The black Goby (Gobius niger) also prepares a nest for its eggs. This fish inhabits the slimy bottoms of the lagoons near Venice, and burrows galleries in the clayey soil, where it spends the greater part of the year, protected against storms and enemies. In spring it digs more superficial dwellings among the roots of the sea-grass, to which the spawn attaches itself. The architect watches over the entrance of the house, opposing sharp rows of teeth to every intruder.

A similar care may be admired in the tiny Stickleback, which the celebrated ichthyologist, M. Coste, has often watched building its nest. After the fish has collected the materials, it covers them with sand, glues the walls with a mucous secretion, and prepares a suitable entrance. At a later period it becomes the bold and indefatigable defender of its eggs, repelling with tooth and prickles all other sticklebacks that approach the nest. If the enemy is too powerful, it has recourse to artifice, darts forth, seems actively engaged in the pursuit of an imaginary prey, and often succeeds in diverting the aggressor's attention from its nest. The River Bullhead is likewise said to evince the same parental affection for its ova, as a bird for its nest, returning quickly to the spot, and being unwilling to quit it when disturbed. It is believed, also, of the Lump-Sucker, that the male first keeps watch over the deposited ova, and guards them from every foe with the utmost courage. If driven from the spot by man, he does not go far, but is continually looking back, and in a short time returns. Thus we find among the inferior animals glimpses of a higher nature, which prove that all created beings form a continuous chain, linked together by one all-pervading and almighty Power.

The senses of the fishes are also in perfect harmony with the peculiarities of their mode of life. Their eyes are indeed wanting in the fire and animation which gives so much expression to the physiognomy of the higher animals, but the structure of these organs is admirably calculated for the element in which they are plunged, as the spherical form and great size of the crystalline lens, by concentrating the rays of light, enables them to see with distinctness even through so dense a medium as that which surrounds them. When water is clear, smooth, and undisturbed the sight of fishes is very acute, a circumstance well known to anglers, who prefer a breeze undulating over the surface, as they can then approach much nearer the objects of their pursuit and practise their artful dodges with a much better chance of success. The eyes in fishes are observed to occupy very different positions in different species, but their situation is always such as best to suit the exigencies of the particular fish. Thus in the star-gazer and sea-devil, that watch their prey from a muddy concealment, they are very appropriately placed at the top of the head, while in the flat-fishes, where an eye on the side habitually turned towards the ground would have been useless, the distorted head, by placing both eyes on the same level, affords them an extensive range of view in those various directions in which they may either endeavour to find suitable food or avoid dangerous enemies. That fishes are not deficient in the sense of hearing may be seen at once by the annexed illustrations, which show a marked similarity of organisation between the human ear and that of the perch. It is well known that they start at the report of a gun, though it is impossible for them to see the flash. Sir Joseph Banks used to collect his fishes by sounding a bell, and the Chinese call the gold-fish with a whistle to receive their food. In spite of their scaly covering, the fishes are not unprovided with organs of touch. The lips in many species are soft, and the mouths of others, such as the red mullet—for which such enormous sums were paid by the Roman epicures—are provided with barbules largely supplied with nerves, which no doubt enable them to distinguish the objects with which they come in contact. In the three elongated rays of their pectoral fins the gurnards may be said to possess fingers to compensate for their bony lips; and in many other fishes these modified arms or forefeet are applied as organs of feeling to ascertain the character of the bottom of the water. "You may witness the tactile action of the pectoral fins," says Professor Owen,[N] "when gold-fish are transferred to a strange vessel; their eyes are so placed as to prevent them seeing what is below them; so they compress their air-bladder, and allow themselves to sink near the bottom, which they sweep, as it were, by rapid and delicate vibrations of the pectoral fins, apparently ascertaining that no sharp stone or stick projects upwards, which might injure them in their rapid movements round their prison." Whether fishes possess any high degree of taste is a subject not easily proved; but, to judge by the large size of their olfactory nerves, their sense of smell is probably acute.

The life of fishes is a state of perpetual warfare, a constant alternation of flight and pursuit. Prowling through the waters, they attack and devour every weaker being they meet, or dart away to escape a similar lot. Many of them are provided, besides their swiftness and muscular power, with the most formidable weapons. Thus the Sea-wolf has six rows of grinders in each jaw, excellently adapted for bruising the crabs and whelks, which this voracious animal grinds to pieces, and swallows along with the shells. When caught, it fastens with indiscriminate rage upon anything within its reach, fighting desperately, even when out of its own element, and inflicting severe wounds if not cautiously avoided. SchÖnfeld relates that it will seize on an anchor, and leave the marks of its teeth behind, and Steller informs us that one which he saw taken on the coast of Kamschatka frantically seized a cutlass with which it was attempted to be killed, and broke it in pieces as if it had been made of glass. No wonder that the fishermen, dreading its bite, endeavour as soon as possible to render it harmless by heavy blows upon the head. The great size of the monster, which in the British waters attains the length of six or seven feet, and in the colder and more extreme northern seas is said to become still larger, renders it one of the most formidable denizens of the ocean. It commonly frequents the deep parts of the sea, but approaches the coasts in spring to deposit its spawn among the marine plants. Fortunately for its more active neighbours, it swims but slowly, and glides along with the serpentine motion of the eel.

Far more dreadful, from its gigantic size and power, is the White Shark (Squalus carcharias), whose jaws are likewise furnished with from three to six rows of strong, flat, triangular, sharp-pointed, and finely serrated teeth, which it can raise or depress at pleasure. This tyrant of the seas grows to a length of thirty feet, and its prodigious strength may be judged of from the fact that a young shark, only six feet in length, is able to break a man's leg by a stroke of its tail. Thus, when a shark is caught with a baited hook at sea, and drawn upon deck, the sailors' first act is to chop off its tail, to prevent the mischief otherwise to be apprehended from its enormous strength. An anecdote related by Hughes, the well-known and esteemed author of the "Natural History of Barbadoes," gives a good idea of the savage nature of this monster. "In the reign of Queen Anne a merchant-ship arrived at that island from England: some of the crew, ignorant of the danger of the recreation, were bathing in the sea, when a large shark appeared and swam directly towards them; being warned of their danger, however, they all hurried on board, where they arrived safe, except one poor fellow, who was bit in two by the shark, almost within reach of the oars. A comrade, and intimate friend of the unfortunate victim, when he observed the severed trunk of his companion, vowed his revenge. The voracious monster was seen traversing the bloody surface of the waves, in search of the remainder of his prey, when the brave youth plunged into the water. He held in his hand a long sharp-pointed knife; and the rapacious animal pushed furiously towards him. He had turned on his side and opened his enormous jaws, when the youth, diving dexterously, seized the shark with his left hand, somewhere below the upper fins, and stabbed him repeatedly in the belly. The animal, enraged with pain, and streaming with blood, attempted in vain to disengage himself. The crews of the surrounding vessels saw that the combat was decided; but they were ignorant which was slain, till the shark, exhausted by loss of blood, was seen nearer the shore, and along with him his gallant conqueror—who, flushed with victory, redoubled his efforts, and, with the aid of an ebbing tide, dragged him to the beach. Finally, he ripped open the stomach of the fish, and buried the severed half of his friend's body with the trunk in the same grave."

It is no uncommon thing for the negroes, who are admirable divers, thus to attack and vanquish the dreaded shark, but success can only be achieved by consummate dexterity, and by those who are armed for this express purpose.

Ordinary swimmers are constantly falling a prey to the sharks of warm climates. Thus Sir Brooke Watson, when in the West Indies, as a youth, was swimming at a little distance from a ship, when he saw a shark making towards him. Struck with terror at its approach, he immediately cried out for assistance. A rope was instantly thrown, but, even while the men were in the act of drawing him up the ship's side, the monster darted after him, and at a single snap took off his leg.

Fortunately for the friends of sea-bathing on our shores, the white shark, like his relation, the monstrous Hammer-headed ZygÆna, appears but seldom in the colder latitudes, though both have occasionally been found on the British coast.

The northern ocean has got its peculiar sharks, but they are generally either good-natured like the huge basking shark (S. maximus), which feeds on sea-weeds and medusÆ, or else like the Picked dog-fish (Galeus acanthius), of too small a size to be dangerous to man, in spite of the ferocity of their nature.

But the dog-fish and several other species of our seas, such as the Blue Shark (Carcharias glaucus), though they do not attempt the fisherman's life, are extremely troublesome and injurious to him, by hovering about his boat and cutting the hooks from the lines in rapid succession. This, indeed, often leads to their own destruction, but when their teeth do not deliver them from their difficulty, the blue sharks, which hover about the Cornish coast during the pilchard season, have a singular method of proceeding, which is, by rolling the body round so as to twine the line about them throughout its whole length; and sometimes this is done in such a complicated manner, that Mr. Yarrell has known a fisherman give up any attempt to unroll it as a hopeless task. To the pilchard drift-net this shark is a still more dangerous enemy, and it is common for it to pass in succession along the whole length of net, cutting out, as with shears, the fish and the net that holds them, and swallowing both together.

The Saw-snouted Shark or Saw-fish (Squalus pristis), which grows to fifteen feet in length, and the Sword-fish (Xiphias gladius, platypterus), are furnished with peculiarly formidable weapons. The long flat snout of the former is set with teeth on both sides through its whole length, while the upper jaw of the latter terminates in a long sword-shaped snout. A twenty-feet long sword-fish once ran his sword with such violence into the keel of an East Indiaman, that it penetrated up to the root, and the fish itself was killed by the violence of the shock. The perforated beam, with the driven-in sword, are both preserved in the British Museum, and give a good idea of the prodigious power of the leviathans of ocean.

While most fishes only rely upon their well-armed jaws, their physical strength, or their rapidity, for attack or defence, some of them are provided with more mysterious weapons, and stun their victims or their enemies by electrical discharges.

