3 fish less than itself; and it is sometimes seen choaked by attempting to swallow such as are too large a morsel. It is immaterial of what species the animal it pursues appears to be, whether of another or its own, all are indiscriminately devoured; so that every fish owes its safety to its minuteness, its celerity, or its courage: nor does the pike confine itself to feed on fish and frogs, it will draw down the water-rat and the young ducks as they are swimming about. Gesner tells us of a mule that stooped to drink in the water, when a famished pike that was near seized it by the nose, nor was it disengaged till the beast flung it on shore. So great is their rapacity that they will contend with the otter for his prey, and even endeavour to force it from him. For this reason it is dreaded by all other fish; and the small ones show the same uneasiness and detestation at the presence of their tyrant, as the little birds do at the sight of a hawk or an owl. When the pike lies asleep near the surface, as is frequently the case, the lesser fish are observed to swim around it in vast numbers, with a mixture of caution and ter ror. The other tribes of fresh water fish are much inferior to this animal in courage and rapacity: they chiefly subsist upon worms and insects, pursuing them at the bottom, or jumping after them to the surface of the water. In winter also their appetites seem entirely to forsake them; at least they continue in so torpid a state that few baits will tempt them to their destruction. At that season they forsake the shallow water, and seek those deep holes to be found in every river, where they continue for days together without ever appearing to move. The cold seems to affect them; for at that time they lie close to the bottom, where the water is most warm, and seldom venture out except the day be peculiarly fine, and the shallows at the edges of the stream become tepified by the powerful rays of the sun. Indeed I have been assured, that some fishes may be rendered so torpid by the cold in the northern rivers as to be frozen up in the great masses of ice, in which they continue for several months together, seemingly without life or sensation, the prisoners of congelation, and waiting the approach of a warmer sun to restore them at once to life and liberty. Thus that cheerful luminary not only distributes health and vegetation to the productions of the earth, but is ardently sought even by the gelid inhabitants of the water. As fish are enemies one to another, so each species is infested with worms of different kinds peculiar to itself. The great fish abound with them, and the little ones are not entirely free. These troublesome vermin lodge themselves either in the jaws and the intestines internally, or near the fins without. When fish are healthy and fat they are not much annoyed by them; but in winter, when they are lean or sickly, they then suffer very much. Nor does the reputed longevity of this class secure them from their peculiar disorders. They are not only affected by too much cold, but there are frequently certain dispositions of the element in which they reside unfavourable to their health and propagation. Some ponds they will not breed in, however artfully disposed for supplying them with fresh recruits of water, as well as provision. In some seasons they are found to feel epidemic disorders, and are seen dead by the water-side, without any apparent cause; yet still they are animals of all others the most vivacious, and they often live and subsist upon such substances as are poisonous to the more perfect classes of animated nature. It is not easy to determine whether the poisonous qualities which many of them are found to possess, either when they wound our bodies externally with their spines, or when they are unwarily eaten at our tables, arise from this cause. That numbers of fishes inflict poisonous wounds, in the opinion of many, cannot be doubted. The concurrent testimony of mankind they think sufficient to contradict any reasonings upon this head, taken from anatomical inspection. The great pain that is felt from the sting given by the back fin of the weever, bears no proportion to the smallness of the instrument that inflicts the wound. How the poison is preserved, or how it is conveyed by the animal, it is not in our power to perceive; but its actual existence has been often attested by painful experience. In this instance we must decline conjecture, satisfied with history. The fact of their being poisonous when eaten is equally notorious, and the cause equally inscrutable. My poor worthy friend Dr. Grainger, who resided for many years at St. Christopher's assured me, that of the fish caught of the same kind at one end of the island, some were the best and most wholesome in the world; while others taken at a different end were always dangerous, and most commonly fatal. We have a paper in the Philosophical Transactions, giving an account of the poisonous qualities of those found at New Providence, one of the Bahama Islands. The author assures us, that the greatest part of the fish of that dreary coast are all of a deadly nature, their smallest effects being to bring on a terrible pain in the joints, which, if terminating favourably, leaves the patient without any appetite for several days after. It is not those of the most deformed figure, or the most frightful to look at, that are alone to be dreaded; all kinds, at different times, are alike dangerous; and the same species which has this day served for nourishment, is the next, if tried, found to be fatal! This noxious quality has given rise to much speculation, and many conjectures. Some have supposed it to arise from the fishes on these shores eating of the machineel apple, a deadly vegetable poison that sometimes grows pendant over the sea; but the quantity of those trees growing in this manner bears no proportion to the extensive infection of the fish. Labat has ascribed it to their eating the galley-fish, which is itself most potently poisonous: but this only removes our wonder a little farther back; for it may be asked, with as just a cause for curiosity, how comes the galley-fish itself to procure its noxious qualities? Others have ascribed the poison of these fishes to their feeding upon copperås beds; but I do not know of any copperas mines found in America. In short, as we cannot describe the alembic by which the rattlesnake distils its malignity, nor the process by which the scorpion, that lives among roses, converts their sweets to venom, so we cannot discover the manner by which fishes become thus dangerous; and it is well for us of Europe that we can thus wonder in security. It is certain that, with us, if fishes, such as carp or tench, acquire any disagreeable flavour from the lakes in which they have been bred, this can be removed by their being kept some time in finer and better water: there they soon clear away all those disagreeable qualities their flesh had contracted, and become as delicate as if they had been always fed in the most cleanly manner. But this expedient is with us rather the precaution of luxury than the effect of fear: we have nothing to dread from the noxious qualities of our fish, for all the animals our waters furnish are wholesome. Happy England! where the sea furnishes an abun dant and luxurious repast, and the fresh waters an innocent and harmless pastime; where the angler, in cheerful solitude, strolls by the edge of the stream, and fears neither the coiled snake nor the lurking crocodile; where he can retire at night, with his few trouts, to borrow the pretty description of old Walton, to some friendly cottage, where the landlady is good, and the daughter innocent and beautiful; where the room is cleanly with lavender in the sheets, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall! There he can enjoy the company of a talkative brother sportsman, have his trouts dressed for supper, tell tales, sing old tunes, or make a catch! There he can talk of the wonders of nature with learned admiration, or find some harmless sport to content him, and pass away a little time, without offence to God, or injury to man! PART IV. OF CRUSTACEOUS AND TESTACEOUS FISHES. CHAPTER I. THE DIVISION OF SHELL FISH. In describing the inhabitants of the water, a class of animals occur, that mankind, from the place of their residence, have been content to call fish; but that naturalists, from their formation, have justly agreed to be unworthy of the name. Indeed, the affinity many of this kind bear to the insect tribe, |