flat, and four-cornered, with a long curling string-like projection from each corner; frequenters of the coast, to whom they are very familiar objects, being often cast up on the beach, call them Mermaid's purses, and Fairy-purses, while the clustered Eggs of the Cuttle-fish they term Sea Grapes. All eggs require warmth to hatch them; the fishes know this, not as we know it, because we have read, or been told so, and can _reason_ upon causes and consequences, and so understand _why_, but they know it _instinctively_; they possess, in common with all unreasoning creatures, what we call _instinct_, that is, a natural impulse to do in the right way, and at the proper time, whatever may be necessary for the maintenance of that state of existence in which God has placed them; so instinct directs the fishes when the time for spawning has arrived, to leave the deep waters, where they generally remain safe from the pursuit of man, for the shores, where the warmth of the sun can reach the eggs, and awaken the principle of life within them. So instinct teaches the bird to leave its winter home, in some far southern country, and fly hundreds of miles across land and ocean, to reach a spot suitable for the purpose of breeding and rearing its young; to collect the materials and to build its nest, and after the eggs are laid, to sit patiently on them the appointed time; to select the food proper for those little gaping bills, and to tend the fledglings carefully, until they are able to fly and provide for themselves, and then, when their wings are strong enough for the journey, and their food begins to get scarce, away they go back to the south of Europe, or Africa, straight as an arrow, and the young ones, which have never flown that way before, seem to know it as well as those which have been backwards and forwards, often and often.