44 SUPPLEMENT ON 



shoals still more, and offers soft muddy bottoms, we find the 

 favourite region of stationary fishes, those who with their broad 

 fins, rather fly than swim, are mostly destitute of air-blad- 

 ders, and by nature burrow beneath the soil, such as all the 

 rays and pleuronectes, congers, lophii, cepolae, pteracles, and 

 on firmer bottoms, cyclopteri, blennies, zei, and ammodytes. 

 Within twenty-five fathoms water, where the power of the sun 

 and the actions of the tides begin to admit the growth of 

 submarine vegetation, where alga), caulinea?, ulvas, confervas, 

 and zoophytes, support numerous minute animals, the ge- 

 nera, ophidium, stromateus, murgena, uranoscopus, trachinus, 

 scorpaena, peristedion, labrus, sparus, labrax, lutjanus, esox, 

 murenophis, &c. chiefly resort ; and more in shore among the 

 tide rocks, naked or covered with weeds, are syngnathi, 

 centrisci, smaller blennii, gobii, batrachi, and notopteri : 

 among the stony and sandy flats of similar depth are met 

 lepadogastri, callyonini, lepidopides, gymnetri, osmeri, scorn- 

 beresoces, argentinae, and atherinae. These, with small pleu- 

 ronectes, and the fry of many others, frequent the brackish 

 waters of estuaries, and the young fish descend only into 

 deeper seas when they are sufficiently strong to separate from 

 the clouds of conglomerated thousands, which are constantly 

 seen hovering about sandy shoals in tropical waters '. 



1 The authorities for the above general view, were drawn, 1. From per- 

 sonal researches on the West Coast of Africa, on the East Coast of South 

 America, Trinidad, St. Lucia, Dominica, Curacoa, Jamaica, Honduras 

 Bay, Golfo Dolce, the Gulf Stream, the Coast of the United States, Estuary 

 of St. Lawrence, Strait of Belleisle, Coast of Halifax, and Bank of New- 

 foundland, the British Channel, and Coast of Provence in the Mediter- 

 ranean. 2. From notes and inquiries obtained from our naval surveying 

 officers in the bight of Benin, round the Cape of Good Hope, Straits of 

 Madagascar, Red Sea, Nicobar Islands, New Holland, China Seas, River 

 Plata, Straits of Magellan, Cape Horn, Valparaiso, Callao, California, 

 West Coast of Ireland and Scotland. 3. From Risso, Ichthyology of 

 Nice, and other authors. I ought to name also Peter Restive, an intelli- 



