to introduce. The "links" were famous in extent and variety of ground,
but the game, in spite of patronage in high quarters, did not become
popular. There were also recreations of a more intellectual kind:
archaeological visits to "British camps," or others of those Cymric
monuments, which were just then provoking Lord F. Hervey's
incomprehensible spleen; scientific rambles in quest of rare shells,
seaweeds, or the varieties of a new flora; and rambles, half-scientific,
half-predatory, along the woody cliffs of the Lery, whence adventurers
would return with news of a hawk's nest discovered, but not reached, or
the more substantial result of snakes, and such venomous "beasties,"
captured and brought home in a bag. The rocks under Borth Head were good
hunting-grounds, and supplied sea-monsters for an aquarium, which the
Headmaster built and presented to the school. One of the first prizes
was a small octopus, which his captor, having no other vessel handy,
brought home floating in his cap. In the aquarium, however, spite of
this good beginning, we have to record a failure. "The masters could
not, and the boys would not, attend to it; and our best octopus, after
coming to the top of the water, and spitting a last farewell at sundry
lookers-on, died; and with him died the attempt."

We are quoting from a letter of a correspondent to _The Times_, and we
cannot better conclude this part of the subject than by a graphic
paragraph from the same hand:

Again, there were the birds, many always on shore and marsh; but when
the herring-fry passed up the bay the birds positively possessed it.
There was a wilderness of glistening wings in the air, a restless bank
of floating feathers on the sea--a mile of wings and glancing foam of
life, with many a strange wild cry, giving the high notes to the deep
bass of the waves. How often from the marsh, or somewhere, dreamland