50 



INTRODUCTION. 



lieart, circulating cold blood, and, in general, ovi- 

 parous. The skeleton of fislies is composed of 

 either cartilage or proper bone ; and this circum- 

 stance, combined with many peculiarities in their 

 general structure and economy, has furnished oc- 

 casion for arranging the whole tribe of Fishes into 

 two great families. Cartilaginous and Osseous. 



Fishes, as inliabitants of a medium so widely 

 different from that in which man and terrestrial 

 creatures exist, and, in general, rapidly perishing 

 when withdrawn from their native element, are 

 much less frequently the objects of our observation 

 than those animals which, as sharing with us the 

 vital influence of the atmosphere, and being inha- 

 bitants of the soil on which we ourselves rest, we 

 meet with at every turn, and with the forms and 

 habits of which we become, almost unconsciously, 

 more or less familiar. They are rarely domesticated 

 in our houses ; we do not meet with them in our 

 walks ; they are never presented to us in our me- 

 nageries ; — nay, we seldom find preparations of 

 them even in our museums : we see them, for the 

 most part, only in our markets, or on oiu* tables, 

 and know them chiefly but as administering to our 

 palates. If even we follow them to their native 

 haunts, it is too frequently in the same spirit that 

 we pursue the fluttering bird with our gun, or the 

 panting hare with our hounds, — in pursuit of a 

 barbarous sport, and with no other end in view 

 than the gratification of vanity, in the contempla- 

 tion of our dexterity in hooking and torturing them. 



