HOW admirable is Nature! how extensive her power and how various the forms with which she has surrounded the united elements of animated matter! From the uncouth shape of the wallowing whale, of the unwieldy hippopotamus, or ponderous elephant, to the light and elegant form of the painted moth or fluttering humming-bird, she seems to have exhausted all ideas, all conceptions, and not to have left a single figure untried. The fish represented above is one of those, in the outlines and decorations of which appear the discordant qualities of frightfulness and beauty. Armed _cap-à-pie_, surrounded with spines and thorns bristling on his back, and fins like an armed phalanx of lance-bearers, and decorated on the body with yellow ribands, interwoven with white fillets, and on the purple fins of his breast with the milky dots of the pintado, the Sea Scorpion presents a very extraordinary contrast. His eyes, like those of which poets sang when celebrating the Nereids and Naiads, consist of black pupils, surrounded with a silver iris, radiated with alternate divisions of blue and black. The rays of the dorsal fin are spiny, spotted brown and yellow, conjoined below by a dark brown membrane, and separate above; the ventral fins are violet with white drops, and the tail and anal fins are a sort of tesselated work of blue, black, and white, united with the greatest symmetry, and not unlike those ancient fragments of Roman pavements often found in this island. This variegated fish is found in the rivers of Amboyna and Japan; its flesh is white, firm, and well tasting, like our perch, but it does not grow so large; it is of a very voracious disposition, feeding on the young of other fish, some of which, two inches in length, have been found in its craw. The skin has both the appearance and smoothness of parchment. To the tremendous armour of its back, fins, and tail, this fish owes the name of Scorpion. [Illustration: THE LUMP-SUCKER, OR SEA-OWL. (_Cyclopterus lumpus._)] THIS odd-shaped fish derives its name chiefly from the clumsiness of its form; it is also called the Cock Paddle. Its colour, when in the highest perfection, combines various shades of blue, purple, and rich orange; the abdomen is red; it has no scales, but on all sides sharp black tubercles, in shape like warts; on each side are three rows of sharp prickles, and on the back two distinct fins. The great resort of this species is in the Northern seas, about the coast of Greenland; it is also caught in many parts of the British seas during the spring season, when it approaches the shore for the purpose of depositing its spawn; and in the month of March it may be seen at the stalls of the London markets. This unseemly fish is usually about a foot in length, and ten or more inches in breadth, and sometimes weighs seven pounds. The flesh is but indifferent.