that he ever murmurs, by woodland stream and shadow-haunted brook, “a music sweeter than their own.” The slender winged and glossy plumaged swallow, which skims the verdure of the new-mown meadow, or dimples the surface of the breezeless lake—the ponderous but giant-pinioned eagle, winging his way from distant isles, o’er waters glittering with redundant life—the proud, far-sighted falcon, which, launching from some hoar cliff or lightning-scathed peak, “Doth dally with the wind, and scorn the sun,”— the wild and fearful lapwing, with graceful crest and dark dilated eye, are each and all enslaved for many a long-enduring season by this love of offspring, and toil in its support from dewy morning until latest eve. But it is far otherwise with our voiceless dwellers in the deep, who exhibit but few attachments, are conversant with no interchanging language, and cherish no warm affections. Constructing no dwellings, they merely shelter themselves from danger among the cavernous rocks of the ocean, in the silent depths of lakes, or beneath the murky shade of the overhanging banks of rivers; and the cravings of hunger alone seem to exercise a frequent or influential action over their monotonous movements. We must not, however, conceive that the life of fishes is not one of enjoyment, for we know that the Great Creator “careth for all his creatures;” and it ought perhaps rather to be said that we cannot appreciate the nature of their feelings, than that they are in any way fore-doomed to a negation of pleasure. Assuredly, however, the hand of nature has been most prodigal in bestowing on their external aspect every variety of adornment. Their special forms are infinite, their proportions often most elegant, their colors lively and diversified—and nothing seems wanting, either in their shape or structure, to excite the unfeigned admiration of mankind. Indeed, it almost appears as if this prodigality of beauty was intended solely for such an end. The brightness of metallic splendor, the sparkling brilliancy of precious gems, the milder effulgence of the hues of flowers, all combine to signalize fishes as among the most beautiful objects of creation. When newly withdrawn from their native element, or still gliding submerged amid its liquid coolness, their colors, fixed or iridescent, are seen mingling in spots, or bands, or broader flashes—always elegant and symmetrical, sometimes richly contrasted, sometimes gradually softened into each other, and in all cases harmonizing with a chaste fulness of effect which Titian and Rubens might envy, but could never equal. For what reason, then, it has been asked, has all this adornment been bestowed on creatures which can scarcely perceive each other amid the dim perpetual twilight of the deep? Shakspeare has already said that