622 PISCES. 



(1665.) We are likewise justified in anticipating that, in intelligence, 

 and in the relative perfection of their senses, Fishes should be less highly 

 endowed than the other vertebrate classes. Plunged in the immea- 

 surable depths of the ocean, whereunto no sound can ever penetrate 

 dwellers in the realms of eternal silence, where even the roar of the 

 storm is lost, vivid and distinct perceptions of sound can be little needed. 

 Surrounded by a turbid element, through which the rays of light with 

 difficulty make their way, the sphere of vision must necessarily be ex- 

 tremely limited. Immersed in a fluid but little adapted to distribute 

 odorous particles, a refined sense of smell would be a useless provision. 

 Taste, if it exists at all, must be blunted to the utmost, from the cir- 

 cumstances under which fishes seize and swallow prey ; and even the 

 sense of touch, in animals encased in scales and deprived of prehensile 

 limbs, can only be exercised in a vague and imperfect manner. 



(1666.) With such inferiority in their powers of communication with 

 the external world, and with faculties so circumscribed, we might justly 

 infer that, as relates to their intellectual powers, Fishes hold a position 

 equally debased and degraded. Destitute of the means of social inter- 

 course, deprived of all sympathy even with individuals of their own 

 species, friendless and mateless, the fish is denied even the privileges of 

 sexual attachment; the female for the most part ejects her countless 

 eggs into the sea, as heedless of the male that blindly fecundates them 

 as she is careless of the progeny to which they give birth. Thus, to pursue 

 and destroy their prey constitutes their chief enjoyment during life, and 

 to be devoured at last is the great end of their existence. 



(1667.) We shall commence our account of the anatomy of FISHES by 

 an examination of the internal skeleton which forms the framework of 

 their bodies. The reader has already seen, in the Cephalopoda, the first 

 appearance of an osseous system in the cartilaginous pieces described in 

 the last chapter, and will necessarily expect that, between the rudi- 

 mental condition which characterizes the cephalic ring of the Cuttle-fish, 

 and the complete and perfect skeleton of the Fish, various gradations of 

 development will occur as we advance progressively from lower to more 

 elevated forms of the finny race. Nor in this will he be deceived. The 

 lowest tribes of Fishes possess a skeleton but little superior in its organi- 

 zation to that of theCephalopod : in the Myxine and Lamprey the cranium 

 is still cartilaginous ; and even the spinal column, not yet divided into 

 vertebrae, resembles a cartilaginous cord extending from the head to the 

 tail. Even in the Sturgeon, the Skate, and the Shark, the skeleton is 

 but very partially ossified ; and thus we are gradually and almost imper- 

 ceptibly conducted to the strong and bony framework of the typical 

 Fishes. 



(1668.) But the most curious instance of gradation between the true 

 Fishes and the Mollusca is met with in the AmpTiioxus. The Amphioxus 

 is met with in all the European seas, but is more especially abundant in 