The Torpedo of the Mediterranean is furnished with wonderful organs for this purpose, situated on each side of the anterior part of the body,—perfect galvanic batteries, consisting of a multitude of small prismatic columns, subdivided into cells, and interwoven with a multitude of nerves, which serve to disengage the electric fluid, and discharge it according to the will of the fish, or when it is excited by some external stimulus. The shock of the torpedo is not so strong as that of the electric eel (Gymnotus electricus) of the Orinoco, which is able to stun a horse, but its power suffices to paralyse the arm of a man. A Sly, or Silurus, found in the Nile or Senegal, and called by the Arabs raasch, or lightning, and one of the many Tetrodons inhabiting the tropical seas, is endowed with a similar faculty of producing galvanic shocks.

Some fishes, to whom nature has denied all other offensive weapons, have recourse to stratagem for procuring their food. Hidden in the mud, the Star-gazer (Uranoscopus scaber) exposes only the tip of the head, and waving the beards with which its lips are furnished in various directions, decoys the smaller fishes and marine insects, that mistake these organs for worms.

The Angler, or Sea-devil (Lophius piscatorius), a slow swimmer, who would very often be obliged to fast if he had only his swiftness to rely upon, uses a similar stratagem. Crouching close to the ground, he stirs up the sand or mud, and, hidden by the obscurity thus produced, attracts many a prize by leisurely moving to and fro the two slender and elongated appendages on his head, the first of which, the better to deceive, is broad and flattened at the end, inviting pursuit by the shining silvery appearance of the dilated part. Even the great European Sly, a fish which has been known to grow to the length of fifteen feet, and to attain a weight of 300 lbs. is not ashamed to owe its food to similar deceits. Like a true lazzarone, the fat creature lies hidden in the mud of rivers, its mouth half open, and angling with its long beards.

But no fish catches its prey in a more remarkable manner than the Beaked, or Rostrated ChÆtodon, a native of the fresh waters of India. When he sees a fly alighting on any of the plants which overhang the shallow water, he approaches with the utmost caution, coming as perpendicularly as possible under the object of his meditated attack. Then placing himself in an oblique direction, with the mouth and eyes near the surface, he remains a moment immoveable, taking his aim like a first-rate rifleman. Having fixed his eyes directly on the insect, he darts at it a drop of water from his tubular snout, but without showing his mouth above the surface, from which only the drop seems to rise, and that with such effect, that though at the distance of four, five or six feet, it very seldom fails to bring its prey into the water. Another small East Indian fish, the Toxotes jaculator, catches its food by a similar dexterous display of archery.

While all other fishes hunt only for their own benefit, the Indian Remora, or Sucking-fish (Echeneis Naucrates), owes to the remarkable striated apparatus on its head, by which it firmly adheres to any object—rock, ship, or animal,—to which it chooses to attach itself, the rare distinction of being employed by man as a hunting-fish. When Columbus first discovered the West Indies, the inhabitants of the coasts of Cuba and Jamaica made use of the remora to catch turtles, by attaching to its tail a strong cord of palm-fibres, which served to drag it out of the water along with its prey. By this means they were able to raise turtles weighing several hundred pounds from the bottom; "for the sucking-fish," says Columbus, "will rather suffer itself to be cut to pieces than let go its hold." In Africa, on the Mozambique coast, a similar method of catching turtles is practised to the present day. Thus a knowledge of the habits of animals, and similar necessities, have given rise to the same hunting artifices among nations that never had the least communication with each other. Everybody knows the fables that have been related of the small Mediterranean remora (Echeneis remora). It even owes its Latin name to the marvellous story of its being able to arrest a ship under full sail in the midst of the ocean; and from this imaginary physical power a no less astonishing moral influence was inferred, for the ancients believed that tasting the remora completely subdued the passion of love, and that if a delinquent, wishing to gain time, succeeded in making his judge eat some of its flesh, he was sure of a long delay before the verdict was pronounced.

Most fishes have only a rapid flight to depend upon for their safety; some, however, more favoured by nature, have been provided with peculiar defensive weapons. Thus the dorsal fins of the Dragon-weever (Trachinus draco), a small silvery fish, frequently occurring on our shores, are armed with strong spines, that effectually provide against its being easily swallowed by a more powerful enemy. The wounds it inflicts are very troublesome and painful, though it does not appear that the spines contain any poisonous matter, as the fishermen generally believe. At all events, the dragon-weever is not nearly so dangerous as the Clip bagre, a kind of silurus or sly, inhabiting the Brazilian rivers, that inflicts with its long spines such painful wounds as to deprive the sufferer of consciousness, and to produce an inflammation that lasts for several weeks. The Lance-tails, or Acanthuri, have a sharp bony process, not unlike the very large thorn of a rose-tree, placed on each side of the tail; by this they can inflict a deep cut on the hand of any one who is so imprudent as to seize them in that part.

I could still add a long list of spine-armed fishes, but content myself with noticing the Stickleback, which frequently owes its preservation to the sharp needles with which it is provided.

The Tetrodons and Diodons have the power of inflating their body at pleasure, and thus raising the small spines dispersed over their sides and abdomen in such a manner, as to operate as a defence against their enemies. These beautiful and remarkable fishes chiefly inhabit the tropical waters, but sometimes wander into higher latitudes. Man is not the only creature driven by the currents of fate far from the place of his birth.

The Flying-fishes (Exoceti) are provided with pectoral fins of so great a length, as to be able to carry them, like wings, a great distance through the air. According to Mr. George Bennett ("Wanderings in New South Wales"), they cannot raise themselves when in the atmosphere, the elevation they take depending entirely on the power of the first spring or leap they make on leaving their native element. Their flight, as it is called, carries them fifteen or eighteen feet high over the water, and the lines which they traverse when they enjoy full liberty of motion, are very low curves, and always in the direction of their previous progress in the usual element of fishes. Their silvery wings and blue bodies glittering beneath the rays of a tropical sun, afford a most beautiful spectacle, when, as is frequently the case, they rise into the air by thousands at once, and in all possible directions. The advantage afforded them by their wing-like fins, in escaping from the pursuit of the bonitos and albacores, often, however, leads to their destruction in another element, where gulls and frigate-birds frequently seize them with lightning-like rapidity, ere they fall back again into the ocean. It is amusing to observe a bonito swimming beneath the feeble aËronaut, keeping him steadily in view, and preparing to seize him at the moment of his descent. But the flying-fish often eludes the bite of his enemy, by instantaneously renewing his leap, and not unfrequently escapes by extreme agility.

The specific gravity of the flying-fish can be most admirably regulated in correspondence with the element through which it may move. The swim-bladder, when distended, occupies nearly the entire cavity of the abdomen, thus containing a large volume of air; and in addition to this, there is a membrane in the mouth which can be inflated through the gills. The pectoral fins, though so large when expanded, can be folded into an exceedingly slender, neat, and compact form, so as to be no hindrance to swimming. A light displayed from the chains of a vessel in a dark night, will bring many flying-fishes on board, where they are esteemed as a great delicacy. Their fate, thus to be persecuted in both elements and to find security nowhere, has often been pitied in prose and verse; but although they excite so much sentimental commiseration, they are themselves no less predaceous than their enemies, feeding chiefly on smaller fishes.

The flying-fish of the West Indian waters is frequently allured by the tepid waters of the Gulf-stream into higher latitudes, and Pennant cites several examples of its having been found near the British coast.

The Flying-Gurnard (Trigla volitans) of the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Indian seas, a highly singular and beautiful species, also raises itself into the air by means of its large pectoral fins . It does not fly very high, but swings itself as far as a musket-ball reaches, and may thus elude even the rapidity of the dolphin. That strangely formed fish, the Pegasus of the Indian seas, is also enabled by its large pectoral fins to support itself for some moments in the air, when it springs over the surface of the water.

Neither the quadrupeds nor the birds are subject to so many persecutions as the fishes, which have inexorable enemies in all classes of animals. Numberless molluscs and zoophytes feed upon their eggs, or devour their minute fry; myriads of sea-birds are on the look-out for them along the strands, or on the high ocean; seals and ice-bears lie in wait for them, while with weapons and deceit, with net, angle and harpoon, man carries death and destruction into their ranks. It would be a difficult task to state with any degree of exactness the number of fishermen disseminated over the face of the globe, but if we consider that, on a moderate calculation, at least a million of persons are directly or indirectly engaged in fishing in Great Britain and Ireland alone, and then cast a glance over the immense coast-line of the ocean, we may without exaggeration affirm that at least one-fiftieth part of the human race lives upon the produce of the seas. If we further reflect that fishes form a great part of the food of all coast-inhabitants, and consider in what masses they are sent into the interior,—fresh, dried, salted, smoked, and pickled,—we cannot doubt that the great extent of the ocean only apparently limits the numbers of the human race, for how many thousands of square miles of the most fruitful soil would it not require to bring forth the quantity of food which the blue and green fields of ocean supply to man? "Bounteous mother," "Alma parens," was the name given by the grateful ancients to the corn and grass-producing, herd-feeding earth; but how much more deserving of that endearing appellation is the sea, that, without being ploughed or manured, dispenses her gifts with such inexhaustible profusion! Numberless indeed are the various kinds of fishes which she furnishes to man, for almost every species affords an equally agreeable and healthy food: but of all the finny families or tribes that people the ocean none can compare for utility with that of the ClupeidÆ, or Herrings, small in size but great in importance. In mile-long shoals, often so thickly pressed that a spear cast into them would stand upright in the living stream, the common herring appears annually on the coasts of north-western Europe, pouring out the horn of abundance into all the lochs, bays, coves, and fiords, from Norway to Ireland, and from Orcadia to Normandy. Sea-birds without end keep thinning their ranks during the whole summer; armies of rorquals, dolphins, seals, shell-fish, cods, and sharks devour them by millions, and yet so countless are their numbers, that whole nations live upon their spoils.

