stant all thrust forth their arms together to seize them.

What was at other times, in some degree, the effect of wantonness, and usually done with deliberation, was now urged by necessity, and executed with the utmost hurry: instead of observing first one, and then another, protending an arm this or that way, now all were seen at once darting them forth with a surprising rapidity to the utmost verge of the glass. This was a very considerable increase of length; it made them equal to many hundred times the diameter of their bodies; but as the limits were set in this case by those of the vessel, it is not easy to see how far nature would have allowed the extension.

Those who have observed the emotions of protrusion and retraction in what are called the horns of a snail, may form some idea of that of these delicate bodies. They were all of a snowwhite colour, slender as the finest single filaments spun by the silk worm, and yet perfectly manageable according to the creature's inclination. It was a pleasing sight to observe the vibrations given them when at their full extent, and the steady stillness immediately after visible in all of them, while waiting for their prey. In the first moment of their protrusion, the whole

fluid seemed itself in motion; the floating filaments, dancing to their extremities with an undulatory motion, represented the sun-beams darted aslant on the water of some broad pond, whose surface is just ruffled by an evening breeze. A moment after they formed so many straight lines, drawn as by the exact hand of some mathematician, from the centre to the circumference of the vessel. This stationary situation, however, was but for a moment: each was instantly after employed in search of food, and one saw them in a thousand actions at once; some snatching at the prey, some conducting it to the mouth, and many in the hurry of their motions, with their arms entangled with one another in a very dangerous manner: where hunger gave way to pain, these unlucky embarrassments were often unfolded without mischief, but where the creatures were impatient, one of them usually lost an arm.

The first time this incident offered itself, I was curious to know whether the severed limb would be a morsel for the conqueror. Carp, we

know, though far from a voracious fish, will, when kept together and not fed, eat off one another's fins; but this was not the case with these minuter animals; where the opportunities of destruction are great, nature has taken away

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the temptations to it: had these insects been pointed to feed on one another's limbs, the whole race must have been eternally crippled, since they are always immediately within the reach of one another; but I soon found this was not the case the little creature first seized by the victorious animal of my company was swallowed with great precipitation, but the separated arm of its companion was thrown away.

The creature that had lost its limb, pursued the business of feeding with a perfect unconcern; and, as I cast my eye over the numbers that crowded through every part of the fluid, I saw several others in the same condition, many having lost an arm, and some two. The concern which I should have felt for the frequent mutilation of these unhappy animals lessened," when I considered the present scene of destruction was owing to an incident, out of their usual course; that in the road of their natural lives they feed quietly and leisurely, and that all this mischief had been owing to the ravenous appetite which a general deprivation of food for several hours had occasioned.

I had the curiosity to examine the mutilated creatures in the injured limbs, and was surprised to see, that though the arms in the several instances had been seized in different parts, yet

they had all broke off in the same place. I was ready to reprove nature for leaving one part of the limb so weak that it would give way, while the rest could support the violence: but my accusation, as will always be the case when we come to a more perfect knowledge of the circumstances, was soon changed into wonder. On observing these hurt individuals from time to time, I found that the loss of a limb to them is not irreparable, as to us; but that, as in the crab and some others of the crustaceous kind, a new one grows in the place of the other, as a fresh shoot from the lopped branch of a tree. This could only have its origin from one spot, and the individual place where nature, or, in wiser terms, that being whose protecting care extends to every thing he has created, has made the limb most weak; and where, in case of violences, it must necessarily break.

INSPECTOR, No. 129.

Às

Sir,

an Englishman, and a true lover of my native land, I cannot see the performances of foreign artists preferred to the labours of my own countrymen without indignation: and think people of distinction, and those who are fond of aping them, censurable for giving encou ragement to the former, and treating the latter with indifference and neglect.

Curiosity led me some weeks ago to Langford's room, where a collection of capital pictures was exhibited to view: I am a great admirer of the pictorial art, and will venture to say I have a little-you know what I mean, Mr. ****. Though I am not a connoisseur, I will confess honestly, sir, that I beheld the genuine performances of several eminent foreign masters, nów no more, with delight; but I must also tell you freely, that there are several rising geniuses in this kingdom, who, if properly patronised, would produce pieces not inferior to