Twilight And Dawn by Caroline Pridham

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Some time ago I went to an aquarium; it was close to the sea, so that there
was no want of water to fill the tanks. At the bottom there was sand, and
there were bits of rock, among which brown and green seaweeds were growing,
in order that the prisoners might forget that they were shut up in a glass
prison-house, and feel as much at home as possible in their captivity.

There they were, big fish and little fish, flat plaice and long
serpent-like eels--fish of all sorts, of all shapes and sizes. There were
other creatures as well as fish; lobsters and crabs and star-fishes; and
the anemones, which "blow flower-like," and have such lovely colours that
they are sometimes called "sea-roses," were waving their bright fringes to
and fro, and catching the shrimps for their dinner with those same soft
fingers of theirs. I should like you to see an aquarium such as this was;
but if you cannot just now, I daresay you may have the chance of watching a
gold-fish in a globe of water, and noticing how it uses its fins to balance
itself and steer its way through the water, and its tail to move itself
along so gracefully and swiftly; how it has two pairs of fins, which serve
for legs and arms, besides three others, the use of which you cannot so
well make out; and how the boat-like shape of the fish helps it to cut its
way so rapidly through the water. If you keep drilled those two bright eyes
over which God has made you officer, you will notice something near the
fish's eye which keeps opening and shutting like a little door. That little
door covers the gills, and it opens and shuts every time the fish breathes.
But now comes a question which used to puzzle me--that is, What does a fish
breathe?

[Illustration: A CRYSTAL-WALLED PRISON]

When I heard, long ago, that fishes cannot breathe if they are taken out of
the water, I used to think that they breathed the water; for then I knew no
better than the boy who, when he had at last caught a minnow, put it into a
bottle with plenty of water, and corked it up tight, in order to keep his
prize safely.

Of course the poor little fish was dead before he got home. It died, not
from want of water, but from want of air; for fishes draw in and send out
the air through their gills, which are to them what your lungs are to you.

Those fringes which you see when the little doors open, are the gills. They
are so red because they are filled with blood; indeed, they are made of
a great number of little blood-vessels. As the fish swims along with its
round mouth open, it does not swallow the water, but lets it run over its
gills, and then out it comes at the little doors; the red fringes take the
oxygen out of the water, and it goes into the fish's blood. The water is
the fishes' atmosphere, and it is only from it that they can get air to
breathe; so that if the glass globe were broken, and the pretty goldfish
were let fall upon the carpet, unless they were quickly put back into water
they would gasp and die from want of air; just as you would, if someone
held your head long under water.

So you see that the home of the fish is perfectly suited to it. In the
aquarium you would observe that while most of the fishes dart hither and
thither, there are some which never rise to the surface of the water. These
are the flat-fish; and they keep at the bottom, because for some wise
purpose God has made them without the power of rising and sinking like
others.

Inside most fishes there is a bag filled with air, as is the india-rubber
ball which you delight to bounce so high. The fish can make this little
balloon larger or smaller, just as it wishes to be itself lighter or
heavier. As it swims along, it is usually about the same weight as the
water; but when it wants to dive, the fish squeezes its air-bag tightly
together, which causes its body to become heavier than the water--for air
pressed closely together becomes heavy, and its own weight sinks it down.
When it wants to rise again to the surface, it ceases to squeeze this bag,
the air in the little balloon expands, and the diver rises again and floats
or swims because its body is now lighter than the water.

Is not this a very perfect and beautiful plan? How true it is that God has
provided for the wants of all His creatures, and fitted them for the life
designed for them!

But besides rising or sinking when they please, fishes can turn themselves
about very quickly. To understand how they do this, you must look at the
long bone which runs right through the body, from head to tail. You will
see that it is made, like your backbone, of a number of small bones which
move upon each other so easily that they enable the fish to turn itself
rapidly, as you see it does. The wonderful way in which these tiny bones
are fitted together by what is called the "ball and socket arrangement" may
best be seen in a large fish, such as the salmon; but a sardine's frame is
made in the same beautiful way.