As soon as the season of their approach appears, fleets of herring boats leave the northern ports, provided with drift-nets, about 1200 feet long. The yarn is so thick that the wetted net sinks through its own weight, and need not be held down by stones attached to the lower edge, for it has been found that the herring is more easily caught in a slack net. The upper edge is suspended from the drift-rope by various shorter and smaller ropes, called buoy ropes, to which empty barrels are fastened, and the whole of the floating apparatus is attached by long ropes to the ship. Fishing takes place only during the night, for it is found that the fish strike the nets in much greater numbers when it is dark than while it is light. The darkest nights, therefore, and particularly those in which the surface of the water is ruffled by a fresh breeze, are considered the most favourable. To avoid collisions, each boat is furnished with one or two torches. From off the beach at Yarmouth, where often several thousand boats are fishing at the same time, these numberless lights, passing to and fro in every direction, afford a most lively and brilliant spectacle. The meshes of the net are exactly calculated for the size of the herring, wide enough to receive the head as far as behind the gill-cover, but not so narrow as to allow the pectoral fins to pass. Thus the poor fish, when once entangled, is unable to move backwards or forwards, and remains sticking in the net, like a bad logician on the horns of a dilemma, until the fisherman hauls it on board. In this manner a single net sometimes contains so vast a booty, that it requires all the authority of a Cuvier or a Valenciennes to make us believe the instances they mention. A fisherman of Dieppe caught in one night 280,000 herrings, and threw as many back again into the sea. Sometimes great sloops have been obliged to cut their nets, being about to sink under the superabundant weight of the fish.

The oldest mention of the herring-fishery is found in the chronicles of the monastery of Evesham, of the year 709; while the first French documents on the subject only reach as far as the year 1030. As far back as the days of William the Conqueror, Yarmouth was renowned for its herring-fishery; and Dunkirk and the Brill conducted it on a grand scale centuries before William Beukelaer of Biervliet, near Sluys, introduced a better method of pickling herrings in small kegs, instead of salting them as before in loose irregular heaps. It is very doubtful whether Solon or Lycurgus ever were such benefactors of their respective countries as this simple uneducated fisherman has been to his native land; for the pickled herring mainly contributed to transform a small and insignificant people into a mighty nation. In the year 1603, the value of the herrings exported from Holland amounted to twenty millions of florins; and in 1615, the fishery gave employment to 2000 buysen, or smacks, and to 37,000 men. Three years later we see the United Provinces cover the sea with 3000 buysen; 9000 additional boats served for the transport of the fishes, and the whole trade gave employment to at least 200,000 individuals. At that time Holland provided all Europe with herrings, and it may without exaggeration be affirmed that this small fish was their best ally and assistant in casting off the Spanish yoke, by providing them with money, the chief sinew of war. Had the emperor Charles V. been able to foresee that Beukelaer's discovery would one day prove so detrimental to his son and successor Philip II., he would hardly have done the poor fisherman the honour to eat a herring and drink a glass of wine over his tomb.

But all human prosperity is subject to change; and thus towards the middle of the sixteenth century a series of calamities ruined the Dutch fisheries. Cromwell gave them the first blow by the Navigation Act; Blake the second, by his victories; in 1703 a French squadron destroyed the greatest part of their herring-smacks; and finally, the competition of the Swedes, and the closing of their ports by the English, under the disastrous domination of Napoleon I., completed the ruin of that branch of trade which had chiefly raised the fortunes of their fathers.

In the year 1814, when the Dutch first began to breathe after having shaken off the yoke of the modern Attila, they made a faint attempt to renew the herring-fishery with 106 boats, which, up to the year 1823, had only increased to 128; since 1836, however, there has been a steady progress, and herring-catching in the Zuyder Zee during the winter months is yearly increasing in importance.

During the second half of the last century, while the herrings began to desert the Dutch nets, they enriched the Swedes, who, during the year 1781, exported from Gottenburg alone 136,649 barrels, each of them containing 1200 herrings. But some years after, the shoals on the Swedish coasts began also to diminish, so that in 1799 there was hardly enough for home consumption. And now commenced the rapid rise and increase of the Scotch herring-fisheries; and it is certainly remarkable that this should have taken place at so late a period, since the British waters are perhaps those which most abound in herrings. When we think of the present grandeur of British commerce, which extends to the most distant parts of the globe, and ransacks all Nature for new articles of trade, it seems almost incredible that up to the middle of the sixteenth century the herring-fishery on the British coasts was left in the hands of the Dutch and Spaniards, and that the acute and industrious Scotchmen should have been so tardy in working the rich gold-mines lying at their gates. But if their appearance in the market has been late, they have made up for lost time, by completely distancing all their competitors. In 1855, the Scotch herring-fisheries employed no less than 11,000 smacks or boats, manned by 40,000 seamen, who were assisted by 28,000 curers and labourers, exclusive of the vessels and men bringing salt and barrels or engaged in carrying on the export trade.

The English herring-fishery is also extremely important, for Yarmouth alone employs in this branch of trade about 400 sloops, of from forty to seventy tons, the largest of which have ten or twelve men on board. Three of these sloops, belonging to the same proprietor, landed, in the year 1857, 285 lasts, or 3,762,000 fishes; and as each last was sold for £14 sterling, it is probable that no whaler made a better business that season. The importance of the Yarmouth herring-fishery may be inferred from the fact, that it gives employment and bread to about 5,000 persons during several months of the year, and engages a capital of at least £700,000. No wonder, that among the north seamen the herring-fishery is called the "great" fishery, while that of the whale is denominated only the "small."

But the herring is a very capricious creature, seldom remaining long in one place; and there is not a station along the British coast which is not liable to great changes in its visits, as well with regard to time as to quantity. The real causes of these irregularities are unknown; the firing of guns, the manufacture of kelp, and the paddling of steam-boats have been assigned as reasons, but such reasons are quite imaginary. The progress of science promises to find, however, a remedy even for the caprices of the herring; and if his shoals frequently appear and disappear again in the more retired bays or fiords of Norway, before the fishermen are apprised of his movements, the electric telegraph (the most wonderful discovery of a time so rich in wonderful inventions), will be used for his more effectual capture. By this time the wires are already laid, which are to communicate along the whole Scandinavian coast, and with the rapidity of lightning, every important movement of the marine hosts. Poor herring! who would have thought, when Franklin made his first experiments upon electricity, that that mysterious power should ever be used for thy destruction!

The supposed migration of herrings to and from the high northern latitudes is not founded on fact; the herring has never been seen in abundance in the northern seas, nor have our whale-fishers or Arctic voyagers taken any particular notice of them. There is no fishery for them of any consequence either in Greenland or Iceland. On the southern coast of Greenland the herring is a rare fish, and, according to Crantz, only a small variety makes its appearance on the northern shore. This small variety, or species, was found by Sir John Franklin on the shore of the Polar basin, on his second journey. There can be no doubt that the herring inhabits the deep water all round our coast, and only approaches the shores for the purpose of depositing its spawn within the immediate influence of the two principal agents in vivification—increased temperature and oxygen—and as soon as that essential object is effected, the shoals that haunt the superficial waters disappear, but individuals are found, and many are to be caught throughout the year. So far are they from being migratory to us from the north only, that they visit the west coast of Cork in August, arriving there much earlier than those which come down the Irish Channel, and long before their brethren make their appearance at places much farther north. Our common herring spawns towards the end of October, or the beginning of November, and it is for two or three months previous to this, when they assemble in immense numbers, that the fishing is carried on, which is of such great and national importance. "And here," Mr. Couch observes, "we cannot but admire the economy of Divine Providence, by which this and several other species of fish are brought to the shores, within reach of man, at the time when they are in their highest perfection and best fitted to be his food." The herring having spawned, retires to deep water, and the fishing ends for that season. While inhabiting the depths of the ocean, its food is said, by Dr. Knox, to consist principally of minute entomostraceous animals, but it is certainly less choice in its selection when near the shore.

Although the common herring of our northern seas is beyond all doubt the most important of the tribe, yet there is no sea, no coast, where other species of the same family are not a source of abundance to man, and of astonishment by their vast numbers. Thus the enormous shoals of Pilchards appearing along our south-western coasts are not less valuable to the fishermen of Devon and Cornwall than the common herring to those of the North Sea. The older naturalists considered the pilchard, like the herring, as a visitor from a distant region, and they assigned to it also the same place of resort as that fish, with which indeed the pilchard has been sometimes confounded. To this it will be a sufficient reply, that the pilchard is never seen in the Northern Ocean. They frequent the French coasts, and are seen on those of Spain, but on neither in considerable numbers or with much regularity; so that few fishes confine themselves within such narrow bounds. On the coast of Cornwall they are found throughout all the seasons of the year, and even there their habits vary in the different months. In January they keep near the bottom, and are chiefly hauled up in the stomachs of ravenous fishes; in March they sometimes assemble in schulls, but this union is only partial and not permanent and only becomes so in July; when they regularly and permanently congregate so as to invite the fisherman's pursuit. The season and situation for spawning, and the choice of food, are the chief reasons which influence the motions of the great bodies of these fish; and it is probable that a thorough knowledge of these particulars would explain all the variations which have been noticed in the doings of the pilchard, in the numerous unsuccessful seasons of the fishery.

They feed with voracity on small crustaceous animals, and Mr. Yarrell frequently found their stomachs crammed with thousands of a minute species of shrimp, not larger than a flea. It is probably when they are in search of something like this, that fishermen report they have seen them lying in myriads quietly at the bottom, examining with their mouths the sand and small stones in shallow water. The abundance of this food must be enormous, to satisfy such a host.

