NATURAL HISTORY FISH. 205 



fishes, even of the most ravenous kind, as 

 pike, in the stomachs of trout, it never hap- 

 pened to me to see a toad there. I might 

 give you an account of the birth and life of 

 frogs, which, with respect to their generation, 

 resemble fish, and which, when first excluded 

 from the egg, may be considered in the tad- 

 pole state as fish; and you would not find 

 their singular metamorphosis without inter- 

 est. Or, I could detail to you, the true his- 

 tories which naturalists have given of the 

 habits of snails and earthworms, and of the 

 loves of these apparently contemptible ani- 

 mals, from whom almost all sources of plea- 

 sure are cut off, and yet, who in their large 

 hermaphrodite organs, and double inter- 

 course, must, according to all analogy, pos- 

 sess decided advantage over most other 

 beings of creation. Even the renewing or 

 change of shell in the crawfish, when he falls 

 an easy prey to fish in his soft state, is a 

 curious subject not only for the physiologist, 

 but likewise for the chemist. But on these 

 points, I must request you to refer to writers 

 in Natural History: yet I shall perform my 



