than two feet ten inches. The bill is three inches long, straight, and pointed. The neck is covered with downy soft feathers, of a reddish gray: the upper parts of the plumage are dusky black, dashed with white; the under parts pure silvery white. It is a native of Brazil, and is extremely expert at catching fish.

The BLACK-BELLIED DARTER* is the size of the common duck. The head, neck, and breast are light brown; the back, scapulars, &c. marked with stripes of black and white; the quill feathers, belly, thighs, tail, are deep black. The four toes are united like those of the corvorant. In the island of Ceylon and Java it sits on the shrubs that hang over the water, and in a country where people are so apprehensive of serpents, it often terrifies the passengers by darting out its long and slender neck, which in their surprise they mistake for the attack of some fatal reptile.

CHAP. VII.

Of Fishes in general... Of cetaceous Fishes... The WHALE... The Fin Fish...The Narwal, or Sea Unicorn...The SPERMACETI WHALE...The DOLPHIN... Grampus, Porpesse, &c.

THE number of fish to which we have given names, and with the figure of which at least we are a little acquainted, is, according to Linnæus, above four hundred. The majority of these are confined to the sea, and would expire in the fresh water, though there are a few which annually swim up the rivers, to deposit their spawn.

Wonderful as it may appear to see creatures existing in a medium so dense that men, beasts, and birds must inev

*This bird is an inhabitant of the Carolinas, Georgia, the Floridas, and Louisiana; and is common in Cayenne and Brazil. Wilson.

itably 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 pectoral 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 chief instruments of a fish's motion are the fins, which in some fish are more numerous than in others. The fish, in a state of repose, spreads all its fins, and seems to rest upon its pectoral and ventral fins near the bottom: if the fish folds up (for it has the power of folding), either of its pectoral fins, it inclines to the same side; folding the right pectoral fin, its body inclines to the right side; folding the left fin, it inclines to that side in turn. When the fish desires to have a retrograde motion, striking with the pectoral fins in a contrary direction effectually produces it. If the fish desires to turn, a blow from the tail sends it about; but if the tail strikes both ways, then the motion is progressive. In pursuance of these observations, if the dorsal and ventral fins be cut off, the fish reels to the right and left, and endeavours to supply its loss by keeping the rest of its fins in constant employment. If the right pectoral fin be cut off, the fish leans to that side; if the ventral fin on the same side be cut away, then it loses its equilibrium entirely. When the tail is cut off, the fish loses all motion, and gives itself up to where the water impels it.

The senses of fishes are remarkably imperfect; and, indeed, that of sight is almost the only one which, in general, they may be truly said to possess. But this is, in some degree compensated by their astonishing longevity, several species being known to live more than a hundred years. Their longevity is still exceeded by their singular fecundity; for a single cod, for instance, produces at a birth two-thirds as many young ones as there are inhabitants in all Great Britain, above nine millions. The flounder produces at once above a million, and the mackerel five hundred thousand.

The spawn continues in its egg state in some fishes

longer than in others, and this generally in proportion to their size. The young of the salmon continues in egg from December to April; the carp, three weeks; and the little gold-fish, from China, is produced still quicker. The young spawn are the prey of all the inhabitants of the water, even of their own parents; and scarcely one in a thousand escapes the numerous perils of its youth.

Such is the general picture of these heedless and hungry creatures; but there are some in this class, living in the waters, that are possessed of finer organs and higher sensations; that have all the tenderness of birds or quadrupeds for their young; that nurse them with constant care, and protect them from every injury. Of this class are the Cetaceous order, or the fishes of the whale kind. There are others, though not capable of nursing their young, yet that bring them alive into the world, and defend them with courage and activity. These are the Cartilaginous kinds, or those which have gristles instead of bones. But the fierce unmindful tribe we have been describing, that leave their spawn without any protection, are called the Spinous or bony kinds, from their bones resembling the sharpness of thorns.

OF CETACEOUS FISHES.

THIS tribe is composed of the WHALE, the CACchalot, the DOLPHIN, the GRAMPUS, and the PORPESSE. All these resemble quadrupeds in their internal structure, and in some of their appetites and affections. Like quadrupeds, they have lungs, a midriff, a stomach, intestines, liver, spleen, bladder, and parts of generation; their heart also resembles that of quadrupeds, with its partitions closed up as in them, and driving red and warm blood in circulation through the body; and to keep these parts warm, the whole kind are also covered between the skin and the muscles with a thick coat of fat or blubber.

As these animals breathe the air, it is obvious that they cannot bear to be any long time under water. They are constrained, therefore, every two or three minutes, to come up to the surface to take breath, as well as to spout out through their nostril (for they have but one), that water which they sucked in while gaping for their prey.

But it is in the circumstances in which they continue their kind, that these animals show an eminent superiority. Other fish deposit their spawn, and leave the success to accident; these never produce above one young, or two at the most; and this the female suckles entirely in the manner of quadrupeds, her breasts being placed, as in the human kind, above the navel. Their tails also are different from those of all other fish: they are placed so as to lie flat on the surface of the water; while the other kinds have them, as we every day see, upright or edgeways. This flat position of the tail enables them to force themselves suddenly to the surface of the water to breathe, which they are continually constrained to do.

Or the Whale, properly so called, there are no less than seven different kinds; all distinguished from each other by their external figure or internal conformation. The GREAT GREENLAND WHALE, without a back fin, and black on the back; the ICELAND WHALE, without a back