"When near the coast," says the author of the "History of British Fishes," "the assemblage of pilchards assumes the arrangement of a mighty army, with its wings stretching parallel to the land, and the whole is composed of numberless smaller bodies, which are perpetually joining together, shifting their position, and separating again. There are three stations occupied by this great body, that have their separate influence on the success of the fishery. One is to the eastward of the Lizard, the most eastern extremity, reaching to the Bay of Bigbury in Devonshire, beyond which no fishing is carried on, except that it occasionally extends to Dartmouth; a second station is included between the Lizard and Land's End; and the third is on the north coast of the county, the chief station being about St. Ives. The subordinate motions of the shoals are much regulated by the tide, against the current of which they are rarely known to go, and the whole will sometimes remain parallel to the coast for several weeks, at the distance of a few leagues; and then, as if by general consent, they will advance close to the shore, sometimes without being discovered till they have reached it. This usually happens when the tides are strongest, and is the period when the principal opportunity is afforded for the prosecution of the sean-fishery." The quantity of pilchards taken is sometimes incredibly large. In 1847, a very productive year, 40,000 hogsheads were cured in Cornwall alone, representing probably, after all deductions, a net value to the takers of £80,000. The Sardine (Clupea sardina), a fish closely allied to the Pilchard though smaller, is considered as the most savoury of all the herring tribe. It is chiefly found in the Mediterranean, on the coasts of South France and Africa, and about the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, where it plays a no less important part than the Pilchard on the coasts of Cornwall and Devonshire.

Though a much less valuable fish than its larger-sized relatives, the diminutive Sprat is not to be despised. Coming into the market in immense quantities, and at a very moderate price, immediately after the herring season is over, it affords during all the winter months a cheap and agreeable food. Like all other species of the herring tribe, the sprats are capricious wanderers, and make their appearance in exceedingly variable numbers. The coasts of Kent, Essex, and Suffolk, are the most productive. So great is the supply thence obtained, that notwithstanding the immense quantity consumed by the vast population of London and its neighbourhood, there is yet occasionally a surplus to be disposed of at so low a price, as to induce the farmers, even so near the metropolis as Dartford, to use them for manure.

The Mediterranean seems to be the peculiar birthplace of the Anchovy (Engraulis encrasicholus), where it appears in the spawning season in countless multitudes along the shallow coasts. It is about four inches long, of a bluish-brown colour on the back, and silvery-white on the belly. It is covered with large thin and easily deciduous scales, and may be readily distinguished from the Sprat and other kindred species by the anal fins being remarkably short. It is mostly caught in the neighbourhood of Antibes, Frejus, and St. Tropez, and sent pickled in enormous quantities to the fair of Beaucaire, from whence it is transported in small tin boxes to all parts of the world.

The Cod-family, to which among others, the Dorse, the Haddock, the Whiting, the Hake, the Ling, and other valuable fishes belong, ranks next to that of the herrings in importance to man. In the seas with which Europeans are best acquainted the common Cod, the chief representative of the tribe, is found universally, from Iceland to very nearly as far south as Gibraltar, but appears most abundantly on the eastern side of the American continent, and among its numerous islands, from 40° up to 66° N. lat., where it may be said to hold dominion from the outer edge of the great banks of Newfoundland, which are more than three hundred miles from land, to the verge of every creek and cove of the bounding coast. To support such a mass of living beings, the ocean sends forth its periodical masses of other living beings. At one season the cod is accompanied by countless myriads of the Capelin (Salmo arcticus), and at another by equal hosts of a molluscous animal, the Cuttle-fish (Sepia loligo), called in Newfoundland the squid. The three animals are migratory, and man, who stations himself on the shore for their combined destruction, conducts his movements according to their migrations, capturing millions upon millions of capelins and squids, to serve as a bait for the capture of millions of cods. In the United Kingdom alone this fish, in the catching, the curing, the partial consumption, and sale, supplies employment, food, and profit to thousands of the human race; but the banks of Newfoundland are the chief scene of its destruction. As soon as spring appears, England sends forth 2000 ships, with 30,000 men, across the Atlantic, towards those teeming shallows; France about one-half the number; and the Americans as many as both together. On an average, each ship is reckoned to catch about 40,000 fishes; and we may form some idea of the voracity, as well as of the numbers of the cod, when we hear that in the course of a single day a good fisherman is able to haul up four hundred one after another with his line—no easy task considering the size of the fish, which often attains a length of from two to three feet and a weight of from twenty to forty pounds.

The captured fish have but little time left them to bewail their lot, for a few thousands will be "dressed down"—that is, gutted, boned and salted—in the course of two or three hours. For this purpose the crew divide themselves into throaters, headers, splitters, salters, and packers. First the throater passes his sharp knife across the throat of the unfortunate cod to the bone and rips open the bowels. He then passes it quickly to the header, who with a strong sudden wrench pulls off the head and tears out the entrails, which he casts overboard, passing at the same time the fish instantly to the splitter, who with one cut lays it open from head to tail, and almost in the twinkling of an eye with another cut takes out the backbone. After separating the sounds, which are placed with the tongues, and packed in barrels as a great delicacy, the backbone follows the entrails overboard, while the fish at the same moment is passed with the other hand to the salter. Such is the amazing quickness of the operations of heading and splitting that a good workman will often decapitate and take out the entrails and backbone of six fish in a minute. Every fisherman is supposed to know something of each of these operations, and no rivals at cricket ever entered with more ardour into their work than do some athletic champions for the palm of "dressing down" after a "day's catch."

Besides its excellent firm flesh, the liver-oil of the cod is used as a valuable medicine, and serves to restore many a scrofulous or rickety child to health. The sound-bladder is also employed by the Icelanders for the manufacture of fish-lime or isinglass. The best quality of the latter article, however, is afforded by a species of Sturgeon (Accipenser Huso) which is chiefly found in the Black and Caspian seas, and ascends the tributary rivers in immense numbers.

The Common Sturgeon (Accipenser sturio), though principally frequenting the seas and rivers of North-Eastern Europe, where, especially in the Volga, extensive fisheries are established for its destruction, is also captured on the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, as examples are by no means uncommon in the fish-mongers' shops of our great cities, a few coming into the hands of the principal dealers every season. Yarrell mentions one caught in a stake-net near Findhorn, in Scotland, in July 1833, which measured eight feet six inches in length and weighed two hundred and three pounds; but in the Baltic specimens of a length of eighteen feet and weighing a thousand pounds have occasionally been captured. The body is long and slender from the shoulders backward, somewhat pentagonal in shape, with five longitudinal rows of flattened plates, with pointed central spines, directed backwards, and the snout is tapering and beak-shaped, the mouth small and toothless, so that the sturgeon, though almost equalling the white shark in size, is of a much more harmless character and formidable only to the crustaceans, small fish, or soft animals, he meets with at the bottom in deep water, beyond the ordinary reach of sea-nets. Hence he is rarely caught in the open sea, but falls an easy prey to the cunning of man when entering the friths, estuaries, and rivers for the purpose of spawning. The sturgeon is a highly valuable fish not only for its well-flavoured flesh but also for its roe, which furnishes the delicate caviar of commerce. The smallest but most highly esteemed of the sturgeons is the Sterlet of the Volga, which sometimes fetches such extravagant prices that Prince Potemkin has been known to pay three hundred roubles for a single tureen of sterlet-soup.

While many of the numerous members of the salmon family confine themselves to the rivulet or to the lake, others alternate, like the sturgeons, between the river and the sea. Of these the most remarkable is the noble fish which has given its name to the whole tribe, and may justly be considered as its head, not only in point of size but also for its wide-spread utility to man.

Every spring or summer the salmon leave the ocean to deposit their spawn in the sweet waters, often at a distance of many hundred miles in the interior of the Continent, so that the same fish which during part of the year may be breasting the waves of the North Sea, may at another be forcing the current of an Alpine stream. Their onward progress is not easily stopped: they shoot up rapids with the velocity of arrows, and make wonderful efforts to surmount cascades or weirs by leaping, frequently clearing an elevation of eight or ten feet. These surprising bounds appear to be accomplished by a sudden jerk, which is given to its body by the animal from a bent into a straight position. If they fail in their attempt, and fall back into the stream, it is only to rest a short time, and thus recruit their strength for a new effort. The fall of Kilmaroc, on the Beauly, in Inverness-shire, is one of the spots where the leaping feats of the salmon can best be witnessed. "The pool below that fall," says Mr. Mudie, in the British Naturalist, "is very large, and as it is the head of the run in one of the finest salmon rivers in the north, and only a few miles distant from the sea, it is literally thronged with salmon, which are continually attempting to pass the fall, but without success, as the limit of their perpendicular spring does not appear to exceed twelve or fourteen feet; at least, if they leap higher than that, they are aimless and exhausted, and the force of the current dashes them down again before they have recovered their energy. They often kill themselves by the violence of their exertions to ascend, and sometimes they fall upon the rocks and are captured. It is indeed said that one of the wonders which the Frasers of Lovat, who are lords of the manor, used to show their guests was a voluntarily cooked salmon at the falls of Kilmaroc. For this purpose a kettle was placed upon the flat rock on the south side of the fall, close by the edge of the water and kept full and boiling. There is a considerable extent of the rock where tents were erected, and the whole was under a canopy of overshadowing trees. There the company are said to have waited until a salmon fell into the kettle, and was boiled in their presence. We have seen as many as eighty taken in a pool lower down the river at one haul of the seine, and one of the number weighed more than sixty pounds."

As the salmon laboriously ascend the rivers, it may easily be imagined that the cunning and rapacity of man seeks every opportunity to intercept their progress. Nets of the most various form and construction are employed for their capture; numbers are entrapped in enclosed spaces formed in weirs, into which they enter as they push up the stream, and are then prevented by a grating of a peculiar contrivance from returning or getting out; and many are speared, a mode frequently practised at night-time, when torches are made use of to attract them to the surface, or to betray them by their silvery reflection to the attentive fisherman.

The ruddy gleam illumining the river banks or sparkling in the agitated waters, the black sky above, the deep contrasts of light and shade, attach a romantic interest to this nocturnal sport, which has been both practised and sung by Walter Scott.

