it is that it has the power of emitting a light from its breast equal to
the light of a common torch, which illuminates the water so as to enable
it to discover its prey. As this circumstance is not mentioned by any
naturalist, the correspondent of the journal in question, took every
precaution to determine, as he has done, the truth of it.

* * * * *




Notes of a Reader.

* * * * *


BRITISH SEA SONGS.


One of our earliest naval ballads is derived from the Pepys Collection,
and is supposed to have been written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
It records the events of a sea-fight in the reign of Henry the Eighth,
between Lord Howard and Sir Andrew Barton, a Scotch pirate; and it is
rendered curious by the picture it presents of naval engagements in
those days, and by a singular fact which transpires in the course of
the details; namely, that the then maritime force of England consisted
of only _two ships of war_. In Percy's "Reliques of Ancient
Poetry," there is another old marine ballad, called the "Winning of
_Cales_," a name which our sailors had given to Cadiz. This affair
took place in June, 1596; but the description of it in the old song