shark, or ray, live some hours after they are taken; while the spinous herring or mackarel expire a few minutes after they are brought on shore. From hence this tribe seems possessed of powers that other fishes are wholly deprived of; they can remain continually under water, without ever taking breath; while they can venture their heads above the deep, and continue for hours out of their native element.

We observed, in a former chapter, that spinoust fishes have not, or at least appear not to have, externally any instruments of generation. It is very different with those of the cartilaginous kind, for the male always has these instruments double. The fish of this tribe are not unfrequently seen to copulate; and their manner is belly to belly, such as may naturally be expected from animals whose parts of generation are placed forward. They in general choose colder seasons and situations than other fish for propagating their kind; and many of them bring forth in the midst of winter.

The same duplicity of character which marks their general conformation, obtains also with their manner of bringing forth. Some bring forth their young alive; and some bring forth eggs, which are afterwards brought to maturity. In all, however, the manner of gestation is nearly the same; for upon dissection, it is ever found, that the young, while in the body, continue in the egg till a very little time before they are excluded: these eggs they may properly be said to hatch within their body; and as soon as their young quit the shell, they begin to quit the womb also. Unlike to quadrupeds, or the cetaceous tribes, that quit the egg

state in a few days after their first conception, and continue in the womb several months after, these continue in the body of the female, in their egg state, for weeks together; and the eggs are found linked together by a membrane, from which, when the fœtus gets free, it continues but a very short time till it delivers itself from its confinement in the womb. The eggs themselves consist of a white and a yolk, and have a substance, instead of shell, that aptly may be compared to softened horn. These, as I observed, are sometimes hatched in the womb, as in the shark and ray kinds; and they are sometimes excluded, as in the sturgeon, before the animal comes to its time of disengaging. Thus we see that there seems very little difference between the viviparous and the oviparous kinds, in this class of fishes; the one hatch their eggs in the womb, and the young continue no long time there; the others exclude their eggs before hatching, and leave it to time and accident to bring their young to maturity.

Such are the peculiar marks of the cartilaginous class of fishes, of which there are many kinds. To give a distinct description of every fish is as little my intention, as perhaps it is the wish of the reader but the peculiarities of each kind deserve notice, and the most striking of these it would be unpardonable to omit.

Cartilaginous fish may be divided first into those of the shark kind, with a body growing less towards the tail, a rough skin, with the mouth placed far beneath the end of the nose, five apertures on the sides of the neck for breathing, and the upper part of the tail longer than the lower. This class

chiefly comprehends the Great White Shark, the Balance Fish, the Hound Fish, the Monk Fish, the Dog Fish, the Basking Shark, the Zygana, the Tope, the Cat Fish, the Blue Shark, the Sea Fox, the Smooth Hound Fish, and the Porbeagle. These are all of the same nature, and differ more in size than in figure or conformation.

The next division is that of flat fish; and these, their broad, flat, thin shape is sufficiently capable of distinguishing from all others of this kind. They may be easily distinguished also from spinous flat fish, by the holes through which they breathe, which are uncovered by a bone; and which, in this kind, are five on each side. In this tribe we may place the Torpedo, the Skate, the Sharp-nosed Ray, the Rough Ray, the Thornback, and the Fire Flare.

The third division is that of the slender snakeshaped kind such as the Lamprey, the Pride, and the Pipe Fish.

The fourth division is of the sturgeon and its variety, the Ising-glass fish.

The last division may comprise fish of different figures and natures, that do not rank under the former divisions. These are the Sun Fish, the Tetroden, the Lump Fish, the Sea Snail, the Chimera, and the Fishing Frog. Each of these has somewhat peculiar in its powers or its forms, that deserves to be remarked. The description of the figures of these at least may compensate for our general ignorance of the rest of their history.

CHAP. II.

Of Cartilaginous Fishes of the Shark Kind.

OF all the inhabitants of the deep, those of the

shark kind are the fiercest and the most voracious. The smallest of this tribe is not less dreaded by greater fish, than many that to appearance seem more powerful; nor do any of them seem fearful of attacking animals far above their size: but the Great White Shark, which is the largest of the kind, joins to the most amazing rapidity, the strongest appetites for mischief: as he approaches nearly in size to the whale, he far surpasses him in strength and celerity, in the formidable arrangement of his teeth, and his insatiable desire of plunder.

The white shark is sometimes seen to rank even among whales for magnitude; and is found from twenty to thirty feet long. Some assert that they have seen them of four thousand pound weight; and we are told particularly of one, that had a human corpse in his belly. The head is large, and somewhat flatted; the snout long, and the eyes: large. The mouth is enormously wide; as is the throat, and capable of swallowing a man with great ease. But its furniture of teeth is still more terrible of these there are six rows, extremely hard, sharp-pointed, and of a wedge-like figure. It is asserted that there are seventy-two in each jaw, which make one hundred and forty-four in the whole; yet others think that their number is uncertain ;

and that, in proportion as the animal grows older, these terrible instruments of destruction are found to increase. With these the jaws both above and below appear planted all over; but the animal has a power of erecting or depressing them at pleasure. When the shark is at rest, they lie quite flat in his mouth; but when he prepares to seize his prey, he erects all this dreadful apparatus, by the help of a set of muscles that join them to the jaw; and the animal he seizes dies pierced with a hundred wounds in a moment.

Nor is this fish less terrible to behold as to the rest of his form: his fins are larger in proportion; he is furnished with great goggle eyes, that he turns with ease on every side, so as to see his prey behind him as well as before; and his whole aspect is marked with a character of malignity: his skin also is rough, hard, and prickly; being that substance which covers instrument-cases, called shagreen.

As the shark is thus formidable in his appearance, so is he also dreadful, from his courage and activity. No fish can swim so fast as he; none so constantly employed in swimming; he outstrips the swiftest ships, plays round them, darts out before them, returns, seems to gaze at the passengers, and all the while does not seem to exhibit the smallest symptom of an effort to proceed. Such amazing powers, with such great appetites for destruction, would quickly unpeople even the ocean, but providentially the shark's upper jaw projects so far above the lower, that he is obliged to turn on one side (not on his back, as is generally supposed) to seize his prey. As this takes some small time