Welsh Journals

492 Old Prices Remains. quently to upset his house entirely, in which, till he and you are on familiar terms, he will remain, after taking such a fright, ensconced for a considerable time, and then venture out with extreme caution, flying back like a spring if you do but lift your little finger. Though all these movements proclaim that " discretion is the best part of valour," yet among themselves these wretches yield in pugnacity neither to game-cocks, quails, cat and dog, nor old Morgan a'i Wraig! Their prolonged fights are so admirably described by Mr. Lewis in his very superior sea-side book, that I would not risk a comparison with so talented a writer, in a field which I was surprised to see the author of " The History of Philosophy " entering with all his heart, like one of us mudlarks! But their capers, Sir, their capers—surpassed all the biped or quadruped manoeuvres I ever witnessed ! Keeping several small ones in a deepish tank, with branched fuci for them to climb, I had superior opportunities for noticing them at play; for, like Romulus and his free companions, they are wont "seria et jocos celebrare," they can act the gay as well as the grave; though it is hard to say whether, even at their highest antics, we have good moral security that there is any thing but the shell between them and allelophagy, or mutual cannibalism. The said shell, however, and their dexterity in backing into it (TrpvfMvav icpoveiv ol/ca8e) seems to level the ordinary and well-marked distinction between joke and earnest so effectually, that a fay re ladye might sit watching any number of paria gladiatorum in hoc genere without a thought of Sayers and Heenan crossing her mind; and might listen to the hard knocks of the armour against the tin floor and sides of the tank with as little sympathy as that excited by the cordial give-and-take encounters of Punch and Judy. These loud noises may