CHAPTER XXII. 



THE WORLD OF FISHES 



" He giveth food to all flesh." Ps. cxxxvi. 

 "Which giveth food to the hungry." Ps. cxlvi. 7. 



A WORLD abundantly peopled. A world 

 ^^ which holds its myriads, uncountable in 

 kinds, beyond reckoning in numbers. 



No part of the wide Ocean may be found 

 where fishes are not, and in places, at seasons, 

 the water positively teems with them, so that 

 they may be said almost to hustle one another 

 for want of space. Fishes, taken by themselves, 

 letting alone jelly-inhabitants and shell-inhabitants 

 and crab-inhabitants, would suffice to keep the 

 whole sea alive. 



No picture of the Great Deep would be, even 

 in the humblest sense, complete without some 

 little description of the world of Fish-life con- 

 tained therein. 



But the subject is one of hopeless magnitude 

 to be dealt with in a couple of short chapters. 



A mere list of the names and chief charac- 

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