The scales, overlapping each other as they do, serve to protect the fish
in its journey through watery ways, and their smooth, polished surface
rendered slippery by a sort of natural oil, helps it to move quickly. We
have imitated the scales of a fish in the way in which we arrange slates
and tiles to keeps our houses dry. You know how the slates on the roof of
your house overlap each other, so closely that no rain can get between
them.

When I tell you that there are said to be nine thousand different kinds
of fish in all parts of the world, you will understand that even in a
large aquarium you can see but few varieties. In England alone hundreds of
fresh-water fishes are known, while those whose home is in the sea are much
more numerous still.

It has been found that if fresh-water fish is taken out of its natural
element and put at once into the sea, it will die. But there are some fish,
like the salmon, which live in the sea, but go up the rivers to lay their
eggs, and then back again to their proper home; taking "change of air," as
it were, but taking it gradually, and not plunging into a foreign country
all at once.

Some fishes are great travellers. I have heard that what is called a
"shoal" of herrings consists of millions of fish, and takes up a place in
the sea larger than the area of London. This fish takes its name from an
old word which means an army; and the herring-army has to come a long, long
march--if we so speak of a journey through "the paths of the seas"--before
it, as it were, encamps near our shores.

In winter the herrings are far away north, within the Arctic Circle, but in
the spring they go south, travelling in shoals, six miles in length, and
three or four in breadth.

When one of these great shoals comes near our northern shores it divides,
one part travelling west, the other east. It is in September that the
herring fishing begins, and a busy time it is for the fishermen.

The fish are always caught at night, and the darker the night the better
chance there is of a good catch. When I was a child I used often to stand
and watch the boats setting out about sunset, and many a time did I wish I
might be of the party, for I thought no treat could be greater than to be
allowed to stay out all night and see the nets full of shining fish drawn
in over the sides of the boat. However, the fishermen are too wise to take
children with them, for any noise frightens the herrings, so the fishing is
done in silence, under the quiet stars. If you saw a herring-net taken in,
you might forget yourself so far as to scream with delight at the sight of
the fish flashing like silver, and bright with blue and purple hues which
no painter could copy. But the rainbow colours, like those you see upon a
soap bubble, are almost as soon gone; they will have lost their brilliancy
before the boats come in, and the men begin to throw the fish on shore, and
to count them.

One fish, "the Arrow of the Sea," is never so beautiful as when it is
dying. I have read that the Romans--after they ceased to be a brave people,
and became idle and pleasure-loving--used to have these fish brought in
before dinner and shown to the guests. The gay, thoughtless ladies, as they
clapped their hands with delight at the beauty of the quickly-changing
colours--white turning to sky-blue, and then to deep red--cared no more for
the suffering of the poor fish, gasping and dying before them, than for the
fading petals of a rose; so hard-hearted can people become, who think only
of their own pleasure. If poor Jack had been there, it would have made
him grieved and angry indeed to have seen one of the "God-made" creatures
treated so cruelly, would it not? You remember how he loved all living
things, and could not bear that they should be hurt.

From the Gold-fish, with their brilliant, flashing scales, you can form
some idea of how brightly coloured the fish in tropical seas are; but the
most brilliant fishes have not always the most graceful forms, nor are they
so good for food as those better known to us.

It is very interesting to observe that the sea-creatures which live upon
the surface of the ocean are bluish or quite colourless and transparent, as
some jelly fish, which look as if they were made of glass, and one kind of
fish of which I have heard that its body is so transparent that the words
of a book can be read through it. Others, not very unlike, but whose home
is at the bottom of the sea, have opaque and mud-coloured bodies. We
find that many creatures are of the same colour as their dwelling-place;
butterflies are bright, like flowers, insects living on leaves are green,
desert creatures are yellow or sand-coloured, those which live among the
snow are white or grey, while the winter lasts, though some of them change
their coats during their short summer. In this way the hunters and the
hunted alike escape observation.