The natural history of the salmon was until lately but very imperfectly known, as the parr (brandling, samlet) and the grilse, which are now fully proved to be but intermediate stages of its growth, were supposed by Yarrell to be distinct fishes. The first person who seems to have suspected the true nature of the parr was James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who in his usual eccentric way took some pains to verify his opinion. As an angler, he had often caught the parr in its transition state, and had frequently captured smolts (at that time the only acknowledged youthful salmon) with the scales barely covering the bars or finger marks of the parr. Wondering at this, he marked a great number of the lesser fish and offered rewards of whisky (being himself a great admirer of the genuine mountain-dew) to the peasantry to bring him any fish that had evidently undergone the change. These crude experiments of the talented shepherd convinced him that the parr were the young of the salmon in the first stage, and since then professed naturalists have fully settled the question by watching the egg into life, and tracing the growth of the young fish step by step until it ultimately changed into the kingly salmon.

This ignorance of the true nature of the parr had most disastrous effects, as it largely contributed to the depopulation of our streams, for the farmers and cottars who resided near the rivers used not unfrequently, after filling the frying-pan with parr, to feed their pigs with them, and myriads were annually killed by juvenile anglers. This truly deplorable havoc has fortunately been arrested by Act of Parliament, but the killing of grilse is still, I believe, a fertile source of destruction,[O] and should undoubtedly be restrained by law, as the wholesale slaughter of these juvenile fishes is a most lamentable example of improvident waste.

In former times our rivers abounded with salmon, more than 200,000 having been caught in a single summer in the Tweed alone, and 2,500 at one haul in the river Thurso; but, besides the causes above mentioned, over fishing or fishing at an improper season, and probably in many cases the pollution of the streams with deleterious matter from mines or manufactories, have considerably reduced their numbers. Fortunately, public attention has at length been thoroughly aroused to the danger which menaces our king of fishes; and, what with better laws for his protection and the successful attempts that have latterly been made in artificial fish-breeding, we may hope that more prosperous times are in store for our salmon-fisheries.

The salmon not only frequents the streams of Northern Europe but ascends in vast multitudes the giant rivers of Siberia and of North America. It is fished by the Ostjak and the Tunguse, and speared by the Indian of the New World. Ross's Arctic salmon, which is of a more slender form than the common salmon, differently marked and coloured, and with a remarkably long under jaw, is so extremely abundant in the sea near the mouths of the rivers of Boothia Felix that 3,378 were obtained at one haul of a small-sized seine. The rivers of Kamtschatka abound in salmon of various kinds, so that the stream, swelling as it were with living waves, not seldom overflows its banks and casts multitudes ashore. Steller affirms that, in that almost uninhabited peninsula, the bears and dogs and other animals catch more of these fishes with their mouths and feet than man in other countries with all his cunning devices of net and angle.

The salmon of Iceland, which formerly remained undisturbed by the phlegmatic inhabitants, are now caught in large numbers for the British market. A small river, bearing the significant name of Laxaa or Salmon river, has been rented for the trifling sum of 100l. a year by an English company which sends every spring its agents to the spot, well provided with the best fishing apparatus. The captured fish are immediately boiled and hermetically packed in tin boxes, so that they can be eaten in London almost as fresh as if they had just been caught. Other valuable salmon-streams in Iceland and Norway pay us a similar tribute; and as commerce, aided by the steamboat and the railway, extends her empire, rivers more and more distant are made to supply the deficiencies of our native streams. More than 150,000 salmon are annually caught in Aljaska—not a quarter of a century ago a real "ultima Thule"—and after having been well pickled and smoked at the various fishing-stations are chiefly sent from Sitcha to Hamburg.

Nature has denied the salmon to the streams of Australia and New Zealand; but as the eggs of this fish can be preserved for a very long time, they have been transported with perfect success to those far-distant colonies.

If neither the salmon, nor the common herring, nor the cod, dwell in the Mediterranean, the fishermen of that sea rejoice in the capture of the Tunny, the chief of the mackerel or scomberoid family. Its usual length is about two feet, but it sometimes grows to eight or ten; and Pennant saw one killed in 1769, when he was at Inverary, that weighed 460 pounds. The flesh is as firm as that of the sturgeon, but of a finer flavour.

"In May and June," says Mr. Yarrell, "the adult fish rove along the coast of the Mediterranean in large shoals and triangular array. They are extremely timid, and easily induced to take a new and apparently an open course, in order to avoid any suspected danger. But the fishermen take advantage of this peculiarity for their destruction by placing a look-out or sentinel on some elevated spot, who makes the signal that the shoal of tunnies is approaching, and points out the direction in which it will come. Immediately a great number of boats set off, range themselves in a curved line, and, joining their nets, form an enclosure which alarms the fish, while the fishermen, drawing closer and closer, and adding fresh nets, still continue driving the tunnies towards the shore, where they are ultimately killed with poles.

"But the grandest mode of catching the tunny is by means of the French madrague, or, as the Italians call it, tonnaro. Series of long and deep nets, fixed vertically by corks at their upper edges, and with lead and stones at the bottom, are kept in a particular position by anchors, so as to form an enclosure parallel to the coast, sometimes extending an Italian mile in length; this is divided into several chambers by nets placed across, leaving narrow openings on the land side. The tunnies pass between the coast and the tonnaro; when arrived at the end, they are stopped by one of the cross-nets, which closes the passage against them, and obliges them to enter the tonnaro by the opening which is left for them. When once in, they are driven by various means from chamber to chamber to the last, which is called the chamber of death. Here a strong net, placed horizontally, that can be raised at pleasure, brings the tunnies to the surface, and the work of destruction commences. The tonnaro fishery used to be one of the great amusements of rich Sicilians, and, at the same time, one of the most considerable sources of their wealth. When Louis XIII. visited Marseilles, he was invited to a tunny-fishery, at the principal madrague of Morgiou, and found the diversion so much to his taste that he often said it was the pleasantest day he had spent in his whole progress through the south."

The elegant shape and beautiful colouring of the common Mackerel are too well known to require any particular description, and its qualities as an edible fish have been long duly appreciated. It dies very soon after it is taken out of the water, exhibits for a short time a phosphoric light, and partly loses the brilliancy of its hues. Like all other members of the family, it is extremely voracious, and makes great havoc among the herring-shoals, although its own length is only from twelve to sixteen inches. It inhabits the northern Atlantic, and is caught in large numbers along the British coast, where it is preceded in its annual visit by the Gar-fish, which for this reason has received also the name of Mackerel-guide. The older naturalists ascribed to the mackerel the same distant migrations as to the tunny, but most probably it only retires during the winter into the deeper waters, at no very great distance from the shores, where it appears during the summer season in such incalculable numbers.

The mackerel is caught with long nets or by hand-lines. It bites greedily at every bait, but generally such a one is preferred as best represents a living prey darting through the water—either some silvery scaled fish, or a piece of metal, or of scarlet cloth. With swelling sails the boat flies along, and a sharp wind is generally considered so favourable that it is called a "Mackerel-breeze." The line is short, but made heavy with lead, and in this manner a couple of men can catch a thousand in one day. The more rapid the boat the greater the success, for the mackerel rushes like lightning after the glittering bait, taking it for a flying prey. The chieftains of the Sandwich Islands used to catch the bonito mackerels in a similar way, by attaching flying-fish to their hooks, and rapidly skimming the surface of the waters. Thus everywhere man knows how to turn to his advantage the peculiar instincts or habits of the animal creation.

The author of "Wild Sports of the West" has favoured us with an animated description of mackerel-fishing on the coast of Ireland.

"It was evident that the bay was full of mackerel. In every direction, and as far as the eye could range, gulls and puffins were collected, and, to judge by their activity and clamour, there appeared ample employment for them among the fry beneath. We immediately bore away for the place where these birds were numerously congregated, and the lines were scarcely overboard when we found ourselves in the centre of a shoal of mackerel. For two hours we killed these beautiful fish, as fast as the baits could be renewed and the lines hauled in; and when we left off fishing, actually wearied with sport, we found that we had taken above five hundred, including a number of the coarser species, called Horse-mackerel. There is not, on sea or river, always excepting angling for salmon, any sport comparable to this delightful amusement: full of life and bustle, everything about it is animated and exhilarating; a brisk breeze and fair sky, the boat in quick and constant motion, all is calculated to interest and excite. He who has experienced the glorious sensations of sailing on the Western Ocean, a bright autumnal sky above, a deep-green lucid swell around, a steady breeze, and as much of it as the hooker can stand up to, will estimate the exquisite enjoyment our morning's mackerel-fishing afforded."

Although an occasional visitor of our shores, the Bonito, or Stripe-bellied Tunny (Thynnus pelamys), which is much inferior in size to the common tunny of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, is a true ocean-fish, and generally met with at a vast distance from land. It inhabits the warmer seas, of which it is one of the most active and voracious denizens. It is well known to all voyagers within the tropics for the amusement it affords by its accompanying the vessel in its track, and by its pursuit of the flying-fish. But in its turn the predacious Bonito is subject to the persecutions of the huge Sperm-whale, who will often drive whole shoals before him, and crush dozens at a time between his prodigious jaws.

The Pelamid (Thynnus sarda), which abounds in all districts of the Mediterranean and on both sides of the Atlantic, has but very lately been discovered in the British waters, a single specimen having been caught a few years ago at the mouth of the North Esk. It greatly resembles the species just mentioned in form and mode of life, prowling about the high seas for cephalopods and flying-fishes, and is very commonly confounded with the bonito by sailors, who also give both of them the name of Skip-jacks, expressive of the habit which many of the large Scomberoids have of skimming the surface of the sea, and springing occasionally into the air.

