FISH IN GENERAL. 27 



benefits they confer on man, than those which belong to the 

 class of fishes. The superior importance of fish alone caused 

 their name to be extended to all aquatic animals ; ancient 

 authors, and even writers of the present day, together with the 

 precise terminology of the law, are liable to the imputation of 

 misapplying the name of fish to cetaceous animals, and to 

 mollusca and Crustacea, although the confusion of ideas pro- 

 duced by the misapplication of the term might be avoided the 

 more easily, since fish are a class of animals which can be 

 most readily circumscribed by invariable characters K 



The definition of fish, such as we find it in the writings of 

 modern naturalists, is perfectly clear and precise. They are 

 rertebrated animals with red blood, breathing through the 

 medium of water by means of branchicB. This definition is 

 the result of observation ; the product of analysis, or what is 

 termed in physics, an empirical formula : but demonstrated to 

 be correct by the inverse method : for, when properly taken, 



1 A few years ago there was a trial at New York upon this subject : the 

 payment of duty upon whale oil being resisted on the ground that the 

 words of the law were confined to oils produced from fish, and as whale 

 was not fish, the oil from that animal, it was contended, did not come 

 within the letter of the law. To support the allegation, naturalists of 

 ability and Professors of the University gave it in evidence that whale 

 were not fish ; but the jury woidd not be convinced by the learned dis- 

 tinctions of science, and gave a verdict according to what they conceived 

 to be the meaning, though it was not the letter, of the law. It might, 

 however, be as well a question of investigation with legislators, when 

 framing enactments where scientific terminology and definitions are 

 applicable, whether there would not be an advantage in the admission of 

 the phraseology, particularly of naturalists, which embraces such exact 

 definitions that they cannot be evaded or misinterpreted, and therefore 

 would in that particular obviate all the vagueness so often reproached to 

 the framers of legal instruments. The definition of what we are to 

 understand by the word fish above given, is a proof in point. The Church 

 of Rome regards coot as fish, and why should seal oil not be the produce 

 of fish in a legal view, since whale is classed with them ? 



