54 THE PHYSICAL GEOGKxVPHY OF THE SEA. 



SO much esteemed in Virginia and the Carohnas, loses its flavor, 

 and is held in no esteem, when taken on the warm coral banks of 

 the Bahamas. The same is the case with other fish : when taken 

 in the cold water of that coast, they have a delicious flavor and 

 are highly esteemed ; but when taken in the warm water on the 

 other edge of the Gulf Stream, though but a few miles distant, 

 their flesh is soft and unfit for the table. The temperature of the 

 water at the Balize reaches 90°. The fish taken there are not to 

 be compared with those of the same latitude in this cold stream. 

 !N"ew Orleans, therefore, resorts to the cool waters on the Florida 

 coasts for her choicest fish. The same is the case in the Pacific. 

 A current of cold water (§ 398) from the south sweeps the shores 

 of Chili, Peru, and Columbia, and reaches the Gallipagos Islands 

 under the equator. Throughout this whole distance, the world 

 does not afford a more abundant or excellent supply of fish. Yet 

 out in the Pacific, at the Society Islands, where coral abounds, and 

 the water preserves a higher temperature, the fish, though they 

 vie in gorgeousness of coloring with the birds, and plants, and in- 

 sects of the tropics, are held in no esteem as an article of food. I 

 have known sailors, even after long voyages, still to prefer their 

 salt beef and pork to a mess of fish taken there. The few facts 

 which we have bearing upon this subject seem to suggest it as a 

 point of the inquiry to be made, whether the habitat of certain 

 fish does not indicate the temperature of the water ; and whether 

 these cold and warm currents of the ocean do not constitute the 

 great highways through which migratory fishes travel from one 

 region to another. Why should not fish be as much the creatures 

 of climate as plants, or as birds and other animals of land, sea, and 

 air ? Indeed, we know that some kinds of fish are found only in 

 certain climates. In other words, they live where the tempera- 

 ture of the water ranges between certain degrees. 



159. Navigators have often met with vast numbers of young 

 A shoal of sea-net- sca-ncttles (meclusce) drifting along with the Gulf 

 *'^^- Stream, They are known to constitute the princi- 



pal food for the whale ; but whither bound by this route has 

 caused much curious speculation, for it is well known that the 

 habits of the right whale are averse to the warm waters of this 

 stream. An intelligent sea-captain informs me that, several years 

 ago, in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Florida, he fell in with 



