Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings like gauze they grew:
Through crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew."

In these latter instances, as in the case of the butterfly, the nutrition of the form has been proceeding during the earlier stages of its life, and has been fitting it for entering upon the ultimate part of its existence, which may extend to a longer or shorter period, but which is usually devoted to the continuation of the species in time.

In the crabs and other members of the great Crustacean class examples of metamorphosis occur. The young crab leaves the egg under a disguise of very curious kind. It possesses a somewhat rounded body, the upper part of which supports an elongated spine, somewhat like the pointed appendage of a helmet. The feet most

prominently developed at this shape are the two hinder pairs, and by means of these appendages the little Zoea, as this young form is named, swims swiftly through the water. It possesses, unlike the perfect crab, a long-jointed tail; and a pair of very large lanternshaped eyes, and a beaked process in front of the head, complete the category of the crab-larva's furnishings.

In the next stage, in which it becomes known as the Megalopa, the body enlarges and resembles that of the perfect crab. The tail becomes flattened, and developes little feet on its surface. The eyes, formerly flat and unsupported, now become stalked like those of the mature form, and the limbs and great claws are also developed.

The final stage is attained after moultings, in which the tail shrivels away, to become the small rudiment familiar to us in the 66 purse " of the adult crab, and which is tucked up under the great broadened head and chest of the fully-grown animal. And with rapid growth, and the formation of the shelly armour in which the crab even to his eyes and toes is encased, the metamorphosis is completed and the crab attains his majority.

In the frogs, toads, newts, and their allies, as representing the higher vertebrate animals, we find well-known and interesting examples of changes in development. The larval frog appears before us as the familiar tadpole, which breathes at first by outside gills, and then by internal gills. Its form and breathing are thus at first fish.like, and it swims by aid of its elongated tail. The hind limbs next appear as little buds from the posterior portion of the body, and the fore limbs soon follow. Then the tail begins to shrivel and to become rudimentary; lungs are meanwhile being developed; the

gills disappear, and, finally, the frog leaves the water, and becomes to the remainder of its life, an air-breathing and terrestrial animal.

Such are a few examples of the "disguises disguises" which animal forms may assume during their development from the egg; and we may very briefly inquire, by way of conclusion, as to the nature or reason, if any may be found or suggested, for the occurence of such phenomena. Broadly speaking, the young of the insect, undergoes the greater part of its development without the egg, and outside the parent-body; and it thus differs only in the mode and place of its development, from the progeny of other and of higher forms. It was long ago held, that the most perfect examples of metamorphosis occurred in these animals, the eggs of which contained little or no nourishment for the sustenance of the developing young.

These explanations, however, deal rather with the results, than with the origin of metamorphosis. And why, in one case it should be so well marked, and, in other cases not occur at all, form considerations which have long presented puzzles to the naturalist. It has been maintained by certain zoologists that the changes which any animal may in the course of its development undergo, illustate its relationship with other animals, from which it may have descended, or with which it may possess relations of a genealogical kind. Metamorphosis has thus been pressed into the service of the theories of evolution, which, as our readers are aware, hold that all animals have descended from previously existing animals, have been or evolved from their predecessors, by or through various processes. Thus we find Mr. Darwin maintaining, that "the embryonal (or young) state of each species reproduces more or less completely the form and structure of its less modified-progenitors;" and according to this view, we would, therefore, see in the young crab, with its larval tail, a transient representation of the lobsterlike progenitor from which the crab-race was in past times developed and evolved. And this school of zoologists, therefore, holds that external or outside forces and conditions, acting upon the young or larval state, have had much to do, in the past, as well as in the present, with the differences between insect and other animal forms. Whether or not these conclusions are true and good ones, time and the progress of research alone can tell; but the importance and interest of such a study as that which forms the subject of these remarks, cannot be lessened by any theoretical considerations which become interwoven with it. To the student it may not matter if—

"That mass man sprang from was a jelly lump
Once on a time; he kept an after course

Through fish and insect, reptile, bird, and beast,
Till he attained to be an ape at last,

Or last but one."

(Browning.)

ANDREW WILSON.

дн

MANTJE! MANTJE !

PART I.

GROUPS of listeners and tellers of stories have been from time immemorial grateful to an artist's eye. Something there is in the enthusiasm of the speaker, something in the wrapt attention of the interested, something, too, in the negligent gaze of the unconcerned, which flatters his senses, and supplies a pleasant subject for pictorial illustration. And yet how often does it happen that where a beautiful living picture is, a tableau which personal and scenic charms combine to render perfect, the artist's eye, the artist's brush is absent, and it passes away, upou the moving of its characters, unfelt, unappreciated, and unremembered! Such a picture might have been seen upon a sultry August evening in the garden of a cottage ornée. Beneath a spreading tree sat an elegant and stately woman, a dark-eyed Scheherazade with heavy bands of black hair plaited like a coronet above her broad brow, upon her lap was a fair-haired little girl, her pretty upturned face absorbed in listening wonder; and behind, leaning against the trunk of the tree, was a man, comely and young, his powerfullybuilt figure, and broad, good-tempered face, forming a remarkable contrast to the finely-chiseled features of the woman and the fairy. like form of the child. He was listening, half-amused and halfcontemptuously, as the well-known legend of the Dutch fisherman and his wife flowed slowly from the story-teller's lips. She told how the big flounder was caught and then thrown back into the sea upon its declaration that it was an enchanted prince; how when the fisherman returned to his hovel and related his wonderful adventure to his wife, she upbraided him for having let a golden opportunity slip, and sent him to the shore again to ask a comfortable cottage of the flounder. Then she told how calm the sea appeared, and how its colour was green and yellow, as the fisherman stood upon its verge and spoke timidly to an unseen auditor. In soft dulcet accents she repeated the words he employed, the child's eyes fixed wonderingly upon her as she listened.