Another member of the mackerel family, the Pilot-Fish (Naucrates ductor), easily recognised by the three dark-blue bands which surround its silvery body, will frequently attend a ship during its course at sea for weeks or even months together, most likely to profit by the offal thrown overboard. Regardless of the useful precept, "avoid bad company," it is frequently found attending the white shark, and owes its name to its being supposed to act as a trusty guide or friendly monitor to that voracious monster, sometimes directing it where to find a good meal, and at others warning it when to avoid a dangerous bait. At all events, the pilot-fish is well rewarded for his attendance by snatching up the morsels which are overlooked by his companion, and as he is an excellent swimmer, and probably keeps a good look-out, has but little reason to fear being snatched up himself.

"It has been observed," says Yarrell, "that when a shark and his pilot were following a vessel, if meat was thrown overboard cut into small pieces, and therefore unworthy the shark's attention, the pilot-fish showed his true motive of action by deserting both shark and ship to feed at his leisure on the morsels."

The family of the anguilliform fishes, characterised by their serpent-like bodies, destitute of ventral fins, and generally covered by a slippery skin, with, in some of the genera, small scales embedded therein, likewise comprises a number of highly interesting and useful species, forming many generic groups.

Its chief representative in our waters is the Common Eel (Anguilla vulgaris), which, though a frequent inhabitant of our lakes, ponds, and rivers, may also justly be reckoned among the marine fishes; for the same wonderful instinct which prompts the salmon and the sturgeon annually to leave the high seas and seek the inland streams for the sake of perpetuating their race, forces also the eel to migrate, but his peregrinations are of an opposite character, for here the full-grown fishes descend the rivers to deposit their spawn in the sea, and the young, after having been born in the brackish estuaries, ascend the streams to accomplish their growth in the sweet waters. The mode of procreation of eels, which for ages had been an enigma, has now at length been completely elucidated by Professor Rathke, who discovered that the eggs, which are of microscopic smallness, so as to be undistinguishable by the naked eye from the fat in which they lie imbedded, are expelled through an opening hardly large enough to admit the point of a needle. The energy of the salmon in swimming stream-upwards for hundreds and hundreds of miles, and bounding over rapids and cataracts, is truly wonderful, but the instinctive efforts of the little eels or elvers to surmount obstacles that seem quite out of proportion to their strength are no less admirable. Mr. Anderson, upwards of a century ago, described the young eels as ascending the upright posts and gates of the waterworks at Norwich until they came into the dam above; and Sir Humphry Davy, who was witness of a vast migration of elvers at Ballyshannon, speaks of the mouth of the river under the fall as blackened by millions of little eels. "Thousands," he adds, "died, but their bodies remaining moist, served as the ladder for others to make their way; and I saw some ascending even perpendicular stones, making their road through wet moss, or adhering to some eels that had died in the attempt. Such is the energy of these little animals that they continue to find their way in immense numbers to Loch Erne. Even the mighty fall of Schaffhausen (which stops the salmon) does not prevent them from making their way to the Lake of Constance, where I have seen many very large eels." After the little eels have gained the summit of a fall, they rest for a while with their heads protruded into the stream. They then urge themselves forward, taking advantage of every projecting stone or slack water, and never get carried back by the current. Myriads are destroyed on the way by birds or fishes; but, as usual, their greatest enemy is man, who not only devours whole cart-loads of little eels not larger than a knitting-needle, frying them into cakes, which are said to be delicious, though rather queer-looking from the number of little eyes with which they are bespangled, but after getting tired of eating them, actually feeds his pigs with them, or even uses them for manure. A prodigal waste which should be looked after, as these little eels would soon increase their weight, and consequently their value a thousand fold. On the Continent many lakes and ponds have been stocked with elvers, packed in wet grass, and sent by the railroads or the post far into the interior of the country.

Eels are pre-eminently nocturnal animals. They always congregate at the darkest parts of the stews in which they are kept, and invariably select the darkest nights for their autumnal migration to the sea. Owing to the smallness of their gill aperture, the membranous folds of which, by closing the orifice when the eel is out of the water, prevents the desiccation of the branchiÆ, they have the power of living a long time out of the water when the air is humid, and not unfrequently travel during the night over the moist surface of meadows or gardens in quest of frogs or other suitable food.

That eels are not devoid of sagacity is proved by many well authenticated anecdotes. "In Otaheite," says Ellis in his "Polynesian Researches," "they are fed till they attain an enormous size. These pets are kept in large holes two or three feet deep, partially filled with water. On the sides of these pits they generally remain, excepting when called by the person who feeds them. I have been several times with the young chief when he has sat down by the side of the hole, and by giving a shrill sort of whistle has brought out an enormous eel, which has moved about the surface of the water and eaten with confidence out of his master's hand."

The eel has many enemies, among others the common heron, who, in spite of the slippery skin of his victim, knows how to drive his denticulated middle claw into his body, or to strike him with his pointed bill. Yarrell relates that a heron had once struck his sharp beak through the head of an eel, piercing both eyes, and that the eel—no doubt remembering that one good turn deserves another—had coiled itself so tightly round the neck of the heron as to stop the bird's respiration: both were dead.

The London market is principally supplied with eels from Holland, a country where they abound. According to Mr. Mayhew, about ten millions of eels, amounting to a weight of 1,500,000 lbs., are annually sold in Billingsgate market. These figures show us at once that the multiplication of eels in our sluggish rivers, which only contain such fish as are comparatively speaking worthless, is a matter worth consideration, and powerfully pleads for the protection and transplantation of the elvers wherever they are likely to prosper.

Eels are extremely susceptible of cold; none whatever are found in the Arctic regions, and at the approach of winter they bury themselves in the mud, where they remain in a state of torpidity until the genial warmth of spring recalls them to a more active state of existence. In this condition they are frequently taken by eel-spears, and in Somersetshire the people know how to find the holes in the banks of rivers in which eels are laid up, by the hoar-frost not lying over them as it does elsewhere, and dig them out in heaps. Though generally only from two to three feet long, eels sometimes acquire a much larger size. Specimens six feet long and fifteen pounds in weight are occasionally captured, and Yarrell saw at Cambridge the preserved skins of two which weighed together fifty pounds. They were taken on draining a fen-dyke at Wisbeach. As eels are but slow in growth, these sizes speak for a great longevity.

The Conger is in its general appearance so nearly allied to the common eel that it might easily be mistaken for the same species. It, however, materially differs from it by its darker colour in the upper part, and its brighter hue beneath, by its dorsal fin beginning near the head, and by its snout generally projecting beyond the lower jaw.

This marine giant of the eel tribe attains a length of ten feet, and a weight of 130 pounds, and is well known on all the rocky parts of the coast of the British Islands, though nowhere more abundant than on the Cornish coast, where, according to Mr. Couch, it is not uncommon for a boat with three men to bring on shore from five hundredweight to two tons. The fishing for congers is always performed at night, and not unattended with danger, as it is quite a common occurrence for a conger to attack the fishermen with open jaws, and so great is the strength of the large specimens that they have occasionally succeeded in pulling the fisherman quite out of his boat, if by any chance he has fastened the line to his arm. The congers that keep among rocks hide themselves in crevices, where they are not unfrequently left by the retiring tide; but in situations free from rocks, congers hide themselves by burrowing in the ground, where it is customary on some parts of the coast of France to employ dogs in their search. In spite of its tough flesh and exceedingly nauseous smell, the conger was highly esteemed by Greek epicures, and in England in the time of the Henrys considered an article of food fit for a king. Thus, the Prince and Poins, according to Falstaff's account, found amongst other reasons for their companionship this one: that both of them were fond of conger and fennel sauce. In our times its flesh, though banished from all aristocratic tables, meets a ready sale at a low price among the poorer classes. In the Isle of Man the conger may be said to take the place of the poor man's pig; it is his bacon, which he would find difficult to save if it were not for these large eels, which are caught in great abundance, and sold at the rate of 2d. or 3d. per lb. The Manx men split the congers, and then salt them and hang them up to dry on their cottage walls, where they do not exactly contribute to perfume the gale.

The Murry or MurÆna differs from the common eel by the want of pectoral fins, and its beautifully-marked skin. It is said to live with equal facility in fresh or salt water, though generally found at sea, and it is as common in the Pacific as it is in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. The only specimen on record as a British fish was caught by a fisherman of Polperro, October 8, 1834; its length was four feet four inches. The murÆna has acquired a kind of historical celebrity from the strange fondness with which it was cherished by the Romans, who preserved large quantities of them in their numerous vivaria, as we do the lustrous gold-fish in the water-basins of our gardens. A certain Cajus Hirrius, who lived in the time of Julius CÆsar, was the first that introduced the fashion, which soon became a passion among the wealthy senators and knights of the imperial city, who used to deck their especial pets with all kinds of ornaments. The celebrated orator, Hortensius, the rival of Cicero, had a piscina at Bauli, on the gulf of BaiÆ, where he took great delight in a favourite murry that would come at his call and feed from his hand. When the creature died, he was unable to stop his tears; and another celebrated Roman, L. Licinius Crassus, appears to have had an equally tender heart, for he, too, wept at the death of his fishy darling. Vedius Pollio, a Roman knight, has even acquired through these fishes a scandalous renown, by causing now and then a slave that had been guilty of some slight offence to be cast alive and naked into their piscina, and amusing himself with the sight of the murrys lacerating and devouring the body. That this wretch was a friend of the Emperor Augustus harmonises but badly with the ideas of the urbanity of his court which we may have formed from the poems of Horace and Virgil. It is but fair, however, to the character of the emperor to state that he reprobated Pollio's cruelty, and ordered his fish-pond to be filled up.

The Launces are distinguished from the eels by their large gill openings, and their caudal fin being separated from their dorsal and anal fins. The common Sand Launce abounds on many parts of our shore. On account of its silvery brightness it is highly esteemed by the fishermen as bait for their hooks, and its remarkable habit of burrowing in the sand as the tide recedes affords easy means of capture. While underground, it most likely gets hold of many an unfortunate lob-worm, mollusc, or crustacean, but on emerging from its retreat it is in its turn preyed upon by the larger fishes. On a calm evening it is an interesting sight to see the surface of the water broken by the repeated plunges of the voracious mackerel as they burst upon the launces from beneath. On the sands at Portobello, near Edinburgh, people of all ages may be seen when the tide is out diligently searching for the sand launce, and raking them out with iron hooks. On the south coast of Devonshire, where the sand launces are extremely plentiful, the fishermen employ a small seine with a fine mesh, and are frequently so successful that six or seven bushels are taken at one haul. The usual length of the sand launce is from five to seven inches. In many localities it is prepared for table, and considered a great delicacy.

