NATURAL HISTORY

OF

FISHES.

WONDERFUL as it may appear to see creatures existing in a medium so dense that men, beasts, and birds must inevitably perish in it, yet experience proves that, besides those species which we are in the daily habit of seeing, the very depths of the immense ocean contain myriads of animated beings, to whose very form we are almost strangers, and of whose dispositions and manners we are still more ignorant. It is probable, indeed, that the fathomless recesses of the deep contain many kinds of fish that are never seen by man. In their construction, modes of life, and general design, the watery tribes are perhaps still more astonishing than the inhabitants of either the land or air.

The structure of fish, and their adaptation to the element in which they are to live, are eminent proofs of divine wisdom. Most of them have the same external form, sharp at each end, and swelling in the middle, by which configuration they

are enabled to traverse their native element with greater ease and swiftness. From their shape, men originally took the idea of those vessels which are intended to sail with the greatest speed; but the progress of the swiftest sailing ship, with the advantage of a favourable wind, is far inferior to that of fish. Ten or twelve miles an hour is no small degree of rapidity in the sailing of a ship; yet any of the larger species of fish would soon overtake her, play round as if she did not move, and even advance considerably before her.

The fins of fish are denominated from their situations. The pectoral fins are placed at a little distance behind the opening of the gills, and are large and strong, and serve as well to balance the body as to assist the motion of the fish. The ventral fins are placed towards the lower part of the body, under the belly, and serve chiefly to raise or depress the fish in the water. The dorsal fins are situated on the ridge of the back, and are very large in flat fish: their use, like the pec toral ones, is to keep the body in equilibrio, as well as to contribute to its progressive motion. The anal fins are placed between the vent and the tail, enabling the fish to keep an upright position.

The aquatic race of beings have in general been placed in a very inferior scale of importance, on the score of animal faculties; yet, natural and experimental observations have proved that they possess all the necessary organs of seeing, hear

ing, smelling, and feeling, in an equal degree with either quadrupeds or birds.

Voracity is the chief characteristic of aquatic animals. Those with the largest mouth pursue almost every thing that has life; and often meeting each other in fierce opposition, the fish with the widest swallow comes off victorious, and devours its antagonist. As a counterbalance to this great voracity, however, fish are incredibly prolific. Some bring forth their young alive, others produce only eggs: the former are rather the least fruitful; yet even those produce in great abundance. The viviparous blenny for instance, brings forth two or three hundred at a time. Those which produce eggs, which they are obliged to leave to chance, either on the bottom where the water is shallow, or floating on the surface where it is deeper, are all much more prolific, and seem to proportion their stock to the danger there is of consumption, Naturalists declare, that the cod spawns above nine millions in a season. The flounder commonly produces about one million, and the mackerel above five hundred thousand. Scarce one in a hundred of these eggs, however, brings forth an animal: they are devoured by all the lesser fry that frequent the shores, by waterfowl in shallow waters, and by the larger fish in deep waters. Such a prodigious increase, if permitted to come to maturity, would overstock nature: even the ocean itself would not be able to contain, much less provide for, one half of its in

habitants. But two wise purposes are answered by their amazing increase; it preserves the species in the midst of numberless enemies, and serves to furnish the rest with a sustenance adapted to their nature.

Fish, like the land-animals, are either solitary or gregarious. Some, as trout, salmon, &c. migrate to deposit their spawn. Of the sea-fish, the cod, herring, &c. assemble in immense shoals, and migrate in these shoals through vast tracks of the ocean.

According to Gmelin's edition of the Systema Naturæ, fishes are divided into six orders: 1. Apodal, having bony gills, and no ventral fins, as the Eels; 2. Jugular, with bony gills, and ventral fins before the pectoral ones, as the Cod and Haddock; 3. Thoracic, with bony gills, and ventral fins placed directly under the throat, as the Turbot, Sole, Perch, and Mackerel; 4. Abdominal, with bony gills, and ventral fins placed behind the thorax, as the Salmon, Pike, Herring, and Carp; 5. Branchiostagous, with gills destitute of bony rays, as the Pike-fish and Lump-fish; and 6. Chondropterygious, with cartilaginous gills, as the Sturgeon, Shark, Skate, and Lamprey. As this arrangement, however, brings together animals of very dissimilar appearance, we shall not closely adhere to it.

THE Whale, the largest known inhabitant of the sea, is of the cetaceous order of fish, and produces its young alive; and the ancients have described it as being six hundred feet in length. At present it is found in the northern seas only ninety feet in length, and twenty in breadth; but formerly they were taken of a much greater size, when the captures were less frequent, and the fish had time to grow. Such is their bulk within the arctic circle; but in those of the torrid zone, many are seen a hundred and sixty feet long. There are many turnings and windings in this fish's nostrils, and it has no fin on the back. The head is very much disproportioned to the size of the body, being one third the size of the fish; and the under lip is much broader than the upper. The eyes are comparatively small. The tongue is composed of a soft spungy fat, capable of yielding five or six barrels of oil. The gullet very small for so vast a fish, not exceeding four inches in width. Out of two orifices, in the middle of the head, this creature spouts the water to a great height, especially when it is wounded. This fish varies in colour; the back of some being red, the belly generally white. Others are, black, some mottled, others quite white. Their colours.in