species represented here--the conger, a dark-skinned,
rather ill-favored fellow, and the beautiful Italian eel, with a
velvety, leopard-spotted skin. These creatures are gracefulness itself.
They are ribbon-like in tenuousness, and to casual glance they give the
impression of long, narrow pennants softly waving in a gentle breeze.
The great conger--five or six feet in length--has, indeed, a certain
propensity to extend himself rigidly in a fishlike line and lie
immovable, but the other species is always true to his colors, so to
say--his form is always outlined in curves.

The eels attract their full share of attention from the visitors, but
there is one family of creatures which easily holds the palm over all
the others in this regard. These are the various representatives of the
great cult of squids and cuttle-fishes. The cuttle-fish proper--who,
of course, is no fish at all--is shaped strangely like a diminutive
elephant, with a filmy, waving membrane along its sides in lieu of legs.
Like the other members of his clan, he can change his color variously.
Sometimes he is of a dull brown, again prettily mottled; then, with
almost kaleidoscopic suddenness, he will assume a garb beautifully
striped in black and white, rivalled by nothing but the coat of the
zebra. The cuttle-fish is a sluggish creature, seeking out the darker
corners of his grotto, and often lying motionless for long periods
together. But not so the little squid. He does not thrive in captivity,
and incessantly wings his way back and forth, with slow, wavy
flappings of his filmy appendages, until he wears himself out and dies
unreconciled.

In marked contrast with both cuttle-fish and squid is their cousin the
octopus--a creepy, crawly creature, like eight serpents in one--at once
the oddest and the most fascinating creature in the entire aquarium. You
will find a crowd almost always before his grotto watching his curious
antics. Usually slow and deliberate in movement, he yet has capacity
for a certain agility. Now and again he dives off suddenly, head first,
through the water, with the directness if not quite with the speed of an
arrow. A moment later, tired of his flight, he sprawls his eight webbed
legs out in every direction, breaking them seemingly into a thousand
joints, and settles back like an animated parachute awreck. Then
perchance he perches on a rock knowingly, with the appearance of
owl-like wisdom, albeit his head looks surprisingly like