Although the Lamprey essentially differs from the eel in the formation of its gills, the softness of its cartilaginous skeleton, and its funnel-shaped mouth provided with sharp teeth, disposed in circles, yet it resembles it closely in its outward form. Its colour is generally a dull brownish olive, clouded with yellowish-white variegations; the fins are tinged with dull orange, and the tail with blue. The Marine or Sea Lamprey inhabits the ocean, but ascends the rivers in spring. Though capable of swimming with considerable vigour and rapidity, it is more commonly seen attached by the mouth to some large stone or other substance, the body hanging at rest, or obeying the motion of the current. Its power of adhesion is so great that a weight of more than twelve pounds may be raised without forcing the fish to quit its hold. Like the eel, it is remarkably tenacious of life, the head strongly attaching itself for several hours to a stone, though by far the greater part of the body be cut away from it. The lamprey is still considered as a delicacy; every schoolboy knows that King Henry I. died of an indigestion caused by this favourite dish; and the town of Gloucester still sends every Christmas a lamprey-pie to Queen Victoria, such as it was wont to offer to its sovereign in the days of the Plantagenets and Tudors.

The Myxine, Glutinous Hag, or Borer, bears a near resemblance to the lamprey, but stands upon a much inferior degree of organisation, having no eyes—(the sole example of blindness among fishes), and a still softer skeleton, so that, when boiled, it almost entirely dissolves into mucus. In the lamprey and myxine, the branchial cells, which admit water, are lined by the delicate membrane through which the blood is aËrated. In the former, however, the external apertures of the branchial cells are placed on the side of the neck; while in the myxine, which feeds on the internal parts of its prey, and buries its head and part of its body in the flesh, the openings of the respiratory organs are removed sufficiently far back to admit of the respiration going on while the animal's head is so inserted. Thus, even in this lowest and meanest of all vertebrate animals, we find a remarkable adaptation of its construction to its wants, and the proof that it has been as well taken care of by its Creator as the highest organised creatures of its class.

One of the most remarkable orders of fishes is that of the Plectognaths, which are distinguished by having the superior maxillary bones and the intermaxillaries soldered together so as to render the upper jaw immovable, or incapable of projection. Among the Plectognaths, we find among others the prickly Globe-fishes and sea-porcupines; the curiously-shaped Sun-fishes, all head and no body; the Ostracions or Trunk-fishes, clothed like the armadillos in a defensive coat of mail, leaving only the tail, fins, mouth, and a small portion of the gill-opening, capable of motion; and the gorgeous BalistÆ or File-fishes, which owe their family-name to the peculiar structure of their first dorsal fin. The first and strongest spine of this organ is studded up the front with numerous small projections, which, under the microscope, look like so many points of enamel or pearl arising from the surface of the bone and giving it the appearance of a file. The second smaller spine has in the fore part of its base a projection which, when the spines are elevated, locks into a corresponding notch in the posterior base of the first spine, and fixes it like the trigger of a gun-lock; from which the fish is called in Italy pesce balestra, or the cross-bow fish. The strong spine cannot be forced down till the small one has been first depressed and the catch disengaged.

The Plectognaths are mostly denizens of the warmer seas, but the pig-faced trigger-fish of the Mediterranean (Balistes capriscus) has been caught three times in the British waters since 1827, and the short sun-fish or molebut, though occurring but occasionally, may be said to have been taken from John o' Groat's to the Land's End. It grows to an immense size, often attaining the diameter of four feet, sometimes even double that size, and occasionally weighing from 300 to 500 pounds. When observed in our seas, the sun-fishes have generally appeared as though they were dead or dying, floating lazily along on one side and making little or no attempt to escape. It is to be presumed that in more congenial waters they evince a greater degree of liveliness.

The order of the Lophobranchii is in many respects too curious and interesting to be passed over in silence. Here the gills, instead of being as usual ranged like the teeth of a comb, are clustered into small filamentous tufts placed by pairs along the branchial arches; the face projects into a long tubular snout, having the mouth either at its extremity, as in the Hippocampus and in the Pipe-fishes, or at its base, as in the Pegasus of the Indian seas; and the body is covered with shields or small plates, which often give it an angular form, and encase it as it were in jointed armour. But the most interesting feature of their economy is the pouches in which the males of the most characteristic genera carry the eggs until they are hatched. In the hippocampi this provision for the safety of the future generation, which strongly reminds one of the kangaroo or the opossum, forms a perfect sack, opening at its commencement only; in the pipe-fishes it is closed along its whole length by two soft flaps folding over each other. Another peculiarity of these interesting little fishes is the independent motion of their eyes, the one glancing hither and thither while its fellow remains motionless, or looks in different directions. This phenomenon of double vision, which was long supposed to be peculiar to the chameleon, is, however, not confined to this singular reptile or to the hippocampi and pipe-fishes, but has been found by Mr. Gosse to exist likewise in the Little Weever (Trachinus vipera), in the Suckers (Lepidogastri), a small family remarkable for the power they possess of attaching themselves to stones or rocks by means of an adhesive disk on the under surface of their bodies, and in several other fishes.

When imprisoned in an aquarium, few subjects of the deep display more intelligence or afford more entertainment than the little Hippocampus brevirostris, or Sea-Horse.

"While swimming about," says Mr. Lukis,[P] "it maintains a vertical position, but the tail, ready to grasp whatever meets it in the water, quickly entwines itself in any direction round the weeds, and, when fixed, the animal intently watches the surrounding objects, and darts at its prey with great dexterity. When two of them approach each other, they often twist their tails together, and struggle to separate or attach themselves to the weeds; this is done by the under part of their cheeks or chin, which is also used for raising the body when a new spot is wanted for the tail to fasten upon afresh."

"In captivity," says Mr. Gosse, "the manners of the Worm Pipe-Fish (Syngnathus lambriciformis), the smallest of our native species, are amusing and engaging. Its beautiful eyes move independently of each other, like those of the chameleon, and another point of resemblance to that animal our little pipe-fish presents in the prehensile character of its tail. It curves just the tip of this organ laterally round the stem or frond of some sea-weed and holds on by this half-inch or so, while the rest of its body roves to and fro, elevating and depressing the head and fore parts, and throwing the body into the most graceful curves. All the motions of the Pipe-fish manifest much intelligence. It is a timid little thing, retiring from the side of the glass at which it had been lying when one approaches, and hiding under the shadow of the sea-weeds, which I have put in, both to afford it shelter, and also to supply food in the numerous animalcules that inhabit these marine plants. Then it cautiously glides among their bushy fronds, and from under their shelter peeps with its brilliant eyes at the intruder as if wondering what he can be, drawing back gently at any alarming motion. In swimming, it is constantly throwing its body into elegant contortions and undulations; often it hangs nearly perpendicular with the tail near the surface; now and then it butts against the side of the vessel with reiterated blows of its nose, as if it could not make out why it should not go forward where it can see no impediment. Now it twists about as if it would tie its body into a love knot, then hangs motionless in some one of the 'lines of beauty' in which it has accidentally paused."

The family of the PleuronectidÆ or Flat-fishes recommends itself to our notice as much by the singularity of its form as by its usefulness to man. "The want of symmetry," says Yarrell, "so unusual in vertebrated animals, is the most striking and distinctive character of these fishes: the twisted head with both eyes on the same side, one higher than the other, not in the same vertical line, and often unequal in size; the mouth cleft awry, and the frequent want of uniformity in those fins that are in pairs, the pectoral and ventral fins of the under side being generally smaller; and the whole of the colour of the fish confined to one side, while the other side remains white, produce a grotesque appearance: yet a little consideration will prove that these various and seemingly obvious anomalies are perfectly in harmony with that station in nature which an animal possessing such conformation is appointed to fill.

"As birds are seen to occupy very different situations, some obtaining their food on the ground, others on trees, and not a few at various degrees of elevation in the air, so are fishes destined to reside in different depths of water. The flat-fishes and the various species of skate are, by their depressed form of body, admirably adapted to inhabit the lowest position, where they occupy the least space among their kindred fishes."

"Preferring sandy or muddy shores, the place of the flat-fish is close to the ground; where, hiding their bodies horizontally in the loose soil at the bottom, with the head only slightly elevated, an eye on the under side of the head would be useless; but as both eyes are placed on the upper surface, an extensive range of view is afforded in those various directions in which they may either endeavour to find suitable food or avoid dangerous enemies. Light, one great cause of colour, strikes on the upper surface only; the under surface, like that of most other fishes, remains perfectly colourless. Having little or no means of defence, had their colour been placed only above the lateral line on each side, in whatever position they moved their piebald appearance would have rendered them conspicuous objects to all their enemies. When near the ground, they swim slowly, maintaining their horizontal position; and the smaller pectoral and ventral fins, on the under side, are advantageous where there is so much less room for their action than with the larger fins that are above. When suddenly disturbed, they sometimes make a rapid shoot, changing their position from horizontal to vertical; and, if the observer happens to be opposite the white side, they may be seen to pass with the rapidity and flash of a meteor. Soon, however, they sink down again, resuming their previous motionless horizontal position, and are then distinguished with difficulty, owing to their great similarity in colour to the surface on which they rest."

The number of species of the flat-fishes diminishes as the degrees of northern latitude increase. In this country we have twenty-three species; at the parallel of Jutland there are thirteen; on the coast of Norway they are reduced to ten; in Iceland the number is but five, and in Greenland only three.

