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maimed or bruised, and a new limb is gradually formed. Like some of the crabs, lobsters are said to be attached to particular parts of the sea*.

CLASS III-fishes.

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See through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth;
Above how high progressive life may go,
Around how wide, how deep extend below!'
Vast chain of being, which from God began,
Nature's ethereal, human, angel, man,

Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to THEE,
From THEE to nothing!

LIKE the amphibious animals, the heart of fishes is unilocular, or consists but of one chief cavity, and their blood is far less warm than that of quadrupeds and birds. The organs of breathing in fishes arecalled gills, and consist of a vast number of bloodvessels. The generality of fishes are covered with scales, of various form and size in the different tribes; which scales are analogous to the hair of quadrupeds and the feathers of birds. The chief instruments of motion, the fins, consist of a certain number of elastic rays or processes, either of one single piece, in the form of a spine, or of jointed pieces. The strong or spiny rays are usually placed at the fore part of the fin, and the soft or jointed rays towards the back part.

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* In shelly armour wrapt, the lobsters seek
Safe shelter in some bay, or winding creek;
To rocky chasms the dusky natives cleave,
Tenacious hold, nor will the dwelling leave.
Nought like their home the constant lobsters prize,
And foreign shores and seas unknown despise.
Though cruel hands the banished wretch expel,
And force the captive from his native cell,
He will, if freed, return with anxious care,
Find the known rock, and to his home repair;
No novel customs learns in different seas,

But wonted food and home-taught manners please.

C

By the various flexures of these organs, the movements of fishes are conducted; the perpendicular fins, situated on the back or upper part of the animal, keeping the body in equilibrio, while the tail operates as a rudder at the stern of a vessel, and the side or breastfins as ours. The stomach is large, and the intestines far shorter than in quadrupeds and birds: the liver is very large, and usually placed on the left side.

The air-bladder, or swimming bladder which occurs in the majority of fishes, is a highly curious and important organ. It generally lies close beneath the back-bone, and is provided with a very strong muscular coat, which gives it the power of contracting at the pleasure of the fish, so as to condense the contained gas, or elastic air, with which it is filled, and thus enable the animal to descend to any depth, and again to ascend by being restored to its largest size. Some fishes are totally destitute of the air-bladder, and are observed to remain always at the bottom; as the whole tribe of what are termed flat-fish. The teeth are, in some tribes, very large and strong; in others, very small; in some, sharp; in others, obtuse; in some, very numerous; and in others, very few. Sometimes they are placed in the jaws; sometimes, in the palate or tongue; or, even at the entrance of the stomach. The eyes are, in general, large, and very much flattened, or far less convex than in quadrupeds and birds; this structure being better calculated for giving them an easy passage through the water. In return, the central part of the eye, or what is called the crystalline humour, is of a round or globular shape, in order to give the animal the necessary power of vision, and to compensate for the comparative flatness of the cornea.

The organ of smelling, in fishes, is large; and the animals have the power of contracting or dilating it at pleasure. This sense is supposed to be extremely accute. The organ of hearing differs, in some particulars, from that in other animals, and is modified.

according to the nature of the fish. They are entirely destitute of voice. The particular kind of sound, which some tribes are observed to produce on being first taken out of the water, is entirely owing to the sudden expulsion of air from their internal cavities. The greater number of fishes are oviparous, producing soft eggs, usually known by the name of spawn. There have been 200,000 ova or eggs found in a carp; in a perch, weighing one pound two ounces, 69,216; in a carp of eighteen inches, 342,144; and in a sturgeon of one hundred and sixty pounds, there was the enormous number of 1,467,500. The age of fish is determinable by the number of concentric circles of the vertebræ or joints of the back-bone.

The sounds and seas, each creek and bay,
With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals
Of FISH that, with their fins and shining scales,
Glide under the green wave, in sculls that oft
Bank the mid sea: part single or with mate
Graze the sea weed their pasture, and through groves
Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glance
Show to the Sun their waved coats dropt with gold,
Or, in their pearly shells at ease, attend
Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food
In jointed armour watch; part huge of bulk
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait,
Tempest the ocean.

MILTON.

In the Linnæan arrangement of fishes, the under or belly-fins are termed ventral, and are considered analogous to the feet in quadrupeds; and it is from the presence or absence of these fins that the divisions are instituted.

