266 FISHES. 



reverting only in part towards the Cape of Good 

 Hope, while the rest may reach entirely across the 

 Indian Ocean, float alternately in the direction of 

 the monsoons, or, passing up the straits of the great 

 Islands of Southern Asia, ascend northward till it 

 congregates in the Japan Seas, where it has been 

 observed to be particularly abundant. The Pacific 

 Ocean has, besides, a great variety of other vege- 

 table substances floating with the winds and cur- 

 rents ; and beneath the equatorial line, in the region 

 of frequent calms, vast streaks of peculiar colors often 

 occupy spaces of more than a degree in longitude, 

 indicating the surface of the sea to be covered with 

 fish spawn and with infinite multitudes of medusae 

 and other free acalephae, which have in those latitudes 

 the centre of their existence. It may perhaps be 

 worth remarking, that a chain of soundings is said 

 to exist across the Atlantic, from continent to conti- 

 nent, near the Equator ; certain it is that the Islands 

 of St. Helena, Ascension, Martin Vas, and Fernando 

 de Noronha are frequented by species of fish known 

 on the Coast of Africa or America or on both. 



Although the number of species of fishes clearly 

 proved to visit both continents be not considerable, 

 and fewer reach the Indian Ocean, still various ser- 

 rani, species of Rypticus, poly prion, trichiurus,belone, 

 hemiramphus, &c., are common to the soundings of 

 America as well as of Africa and Europe ; and tribes 

 of caranx, seriolus, centronotus, scomber esox, and 

 sphyraena, are seen not alone about the floating 

 weed, but in much greater number in the track of 

 the medusae, where they as well as troops of pelamis, 

 thynnus and temnodon are accused of acquiring the 

 noxious property which poisons the unwary seamen, 

 and is known by the name of the Ichthyc venom. 



The larger and more voracious species of shark 

 are known to wander through every sea between the 

 Arctic and Antarctic circles, seemingly but little 

 affected by the difference of temperature of the 

 water ; thus Squalus Cornubirus first observed on the 



