Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/47

20 fall in with it, by its very short wing-cases, which do not half cover its enormous distended body. I took it up gently in my fingers, when it helplessly crumpled up its legs, as if it had learned the lesson divinely taught, but which Christians find it so hard to practise.—"Resist not evil,"—and lay passively in my hand, weeping at every joint of every limb a tear of orange-coloured fluid, that has conferred the name of Oil-beetle upon it. This liquor, which had a rank odour, stained the skin of my hand; and I soon put down my captive, who was glad to disappear among the stalks of the grass.

Swimming in the sea not far from the shore, I saw a bird that was evidently larger than a goose; with the aid of a pocket telescope I made out that it was a Loon, or Great Northern Diver, (Colymbus glacialis), a very fine sea-fowl, and not uncommon on the Dorset Coast in winter. The rocky beach below was destitute of anything that could alarm the wary bird, and he gradually swam in nearer and nearer, till at length he was not a stone's throw from the shore, and I, from my lofty lookout, had a fair view of him, now swimming leisurely, turning hither and thither, now diving with grace, disappearing with rapidity, and coming up after many seconds, a long distance from the spot.

A fisherman passing by told me a curious circumstance, connected with the tides in this Bay, which by experience I afterwards found to be correct. Instead of alternately ebbing for six hours and flowing for the same period, as usual, the tide here remains at its lowest for four hours before it begins to flow; or, as