ORDER I. APODES, or footless fishes, are entirely destitute of ventral fins. The genera are: 1. Murana, eel-kind. 2. Gymnotus, electric eel. 3. Anarrhichas, sea-wolf. 4. Xiphias, sword-fish. 5. Ammodites, launce. 6. Ophidium. 7. Stromateus. 8. Trichiurus.

ORDER II. JUGULARES, or jugular fishes, have the ventral or belly-fins placed more forward than the

pectoral or breast fins. The genera are: 1. Gadus, haddock, cod, whiting, ling. 2. Uranoscopus, stargazer. 3. Blennius, blenny. 4. Callionymus, dragonet. 5. Trachinus, weever.

ORDER III. THORACICI, or thoracic fishes, have the ventral fins situated immediately below the pectoral ones. The genera are: 1. Gymnetrus, cometfish. 2. Echeneis, sucking-fish. 3. Coryphaena, dorado. 4. Zeus, dory. 5. Pleuronectes, flounder, plaice, dab, holibut, sole, turbot. 6. Chaetodon. 7. Sparus. 8. Peroa, perch. 9. Scomber, mackarel, bonito, tunny. 10. Mullus, mullet *. 11. Acanthurus, thorn-tail. 12. Holocentrus. 13. Sciana. 14. Trigla, gurnards.

The antients absurdly believed that the sucking-fish had the power of arresting the progress of a ship in its fastest sailing, by adhering to its bottom.

The sucking-fish beneath, with secret chains,
Clung to the keel, the swiftest ship detains.
The seamen run confused, no labour spared,
Let fly the sheets, and hoist the top-mast yard,
The master bids them give her all the sails,
To court the winds, and catch the coming gales.
But, though the canvass bellies with the blast,
And boisterous winds bend down the cracking mast,
The bark stands firmly rooted in the sea,
And will, unmoved, nor winds nor waves obey:
Still, as when calms have flatted all the plain,
And infant waves scarce wrinkle on the main.

* In some parts of the Continent, the fishermen endeavour, by making violent noises, to drive the fish into their nets; but these are so cunning, that, when surrounded with the net, the whole shoal will sometimes escape; for, if one of them springs over it, the rest, like sheep, are sure to follow their leader. This circumstance was noticed by Oppian :

The mullet, when encircling seines inclose,

The fatal threads and treach'rous bottom knows:
Instant he rallies all his vigorous powers,
And faithful aid of every nerve implores;
O'er battlements of cork up-darted flies,
And finds from air th' escape
that sea denies.

No ship in harbour moored so careless rides,
When ruffling waters tell the flowing tides.
Appalled, the sailors stare, through strange surprise,
Believe they dream, and rub their waking eyes.
As when, unerring from the huntsman's bow,
The feathered death arrests the flying doe,
Struck through, the dying beast falls sudden down,
The parts grow stiff, and all the motion's gone;
Such sudden force the floating captive binds,

Though beat by waves, and urged by driving winds.

ORDER IV. ABDOMINALES, or abdominal fishes, have the ventral fins placed below the pectoral ones, and chiefly inhabit fresh water. The genera are: 1. Cobitis, loach. 2. Silurus. 3. Exocoetus, flyingfish. 4. Salmo, salmon, trout, smelt, char, grayling. 5. Esox, pike. 6. Clupea, herring, sprat, shad. 7. Cyprinus, carp, tench, gold-fish, minnow.

The following lines are poetically expressive of the danger in which smaller fishes are at the approach of the pike:

Beware, ye harmless tribes, the tyrant comes,

Exclaims the silver-mantled naiad of the pond;
Beware, ye flirting gudgeons, barbels fair,

And ye, quick-swimming minnows, gliding eels,
And all who breathe the lucid crystal of the lake,
Or lively sport between the dashing wheels
Of river mills, beware; the tyrant comes!
Grim death awaits you in bis gaping jaws,
And lurks behind his hungry fangs-beware!*

CARTILAGINOUS FISHES, improperly admitted into the amphibia by Linnæus, differ from the rest of the fish tribe, in having a cartilaginous or sinewy, instead of a bony skeleton, and in being destitute of ribs. They are divided into two orders, chondropterygii, and branchiostegi.

ORDER I. CHONDROPTERYGII, or such as have no gill-cover. The genera are: 1. Petromyzon, lamprey. 1. Gastrobranchus. 3. Raia, skate, torpedo, stingray. 4. Squalus, shark, saw-fish. 5. Lophius,

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*See M'Quin's pleasing Description of Three Hundred Animals,' p. 257.

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