Fish have been divided into different classes: there are those which have
bony plates instead of scales, as the Sharks and Rays, and many fishes
which exist only as fossils; and those called the "splendid" fish, from the
brilliancy of their coats of mail, which lock together like ancient armour.
Most of them are extinct species, but the Sturgeon is one of these armoured
fishes. Then the Mud-fishes form another class. But by far the most
numerous is that to which the Bony-skeletoned fishes, with scales like
those of the Salmon, belong. A few species are destitute of any bony
or scaly covering; and one of them--the Electric Eel of South American
rivers--protects itself by giving a sharp electric shock to any creature
that comes in its way!

The eyes of fish are sometimes large, and they can see a long way, and
also hear very quickly. Turbot, plaice, and other flat-fish, which have no
swim-bladder, lie with one side in the mud at the bottom of the sea or
rivers--Can you guess in which side of the head their eyes are placed?

"In the uppermost, and sometimes _both_ eyes are there."

You are right, for there would be no use for an eye in the side turned to
the mud.

As far as we know, fish are not clever creatures, but I have heard that
some kinds, kept as pets, have learnt to know the sound of the dinner
bell just as well as the lions and tigers at the Zoo know their bell; and
you have seen how _they_ rush about their cages, and roar with hungry
impatience when it rings. I have read that some fishes of various kinds,
such as Cod and Ling, kept for the use of the owners in a pond to which the
tide came, near a house in Scotland, and regularly fed with limpets by an
old woman who had charge of them, knew her voice, and would put out their
heads and crowd to the side of the pond when she came near, and even let
her take them up and stroke their cold backs; but I doubt that you will
find your gold-fish so intelligent and affectionate.

I must not forget to speak of the fishes which make nests, for very
few such have been discovered, and they are considered curiosities of
fish-life. Perhaps when we know more of the habits of the finny-tribe, we
shall find that some others provide for the safety of their young in a
similar way, but at present I believe the Stickleback, which not only makes
a nest but takes care of his young brood until they are six days old and
can "find for themselves," is the only one known in Europe. In Demerara, a
fish called the Hassar makes a floating cradle of grass or leaves for its
eggs, over which it watches carefully, being ready to defend it bravely
when attacked; thus in Australia, an eel called the Jew-fish was one day
noticed swimming round and round a clear place among the reeds, and it
turned out that it was guarding a nest of stones which it had placed in the
river bed.

There are one or two strange fishes which you will not see in any shop;
though if you have friends who "follow the sea," they may have told you
of the Sun-fish, sometimes caught in the west of Ireland; very large and
round it is, of a silvery-white colour, so that on dark nights, when the
fishermen have seen it shining as it swam, just under the water, it has
seemed to them like the sun shining behind the clouds on a showery day; and
they have given it this name.

You may too, have heard strange tales of another round fish, called from
its shape the Globe-fish, and from its skin the "Sea-hedgehog"; it is
covered with sharp thorns, and has the power, by swallowing air, of so
greatly increasing its size (without sharing the fate of the poor toad in
AEsop's Fable) that it not only can rise to the surface of the water, but
float as long as it pleases. Then there are the blue Flying-herrings, with
long fins, which you would see if you took a voyage to Australia. These
poor little creatures have enemies both in birds and fishes. When the
sharks want to make a meal of them, they leap into the air, using their
long fins almost as a bird uses its wings, and are able to keep up for some
distance; some say they can fly five hundred feet; but alas! when they are
on the fin, the sea-gulls are eager and ready to pounce upon them, and they
have to take refuge in the sea again. With all their beauty, they have
a hard life of it, constantly escaping away from the sea-gull, into the
shark!