"Mantje Mantje! Timpe Te!

Butje! Butje in der See!

Myne Fru de Ilse bill

Will nich so as ik wol will."

Leonard Dallocourt, from his leaning-post behind, looked down upon the gentle narrator, and thought that the oft-told tale had

never been so interesting before. He felt enthralled by a pleasing chain as she related how the big flounder came splashing to the surface, and incontinently granted the request; and how the fisherman, returning as he thought to is hovel, beheld his wife in a well-ordered cottage surrounded by unaccustomed comforts.

"Ach!" cried he, "so schall't blywen, F.u; nu wähl wy ook recht vergnöögt lewen!" Thus did he declare his opinion that they should now remain contented for the future. But the wife demurred, and pronounced it a subject for further consideration.

Afterwards she despatched her reluctant spouse to the sea, grown violet and dark blue now, to ask that the modest hut might be exchanged for a handsome castle.

Again the flounder was propitious; a handsomely-appointed mansion stood on the site of the former hovel.

Not contented with this the ambitious wife of the fisherman desired next to possess a regal palace. Her weaker-minded half

stood astounded at the bare idea.

"Ach, Fru!" he exclaimed, "ik mag nich Konig sym!" "Don't trouble yourself about that "replied she; "I am going to be king; not you." And she forced him to prefer her request: "Mantje! Mantje! Timpe Te!

Butje! Butje in der See!

Myne Fru de Ilsebill

Will nich so aş ik wol will.”

For the third time he repeated this unvarying address; and once more his presumption was rewarded with success. But the aspiring woman, crowned with a royal diadem, desired imperial dignity, and insisted upon another petition. The fisherman noted with a foreboding heart the altered aspect of the waves. Dark and threatening as they had looked upon his last visit, their blackness then was nothing to their blackness now, and his courage all but failed him as he revealed his errand. When, however, he heard and saw that the arrogant request was granted his wife prevailed upon him, with little trouble, to beg in her behalf for the triple tiara, the spiritual and temporal dominions of a pope.

"A pope she is," answered the flounder, splashing in the midst of roaring and tempestuous waves which struck the applicant with terror.

The next day the fisherman, perturbed and trembling, stood again upon the verge of the deep. His heart was heavy within him; he was the bearer of a petition unparelleled in its presumptnous extravagance, a petition that his wife might become Lord of All and regulate the movements of the celestial bodies. The black, clamorous billows, the hurricane that was roaring upon every side, augured ill for the success of his mission. Five times had he

repeated the changeless exordium, "Mantje! Mantje ! Timpe Te!"'
and at each repetition his hopes had grown fainter and fainter, his
Upon the present
cheeks more pale, and his voice more feeble.
occasion his lips, trembling with fear, could scarcely utter the words.
But pronounce them he did; and the flounder responded to the

summons.

Short was the parley that ensued.

"What will she now?" cried the enchanted prince; and the suppliant stammered forth his message.

"Your wife sits in her hovel," cried the flounder as he disappeared for ever from the fisherman's eyes.

And in their hovel, the story informs us, dwell the aspiring couple still.

Such is the brief outline of the tale related fully and circumstantially to little Elsie Dallocourt beneath the shadow of the ancient oak, the tale to which Elsie's brother had listened with unexpected attention.

If anybody thinks that that attention had been in any degree distracted from the story by the grace or the beauty of the narrator the sooner such an impression is got rid of the better, for it is wholly erroneous and unsupportable by any evidence whatever. That it should be so is certainly rather to be regretted when we consider what a pretty story it would have made, and how the interest attaching to the group would have been enhanced, had Leonard Dallocourt then and there fallen desperately in love with the dark-eyed lady, and declared his passion in graceful attitude and ornate language while the shades of evening fell becomingly around and the dew rose unpleasantly; but the broad light of truth, shining with all its boasted lustre, reveals a fact damaging beyond measure to this romantic idea. The dark-eyed lady, the clever story-teller, was Leonard Dallocourt's aunt, a relative whom from his earliest childhood he had always known familiarly. Now we are all aware that the charms of maiden aunts, however influential they may be upon other folks, are apt to appear impotent and uninteresting when their powers are tried upon their possessors' nephews, more especially upon those nephews who have been favoured with frequent contemplation of them. Therefore it will readily be believed that the legend of the fisherman and the flounder had been listened to by Elsie's brother with a mind as undistracted by sentimental admiration of the narrator as by little Elsie herself. What there was in it to enchain his attention as it did is, perhaps, difficult to tell. Possibly something was owing to the grace of manner and grace of diction alike employed in its relation. Possibly the young man was philosophical, and wisely resolved to be amused by the only amusement offered. However,