Many of them attain a considerable size, particularly the Halibut (Pleuronectes hippoglossus). In April 1828 a specimen seven feet six inches long and three feet six inches broad was taken off the Isle of Man, and sent to Edinburgh market. Olafsen mentions that he saw one which measured five ells; and we are told by the Norwegian fishermen that a single halibut will sometimes cover a whole skiff. Let us, however, remember that these stories proceed from the country where monstrous krakens and sea-snakes are most frequently seen, and where the mists of the north seem to produce strange delusions of vision. At all events, the halibut is better entitled to the name of maximus than its relation the Turbot, to which that epithet has been improperly applied by naturalists. The turbot, equally esteemed by the ancients and the moderns for the delicacy of its flesh, is often confounded in our markets with the halibut, but may be easily recognised by the large unequal and obtuse tubercles on its upper part.

The number of turbot brought to Billingsgate within twelve months, up to a recent period, was 87,958. Though very considerable quantities of this fish are now taken on various parts of our own coasts, from the Orkneys to the Land's End, yet a preference is given to those caught by the Dutch fishermen, who are supposed to draw not less than 80,000l. for the supply of the London market alone. According to Mr. Low, it is rare along our most northern shores, but increases in numbers on proceeding to the south.

Next to the turbot, the Sole is reckoned the most delicate of the flat-fishes. It inhabits the sandy shore all round our coast, where it keeps close to the bottom, indiscriminately feeding on smaller testaceous animals, crustacea, annelides, radiata, and the spawn and fry of other fishes. It is found northward as far as the Baltic and the seas of Scandinavia, and southward along the shores of Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean. The consumption is enormous, for Mr. Bertram informs us that no less than 100,000,000 soles are annually brought to the London market.[Q] They seldom take any bait, and are caught almost entirely by trawling. The principal fishing-ground in England is along the south coast from Sussex to Devonshire, where the soles are much larger and considered otherwise superior to those of the north and east. On the Devonshire coast, the great fishing-station is at Brixham in Torbay, where the boats, using large trawling nets from thirty to thirty-six feet in beam, produce a continual supply.

The Plaice and Flounder, though far inferior to the sole in quality, are still in great request as articles of food. On the English coast, the plaice are obtained in abundance on all sandy banks and muddy grounds, wherever either lines or trawl-nets can be used. On the sandy flats of the Solway Frith, they are taken by the fishermen and their families wading in the shoal water with bare feet. When a fish is felt, it is pressed by the foot firmly against the bottom until it can be secured by the hand and transferred to the basket. Long practice gives the dexterity which renders this kind of fishing successful.

In some parts of the North of Europe, where from the rocky nature of the soil the sea is remarkably transparent, plaice and some other flat-fish of large size are taken by dropping down upon them from a boat a doubly-barbed short spear, heavily leaded, to carry it with velocity to the bottom, with a line attached to it, by which the fish, when transfixed, is hauled up.

The Flounder, one of the most common of the flat-fish, is found in the sea and near the mouths of large streams all round our coast, particularly where the bottom is soft, whether of sand, clay, or mud. It also ascends the rivers, and is caught in considerable quantities from Deptford to Richmond by Thames fishermen, who, with the assistance of an apprentice, use a net of a particular sort, called a tuck-sean. "One end of this net," says Yarrell, "is fixed for a short time by an anchor or grapple, and its situation marked by a floating buoy; the boat is then rowed or rather sculled by the apprentice in a circle, the fisherman near the stern handing out and clearing the net: when the circle is completed and a space enclosed, the net is hauled in near the starting-point in a direction across the fixed end."

The Sail-fluke, a species of flat-fish common among the Orkneys, where it is highly prized as an article of food, its flesh being firm and white, is remarkable for its curious habit of coming ashore spontaneously, with its tail erected above the water, like a boat under sail, whence it has derived its name. This it does generally in calm weather, and on sandy shores, and the country people residing near such places train their dogs to catch it. In North Ronaldshay, the northernmost island of the group, a considerable supply is obtained in an original manner: thus described in a letter from a resident inserted in Yarrell's "British Fishes:" "In the winter and early spring, a pair of black-headed gulls take possession of the South Bay, drive away all interlopers, and may be seen at daybreak every morning, beating from side to side, on the wing, and never both in one place, except in the act of crossing as they pass. The sail-fluke skims the ridge of the wave towards the shore with its tail raised over its back, and when the wave recedes is left on the sand, into which it burrows so suddenly and completely that, though I have watched its approach, only once have I succeeded in finding its burrow.

"The gull, however, has a surer eye, and casting like a hawk pounces on the fluke, from which, by one stroke of its bill, it extracts the liver. If not disturbed, the gull no sooner gorges the luscious morsel than it commences dragging the fish to some outlying rock, where he and his consort may discuss it at leisure. By robbing the black backs, I have had the house supplied daily with this excellent fish, in weather during which no fishing-boat could put to sea. Close to the beach of South Bay, a stone wall has been raised to shelter the crops from the sea-spray. Behind this we posted a smart lad, who kept his eye on the soaring gulls. The moment one of the birds made its well-known swoop, the boy rushed to the sea-strand shouting out with all his might. He was usually in time to scare the gull away and secure the fluke, but almost in every case with the liver torn out. If the gull by chance succeeded in carrying his prey off the rock, he and his partner set up a triumphant cackling, as if deriding the disappointed lad."

The Rays resemble the side-swimmers by the flatness of their form, but differ widely from them in many other particulars. Like the sharks and sturgeons, they belong to the cartilaginous fishes, and as their branchiÆ adhere to the cells, these respiratory membranes are not furnished with a gill-cover, but communicate freely with the water by means of five spiracles on either side. More unsightly fishes can hardly be conceived. The rhomboidal broad body, the long narrow tail frequently furnished with two and sometimes three small fins, and mostly armed with one or more rows of sharp spines along its whole length, the dirty colour, and the thick coat of slime with which it is covered, render them pre-eminently disgusting. Their mode of defending themselves is very effectual, and forms a striking contrast to the helplessness of the flat fish. The point of the nose and the base of the tail are bent upwards towards each other, and the upper surface of the body being then concave, the tail is lashed about in all directions over it, and the rows of sharp spines frequently inflict severe wounds.

Eleven species of rays are found on the British coasts, some, like the skates, with a perfectly smooth skin; others, like the thornback, with an upper surface studded with spines, and some, like the sting-ray, with a tail still more powerfully armed with a long serrated spine: a formidable weapon, which the fish strikes with the swiftness of an arrow into its prey or enemy, when with its winding tail it makes the capture secure. The lacerations inflicted by the tropical sting-rays produce the most excruciating tortures. An Indian who accompanied Richard Schomburgk on his travels through Guiana, being hit by one of these fishes while fording a river, tottered to the bank, where he fell upon the ground and rolled about on the sand with compressed lips in an agony of pain. But no tear started from the eye, no cry of anguish issued from the breast, of the stoical savage. An Indian boy wounded in the some manner, but less able to master his emotions, howled fearfully, and flung himself upon the sand, biting it in the paroxysm of his anguish. Although both had been hit in the foot, they felt the severest pain in the loins, in the region of the heart, and in the arm-pits. A robust man, wounded by a sting-ray, died in Demarara under the most dreadful convulsions.

The rays are very voracious; their food consists of any sort of fish, mollusc, annelide, or crustacean, that they can catch. So powerful are their muscles and jaws that they are able to crush the strong shell of a crab with the greatest ease. Even in our seas they attain a considerable size. Thomas Willoughby makes mention of a single skate of two hundred pounds' weight, which was sold in the fish market at Cambridge to the cook of St. John's College, and was found sufficient for the dinner of a society, consisting of more than a hundred and twenty persons. Dr. G. Johnston measured a sharp-nosed ray at Berwick, which was seven feet nine inches long and eight feet three inches broad. But our European rays are far from equalling the colossal dimensions of the sea-devil of the Pacific. This terrific monster swims fast, and often appears on the surface of the ocean, where its black unwieldy back looks like a huge stone projecting above the waters. It attains a breadth of twelve or fifteen feet, and Lesson was presented by a fisherman of Borabora with a tail five feet long. The Society Islanders catch the hideous animal with harpoons, and make use of its rough skin as rasps or files in the manufacture of their wooden utensils.

Creatures so voracious and well armed as the rays would have attained a dangerous supremacy in the maritime domains had they equalled most other fishes in fecundity. Fortunately for their neighbours, they seldom produce more than one young at a time, which, as in the sharks, is enclosed in a four-cornered capsule ending in slender points, but not, as in the former, produced into long filaments.

Thus nature has in this case set bounds to the increase of a race which else might have destroyed the balance of marine existence; in most fishes, however, she has been obliged to provide against the danger of extinction by a prodigal abundance of new germs. If the cod did not annually produce more than nine millions of eggs, and the sturgeon more than seven; if the flat-fish, mackerels, and herrings, did not multiply by hundreds of thousands, they could not possibly maintain themselves against the vast number of their enemies. "Not one egg too much," every one will say who considers that of all the myriads of germs which are deposited on the shallow sand-banks and shores to be quickened by the fructifying warmth of the sun, not one in a hundred comes to life, as fishes and molluscs, crabs and radiata, devour the spawn with equal voracity; that a thousand dangers await the young defenceless fry, since everywhere in the oceanic realms no other right is known than that of the stronger; and that, finally, the insatiable rapacity of man is continually extirpating millions on millions of the full-grown fishes. But if very few of this much-persecuted race die a natural death, a life of liberty makes them some amends for their violent end. The tortured cart-horse or the imprisoned nightingale would, if they could reflect, willingly exchange their hard lot and joyless existence for the free life of the independent fish, who, from the greater simplicity of his structure, his want of higher sensibilities, his excellent digestion, and the more equal temperature of the element in which he lives, remains unmolested by many of the diseases to which the warm-blooded and particularly the domestic animals are subject.