FISHES. 19 



The grave would be abolished ; this gay world, 



A valley of dry bones, a Golgotha, 



In which the living stumbled o'er the dead, 



Till they could fall no more, and blind perdition 



Swept frail mortality away for ever. 



'Twas wisdom, mercy, goodness, that ordain 'd 



Life in such infinite profusion, — Death, 



So sure, so prompt, so multiform, to those 



That never sinn'd, that know not guilt, that fear 



No wrath to come, and have no heaven to lose." * 



The voracity of Fishes is very great ; there 

 seems no limit to their appetite but the actual 

 capacity of their stomach. Mr. Jesse tells of 

 a Pike, to which he *' threw, one after the other, 

 five Roach, each about four inches in length. 

 He swallowed four of them, and kept the fifth in 

 his mouth for about a quarter of an hour, when 

 it also disappeared." Digestion, however, is very 

 rapid in predatory fishes ; in a few hours not a 

 single bone remains in the stomach or intestines 

 of a Fish that has been swallowed. Mr. Frazer, 

 in his " History of the Salmon," says, that he 

 has found seven small Fishes in a Grilse (or 

 young Salmon) of three pounds and a-half, and 

 several Herrings in the body of Salmon, and that 

 the digestion was so rapid that fire or water could 

 not consume them more quickly. A remarkable 

 example of the voracity of these animals is men- 

 tioned in the following extract from a lecture 

 delivered before the Zoological Society of Dublin 

 by Dr. Houston. 



" This preparation (for the fidelity of which I 

 can vouch, as it belongs to the Museum of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, and v/hich may be 

 taken as a fair average specimen of a Fish's 

 breakfast party, captured at an early hour of the 

 * Montgomery's " Pelican Island." 



