EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. IxXV 



•< which does not fall off till toward the end of June ; 

 *' thenceforward they fee, and are caught by the line*." 

 His teftimony is confirmed by other Navigators, though 

 there was no neceflity for it. 



Other fiflies, fuch as herrings, expofe their filvery legions 

 to glitter in the Sun on the northern ftrands of Europe and 

 America, fhaded with firs, and advance forward and for- 

 ward, till they reach even the palm-groves of the Line, 

 forcing their way along the fhores, in oppofition to the 

 tides of the South, which are continually fupplying them 

 with frefli pafture. 



Others, as the thunny, make their way, by favour of 

 thefe very tides, and enter, in the Spring, into the Mediter- 

 ranean, of which they make a complete circuit ; and, 

 though they leave no trace on their watery way, they do not 

 fail to render themfelves vifible in the darkefl: night, by 

 means of the phofphoric lights which their motion excites. 

 It is by thofe fame gleams of light that we perceive, in the 

 night-time, the turtle with their dufky colour, on the fur- 

 face of the waters. You would imagine that thefe ani- 

 mals, furrounded by light, had flambeaus affixed to their 

 fins and tails. The phofphoric qualities, accordingly, of 

 the fea-water, are in unifon even with the noélurnal voyages 

 of fifhes. 



The Sun is the grand mover in all thefe harmonics. 

 Arrived at the Equinox, he abandons one Pole to Winter, 

 and gives to the other the fignal of Spring, by the fires with 

 which he environs it. The heated Pole pours out, in every 



* Natural Hiftory of North- America, chap. ii. 



dire£lion, 