And now, when we have time, I think both you and I shall be pleased not
only to observe carefully the fishes which we see every day, but to
read about others; about the sword-fish, which has neither scales for
its protection, nor teeth, but whose snout forms a bone, four or five
feet long, set with sharp pointed teeth on each side--somewhat like a
double-edged saw; this bone is a most formidable weapon when used against
large fish, and is so strong that it has even pierced through the planks of
a boat; about the tiny Sea-horse, with its head so curiously like that of a
horse, and its wing-like fins; about the Whale, which is not really a fish
at all (and why it is not will be something for you to find out), besides
a great many monsters of the deep of which I have not time to tell you.
We have already had a much longer talk about fish than my children had,
although it was while we were speaking about fishing, and how the night is
the usual time for it, that we read two accounts of great numbers of fish
being caught in the sea of Galilee--not at night, but in broad daylight.

One account is given in the gospel of Luke. You know that--the disciples,
Simon and Andrew his brother, and James and John his brother, were
fishermen, and used to launch their boats upon the Sea of Galilee, and let
down their nets into the deep blue water. It was when they had been fishing
all night, and had caught nothing, that they left their boats beside the
sea, and were busy washing their nets.

[Illustration: "THERE IS NOT A BREATH THE BLUE WATERS TO CURL."]

Fishermen feel very downhearted and disappointed when the morning comes,
after they have been out all night, and finds them with only a few fish in
their boats: but these fishermen had got one fish. Peter said, "We have
toiled all the night, and have taken nothing."

The Lord Jesus knew all about that long night of toil, as He sat in Peter's
boat, and taught the crowds of people who stood on the shore; and He knew
how disappointed those tired fishermen must be. Presently He spoke to
Peter, and said, "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a
draught. And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the
night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the
net."

Night is the best time for fishing, and all night they had toiled in vain.
The empty nets were there; but in Simon's boat was the One who had made the
fish, and He caused them to fill the nets in such numbers that the slender
cords broke, and both the boats were overladen.

"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from
me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."

He felt what it was to be in the presence of the Lord; how unfit he was to
be near Him; but yet he could not bear to let Him go; Jesus said to Peter,
"Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men."

"What does it mean?" May asked, when she had read this verse, "How could
Peter catch men?"

To find the answer to her question, we read in the second chapter of Acts
about the first time Peter preached at Jerusalem, and how he told the
very people who had taken Jesus of Nazareth, and "by wicked hands" had
"crucified and slain" Him, that God had raised Him from the dead, and "made
that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." We read
that while he spoke of Him three thousand people received his word gladly.
Surely at that time there was a fulfilment of the Lord's promise to him.
Peter had indeed become a fisher of men--rescued from the cold waters of
death, caught away from the grasp of Satan, henceforth to belong to Christ
for ever.

But before this time there had been that other scene beside the Galilean
lake, of which we read at the end of the gospel of John.

Again after a weary night's fishing, the disciples had taken nothing;
again, at the word of the Lord, the net was cast over the side of the boat,
and drawn in "full of great fishes."

The Lord Jesus, after he rose from the dead, was still the same, always
thinking of His dear disciples, and caring for them. You remember that He
would not allow the crowds of people, who had come from far to hear them,
to go back to their homes hungry and tired, but that He made them rest on
the green grass while He fed them with the loaves and the little fishes.
Now He knew all about Peter and James, and John and Thomas, and those two
others who had gone fishing with them. They had been out all night, and
were very hungry, and directly they came to land they could see that their
Lord had been thinking of how they would feel; for all that they wanted was
ready--a fire of coals on the shore, and fish laid upon it, and bread--and
they heard the voice which was so dear to them, that well-known voice which
had once come to them across the stormy waves saying, "It is I; be not
afraid," now bidding them, "Come and dine." And it was from those kind
hands, which had been pierced when He suffered the cruel death of the
cross, that they received the bread and the fish which was prepared for
them.

