Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

Natural History and Phenomena. 443 knowledge of the parties made it, for a good while, a most ludicrous exhibition of character, such as those who never kept a marine menagerie, and some who do keep a very pretty aquarium, can hardly have any conception of. " Nullos his mallem ludos spectasse."—Hor. Sky Facts and Fancies. Born and bred on a spot which, whatever may be its '• sidereal aspect," commands a view of the setting sun behind a picturesque boundary line, with an unbounded sea-view from N.W. to N.E., I naturally became enam¬ oured of atmospheric effects and phenomena. These early tendencies were cherished by my parents, the influ¬ ence of whose taste and example I only learnt fully to appreciate when, alas, it was too late to profit by them any more. One of my earliest reminiscences is that of hearing my father calling impatiently to "Mary" to come out as she was, and see a bright little cloud, or a gleam of light, which " would be gone in the twinkling of an eye," and his disappointment if she missed the thing, when half a quarter of a minute would have done it! And during the last few weeks of his curtailed life, when I had the great and unlooked-for privilege of tending him, he would often, in returning from our last trip, stop his little wheel chair at a certain spot facing the West, and then gaze at the Alps of Arfon and lift up his hands either in silent admiration, or with indistinct utterance of I believe heart¬ felt praise to the Author of that earth and sky. No wonder then that I, as a chip of the old block, should grow up an ar¬ dent admirer of that phase of nature's grand panorama of wonder and beauty; and, when a school-boy at Chester, should look with astonishment and pity on a few insensees