(and incidentally an argument against those who maintain the greater reasonableness of fishing than of hunting on account of the lower organization of the prey) to learn that the lobster must not be taken to market in company with the cuttle-fish, “or the flesh will be spoilt before he gets there, the creature being literally sick from fright.”  Meantime, in the ooze which forms a connecting link between sea and shore lurks the mud-laff, indescribably hideous in shape, leprous-looking, slimy, and darting a greenish poison through the spines on its back.  Treading on one of these, the poor naked fisherman is apt to die of lockjaw; and Mr. Pike’s kitten, having its paw touched with a single spine, perished of convulsions in an hour.  Some of the sea-carnivora, however, are so beautiful that one is ready to forgive their more or less Clytemnestra-like tempers.  Of some gymnobranchiata the writer observes:  “I never saw any living animals with such gorgeous colors—­the most vivid carmine and pure white, mixed with golden yellow in the bodies and mantles, and the gills of pale lemon-color and lilac.  No painting could give an idea of the harmony of the shades as they blended into each other, or the undulating grace of the movements of the mantles.  I have sat for an hour at a time watching them, lost in admiration, and frequently turning them over to see the expert way they would contract the elegant gill-branches, and reopen them as soon as they had righted themselves.”  Such are some of the animated charms of Paul and Virginia’s island.  Of Bernardin Saint Pierre’s romance as an illustration of the spot, Mr. Pike dryly observes that writers when about to draw largely on their imaginations should be careful to conceal the actual whereabouts of their stories:  we live in an age of exploration that is sure to “display their ridiculous side when reduced to fact.”  There was, however, a foundation in fact, quite enough for the purpose of a prose poem, in the loves and deaths of Paul and Virginia:  it is doubtless the island scenes alone that Mr. Pike would satirize.  The great shipwreck was in 1744, a year of famine, which the wise and prudent French governor, the most able man who ever adorned the colony, M. Mahe de Labourdonnais, was unable to avert.  The ship St. Geran, sent with provisions from France, was ignorantly driven on the reef shortly before dawn, and all perished save nine souls.  There were on board two lovers, a Mademoiselle Mallet and Monsieur de Peramon, who were to be united in marriage on arriving at the island, then called Isle de France.  The young man made a raft, and implored his mistress to remove the heavier part of her garments and essay the passage.  This the pure young creature refused to do, with that exaggerated modesty which has been called mawkishness in the story, but which in a real occurrence looks very like heroism.  Their bodies were soon washed ashore together in the harbor, since called the Bay of Tombs.  Two structures