about two hundred yards ahead of us; she is pushing her shrimp net before her, let us hasten to her before she throws her "rubbish " away. Well, old lady, are you having good sport? Have you caught many shrimps? bring your net out, please, and let us look. "I have caught a goodish few," said the old woman, "will you be so good as to buy six penn'oth of srimps; they be very fine ones." Oh yes, we will buy some, but let us look what you have got in your net besides shrimps. "Lor, young maister, dunna ye touch that nasty baste," exclaimed the old lady, as she thought Willy was about to seize on a small fish he espied in the net; "it'll sting ye, lad, till ye cry out wi' pain." Well, let us get the fish out of the net and place it on the sand that we may get a good view of it. Ah! it is the lesser weever

(Trachinus vipera), a very common fish on all our shores; this specimen is about four inches long. "But how does it sting?" asked Jack. Do you

notice that black fin on the back with its four or five sharp prickles; those are the fish's weapons, and there is no doubt a prick from one of them occasions a good deal of pain with much swelling. Do you observe also the up-turned position of the fish's mouth? Its habit is to bury itself in the sand with its head exposed, the shape of the mouth being admirably formed for snapping up any creature that may swim over it which it wishes to eat. The precision and skill with which the formidable spine of the neck is thus directed to an object of fear that shall touch it or approach too closely, are indeed sur