We are far from having exhausted the treasures of the teeming sands.
Another visit to their broad expanse may yield other objects of
interest not inferior to those we lately discovered there. Let us,
then, seek the shore, where our humble friend the shrimper, with his
wading horse, under the guidance of his shrill-voiced little son, still
pursues his indefatigable calling.
Again the keer-drag is drawn up the tawny beach, the bag is untied, and
the sparkling, crawling, jumping heap spreads itself over the sand,
beyond the limits of the insufficient cloth.
A little silvery fish wriggles from the mass, and, by a few lateral
vibrations, in an instant buries himself in the soft wet sand, all
but the upper surface of his head and back. Our attention is drawn
towards this object; but our friend the shrimper shouts rather abruptly
a note of warning. “Mind what ye be ’bout! that ’ere’s pison! He’s a
sting-bull, he is.” Thus armed, we use caution in our approaches, and
look well before we touch. As we see it now, it certainly presents a
noteworthy appearance. A large head, with a wide mouth opening at very
upward angles; two staring eyes, set in the crown so as to look upward
instead of sideways, and intently watching our intentions; a short fin
on the back, of which the membrane is of the deepest velvet black, and
the rays, which are stout sharp spines, are white; these rays are now
stretched to the utmost, like a fan widely expanded, so as to offer
the threatening points in all directions to a foe;--these are all the
features we can discern, except a narrow line of olive presently lost
in the sand, which marks the buried body.