s and booms; and, best of all, the delightful sea-breeze
comes sweeping in, browning our cheeks, reddening our blood, and
giving us such a splendid appetite that even the fishermen themselves
could not throw us very far into the shade, at meal-times.

As for bathing in the sea, plunging into the surf, with the waves
breaking over your head and the water dashing and sparkling all about
you, I need not say much about that. I might as well try to describe
the pleasure of eating a saucer of strawberries-and-cream, and you
know I could not do it.

There are nations who never see the ocean, nor have anything to do
with it. They have not even a name for it.

They are to be pitied for many things, but for nothing more than this.

THE SICK PIKE.

There is no reason why a pike should not be sick. Everything that has
life is subject to illness, but it is very seldom that any fish has
the good sense and the good fortune of the pike that I am going to
tell you about.

This pike was a good-sized fellow, weighing about six pounds, and he
belonged to the Earl of Stamford, who lived near Durham, England. His
story was read by Dr. Warwick to the Literary and Philosophical
Society of Liverpool. I am particular about these authorities because
this story is a little out of the common run.

Dr. Warwick was walking by a lake, in the Earl's park, and the pike
was lying in the water near the shore, probably asleep. At any rate,
when it saw the doctor it made a sudden dart into deep water and
dashed its head against a sunken post. This accident seemed to give
the fish great pain, for it pitched and tossed about in the lake, and
finally rushed up to the surface and threw itself right out of the
water on to the bank.

The doctor now stooped to examine it, and to his surprise the fish
remained perfectly quiet in his hands. He found that the skull was
fractured and one eye was injured by the violence with which the fish
had struck the post. With a silver tooth-pick (he had not his
instruments with him) the doctor arranged the broken portion of the
pike's skull, and when the operation was completed he placed the fish
in the water. For a minute or two the Pike seemed satisfied, but then
it jumped out of the water on to the bank again. The doctor put the
fish back, but it jumped out again, and repeated this performance
several times. It seemed to know (and how, I am sure I have not the
least idea) that that man was a doctor, and it di