208 ON THE ECONOMICAL USES OF FISHES. 



empty names is almost all that could be given were 

 one SO inclined, and that could hardly afford a cor- 

 rect idea of anything but the number of species so 

 employed. The many noble streams which traverse 

 the country are in general stocked with fish, and 

 none more so than the far-famed Nile. Probably the 

 two best flavoured fish found in that river are the 

 Lates Niloticus, one of the perch family, described 

 and figured in a former volume of this work, and 

 the Pol^pterus Uch'in — the latter of which is rare 

 At the Cape, the neighbouring rivers are said to be 

 singularly devoid of fish, but the seas around amply 

 make up for this deficiency. " I was present," says 

 M. Adamson, "at a very extraordinary capture of 

 fish, made in March, 1750, on the coast of Ben, 

 "vvithin a league of the island of Goree, by the com- 

 pany belonging to one of the East India ships, which 

 had anchored in the road. They had only a net of 

 about sixty fathoms, which they threw at a venture 

 into the sea ; for thev were not so lucky as to espy 

 any of those shoals of fishes : yet they had such 

 enterprising success, that the shore was covered, the 

 whole length of the net with the fish they caught, 

 though the net was in a bad condition, I reckoned 

 part of them, and judged that they might in all be 

 upwards of 6000, the least of them as large as a fine 

 carp. There you might see pilchards, rock-fish, 

 mullets, or gull-fish, of different sorts; molebats, 

 with other fishes very little known. The negroes of 

 the neighbouring viHage took each their load, and 

 the ship's crew tilled their boat till it was ready to 



