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tween the Shoals of Herrings and the Locusts, but their numbers. These insects proceed in their career evidently in search of food alone; the foremost of this pestiferous throng seize upon the first vegetables that come in their way and devour them, leaving those that follow to die with hunger. Their course is marked by destruction; nothing is left behind to support animal existence. Should the wind shift so as to cause their return in the same track through which they came, their Subsistence being exhausted, they all perish. They are therefore constantly progressive, for to rest in one place for a few days, or to retrace their former path, are to them alike inevitably destructive; not so with the Herrings. With rapidity, and sometimes slowly, they advance, at times recede, and again resume their former course, and often remain stationary for Months. Nor are these motions apparently influenced by the nature of their Aliment; nor have any symptoms ever been discovered that in consequence of their long continuance in one place, their food has been diminished. With their fatness, or the reverse, no circumstance in their migrations has been ever oberved to have the smallest Connexion. When they are in progress, let it be continued ever so long, the foremost fishes in the shoal have never been found to be in better condition than those in the rear, which, had they fed on small fry, or drawn their subsistence from any other solid substances that floated on the water, must have been the case; nor has it been observed, that they generally become leaner after a long continuance in one spot,

which, had solid substances been their Nutriment, must have been quickly devoured; so that no known fact gives the smallest Indication that ever the Quantity of food has been in any respect consumed, or even lessened, by the numbers or long abode of this fish in one station. This reasoning is strongly confirmed by the Condition, when examined, of the Body of the Herring: whenever one has been caught, or under whatever circumstances it has been killed, if it be fat and in good health, nothing is ever found in its Stomach, that gives the smallest token that it was either of vegetable or animal origin. The only contents of the stomach is a very small quantity of a mucous matter, sui generis, and that has no known parallel; all these facts seem to decide, that the Herring is capable of drawing its Subsistence from the water itself, by an inherent power of its animal functions, in converting sea water, or the particles of which it consists, into its own Sustenance, and which nutrimental matter it always finds in plenty, wherever that water is;. thus deriving its nourishment directly from water, in a mode nearly similar to that in which Vegetables

* It has been remarked, that Vegetation is merely the Process of converting Air into a fixed and solid substance, or rather the process whereby Air becomes the means of CONSOLIDATING all the most beautiful Adornments of the face of the Earth.

Mr. CAVENDISH had reason to conclude that all Animal and Vegetable substances contain fixed air; he at last found, that Vegetables consist almost entirely of fixed and phlogisticated air, and some Water; and he had even cause to be persuaded that the very Water itself consisted solely of inflammable Air united to dephlogisticated Air. This last conclusion has since been

obtain their subsistence from the same Element in the soil where they are planted.

Returning from this peculiar instance of the Herring, it may however be conceded, that other fishes, although for ever prowling, can endure hunger for a long period. A Pike, one of the most gluttonous of fishes, will live and even thrive in a pond where there is no inhabitant but itself; and the Gold and Silver fishes which are confined in glass Vases, subsist, frequently for years, without any visible support but Water: it would appear therefore, that in certain situations, fishes are as remarkable for their Abstinence, as in others they are distinguished for their Voracity; and that Nature, in compassion to the Want which they must often suffer, has indulged them with a power of accommodating their appetite to scarcity, as well as to abundance of food.

An opinion has been formed concerning the spontaneous production of fishes. It is a Phenomenon in Nature, for which it is indeed difficult to account; yet it is notwithstanding an incontrovertible fact, that in stagnating pools, occasioned by the rain in Bombay, which have no communication with any River or the Sea, fishes are generated, of which many persons have eaten, and which upon the drying of these ponds die and are corrupted. In whatever manner the fishes were introduced into these pools, we must conclude, that they were originally produced from the Eggs of Animals of their

strengthened very much by some subsequent Experiments of Doctor PRIESTLEY'S.

own kind; because the idea of spontaneous Genera tion is repugnant to every maxim of sound Philosophy.

Fishes in general are Male and Female; the former possessing the Milt, and the latter the Roe, although some individuals of the Cod and Sturgeon

* PALLAS, speaking of the STURGEON Fishery at ASTRACHAN, says, "the Fishery here, during the Feasts of the Greek Church, which amount to at least one third of the Year, affords the principal food to the whole European part of RUSSIA. According to the Average produce, the Value of the STURGEONS annually taken amounts to 1,760,405 Roubles.

"It may hence be concluded in what incalculable numbers these large Fish, so rich in Caviare, are continually propagated in the Depths of the Caspian Sea; they proceed in Shoals to the Mouths, and a considerable way up the Currents of the Rivers, without the least apparent diminution of their numbers. This super-abundance may be more clearly conceived from the account of Eye-witnesses, respecting the fishery of Sallian in PERSIA. As the Persians eat no Sturgeon, the before-mentioned speculators in Fish have rented the fishery of that River from the Khan of Derbent, SHICH ALI, a son of FETH ALI KHAN, at a certain sum which of late years has been raised to 25,000 Roubles. In the Season of their Migration there are sometimes in one day Fifteen Thousand Sturgeons taken at the Weirs, formed across the water, with the Hooks which are fastened to the end of Poles, and after being plunged into the water are drawn up again when a Fish is felt: Nay, it is still more remarkable, that if the Fishermen are accidentally prevented from working during a single day, the Fish accumulate in such numbers at the Weir, as to fill the whole Channel, insomuch that those which are uppermost appear with their backs above water, in a River not less than four Arsheries, or twenty-eight English feet deep, and sixty Fathoms wide. The Persian Fishery, which has been established by the Proprietors only a few years since, and which, together with the Rent, amounts to an Expence of 80,000 Roubles, is said to produce annually upwards of 200,000 Roubles.

are said to contain both. The Spawn of the greater number of fishes is deposited in the Sand or Gravel;

It might be still more lucrative if the injudicious Fishermen would preserve the great number of fish, instead of throwing them into the Sea as useless, after having collected the Roes and Air bladders."

The most valuable production of the Sturgeon is the Isinglass, which is sold to England for the Breweries, and to the Southern Countries to clarify their Wines; but the best Isinglass and also Caviare are procured from the BELUGA, a species of Sturgeon, which inhabits the Danube and the Russian Rivers, and sometimes attains the length of twenty-four feet; in figure it resembles the Pike, it is black above, yellow below, and is studded with bony tubercles, which as the fish grows old disappear.

The STURGEON grows to be Eighteen feet long, and to weigh five hundred pounds; the Body is pentagonal, being armed from head to tail with five rows of large bony tubercles, each of which terminates in a strong recurved tip: one row is on the back, one on each side, and two on the margin of the belly. The Snout is long and obtuse, and has the tendrils, which are some inches long and much resemble Earth-worms, near the end. The mouth, which is beneath the head, is so formed as to be pushed suddenly out, and is somewhat like the opening of a purse. The upper part of the body is of a dirty olive colour; the lower part silvery, and the Tubercles are white in the middle. By some it is said to feed on fishes, particularly the Herrings, Salmon, Mackerel, and Coalfish. Others, and perhaps with more probability, assert that he hides his large body among the weeds near the sea-coast, or at the mouth of large Rivers, only exposing his Tendrils, which small fish or sea-insects mistaking for real worms approach to eat, and are sucked into his mouth: as he has no Jaws he evidently lives by Suction, and during his residence in the Sea, Marine insects are generally found in his Stomach. The Flesh of the STURGEON is extremely delicious, and was so much valued in the time of the Emperor SEVERUS that the Servants who brought it to Table had Coronets on their heads, and were preceded by Music. In England those caught in the Thames are generally presented by the

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