LOCOMOTION OF FISHES. 123 



of human artificers, of which he may make a 

 bungling copy, but after the exquisite perfection of 

 which, he pants and toils in vain. 



As connected with the station and locomotion of 

 fishes, it is incumbent upon us to say a few words 

 of the means by which many fishes are enabled to 

 keep themselves stationary in the water, in defiance 

 of the tendency of tides and tempests to dislodge 

 them from their place. This of course might, in 

 all cases, have been done by a muscular effort on 

 the part of the animal, calculated to counteract this 

 tendency, and such is indeed the means by which 

 fishes in general contrive to keep their station in 

 the most turbulent and rapid seas ; but the neces- 

 sity for such a waste of muscular power has been, 

 in some cases, superseded by other contrivances. 

 Thus the lamprey maintains its post among the 

 stones at the bottom of the water chiefly by means 

 of its tubular lips ; the sucking power of which — 

 that is to say, the degree of press^lre with which, by 

 forming a vacuum within, they are capable of 

 making the smToundIng medi um bear upon them — 

 is so great, that the animal might be raised out of 

 the water with a stone of ten or twelve pounds 

 weight attached to them. The pressure of the 

 atmosphere, it is sufficiently well known, is equal 

 to fifteen pounds for every square inch of surface ; 

 and that of the water -will be of couise greater than 