What a wonderful time to remember! I think Peter must have been thinking of
it when he said to Cornelius, We "did eat and drink with Him after He rose
from the dead." Perhaps he also thought of another time when the Lord asked
for some food, "and they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an
honeycomb. And He took it, and did eat before them"--to show them, while
they yet believed not for joy and wondered, that it was indeed Himself who
was standing among them, risen from the dead.

You will find that there are a good many places in the Bible where fish
are spoken of. I hope you will have in your list one which was given me by
Sharley only; although I had expected that everybody would have found it.
It is mentioned in the gospel by Matthew, alone. We are not told what sort
of fish it was in whose mouth Peter found the "stater," a piece of money
worth about three shillings, which was exactly enough to give, as the Lord
told him, to those who had come to ask for money to meet some expenses
belonging to the temple. Every Jew paid a fixed sum, and this piece of
money in the fish's mouth was just twice that sum. How beautiful that the
One who was God, and had power over the fish of the sea, to send them into
Peter's net, or to make even a fish bring to Him the coin which was wanted,
should put Himself beside Peter, and say, "Lest we should offend them, go
thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh
up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money:
that take, and give unto them for Me and thee"! Ah, but we know that the
Lord Jesus Christ was "meek and lowly in heart" and He loved to put His
disciples with Himself, as children of God His Father!

A writer who lived at the time when our "King James's" Bible was
translated, speaking of the sea as "the great pond of the world," says, "We
know not whether to wonder at the element itself, or the guests which it
contains."

As we have been learning a little of the ways of the inhabitants of the
ocean of air, as well as those that people the world of water, let me close
this chapter by quoting an American poet's beautiful verses:--

"TO A WATER FOWL.

"Whither, midst falling dew
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

"Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

"Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

"There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast--
The desert and illimitable air--
Lone wandering, but not lost.

"All day thy wings have fanned
At that far height the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

"And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

"Thou'rt gone; the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

"He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright."

W. C. BRYANT.

THE FIFTH DAY.

FLYING FOWL.

"_Gavest Thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers
unto the ostrich?_"

"_Doth the hawk fly by Thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the
south?_"

"_Doth the eagle mount up at Thy command, and make her nest on high?_"--JOB
xxxix. 13, 26, 27.

"_The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is
come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land._"--SONG OF SOLOMON
ii. 12.

It was on the FIFTH DAY of Creation that the silence was broken by the
voice of birds. We are so accustomed to the various cries of animals,
the buzzing of insects, and above all to the chirping and twittering and
singing of birds, that we can hardly imagine what a voiceless world would
be like.

I have heard that far away in New Zealand, travellers who try to make
their way through the great tangle of trees and creepers which is called
the "Bush," speak of the silence and loneliness of the dense forests as
dreadful, and they particularly mention that there is no voice of bird to
be heard there. Very different is a place I know, where, although the trees
in which they perch are by the roadside, and noisy carts and carriages are
coming and going all day long, yet the sparrows overhead keep up such a
constant chatter and flutter that once as I passed that way a countryman
looked up at the trees and smiled, and said to me, "Plenty of company up
there!"

When I told the children this they were much amused, and I am sure they
thought it would be very dull never to hear the crowing of a cock or the
"quack, quack" of a duck--to say nothing of the soft cooing of doves in the
wood, and the sweet, rich notes of the thrushes and blackbirds.

A Frenchman, who has written a very large book all about birds, says that
if we were not so accustomed to them we should think a bird flying through
the air the most wonderful thing we had ever seen--and I think he is right;
but before we speak of these wonderful and beautiful creatures, let us read
once more the verses in Genesis which tell us of their birthday, beginning
with, "And God said," and ending with, "And the evening and the morning
were the fifth day."

We have been speaking of the living creatures which the waters brought
forth, and now we must think a little of the "winged fowl," which were made
to people the "expansion," and are sometimes called the "fish of the air,"
as the fishes are called the "birds of the ocean."

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