472 



FISH. 



described in popular works under this name, although 

 some of them are beetles. 



FISH. Ichthos is the Greek name for a fish, and 

 from this, that branch of natural history which treats 

 of fishes is called Ichthyology, which means " the 

 voice of fishes," or the account which they can give 

 of themselves, not in words, of course, for fishes are 

 remarkable for their silence, but in such facts and 

 relations as human observation can collect concerning 

 them. Fishes form the fourth and last division of 

 vertebrated animals in Cuvier's structural arrangement 

 of the animal kingdom ; and, from the length of time, 

 and close and scrutinising attention which he be- 

 stowed upon this class of animals, his arrangement of 

 them must be considered as perfect a model of a 

 natural system as the whole mass of acquired know- 

 ledge, in the hands of probably the ablest and the 

 most candid generaliser that ever devoted his talents 

 to the promotion of the knowledge of nature, could 

 afford ; and it is well for the world that there was a 

 Cuvier to give a scientific form to this department of 

 natural history, and give to the makers of local 

 discoveries a foundation upon which they can build 

 with safety. The advantage of this in the class of 

 fishes, above all other classes in the animal kingdom, 

 must become apparent to any one who reflects for a 

 moment on the field which the fishes occupy, and the 

 powers with which they are endowed of increasing 

 their numbers. 



We need hardly mention, that, with few and casual 

 exceptions, such as the march of an eel for a few 

 yards over the meadow, or the passage of a flying fish 

 for a few yards through the air, the fishes are all 

 inhabitants of the waters ; and though it is possible 

 that the number of them in the fresh waters may not 

 be much less than that of the land mammalia, 

 or the land birds, yet this number, vast as it is, sinks 

 into nothing when we turn our attention to the 

 sea. 



Any one who is in the least conversant with the 

 elements of descriptive geography must be aware 

 that the extent of the sea is much greater in mere 

 surface than that of the land : that, if we reckon the 

 whole surface of the globe, in round numbefs, at two 

 hundred millions of square miles, which is not very 

 wide of the truth, the land occupies only about sixty 

 millions of these, while the sea extends over one 

 hundred and forty millions, or double the extent of 

 the land, and a third over. This, however, is not all, 

 nor nearly all, when we come to consider the capa- 

 bilities of the two for being the abodes of life. In the 

 first place, the land contains many portions, and those 

 of considerable extent, which are permanent!}' barren, 

 and incapable of furnishing food for a single living 

 creature, while many other parts of it are subject to 

 periodical barrenness. The sea, on the other hand, 

 contains no barren spot, for its waters are everywhere 

 nearly the same both in composition and in degree of 

 temperature ; and thus, taking surface for surface, and 

 considering the animals which are adapted for the 

 two great component parts, it is the land which is 

 Comparatively the desert, while " the waste of waters," 

 as it is sometimes called, is fertility all over. But, in 

 the second place, even this is taking a view of the 

 subject too favourable for the land, and therefore un- 

 just to the productive powers of the sea. It is the 

 surface of the land only which yields food for its in- 

 lutbiunts, or, at most, the trers and plants which grow 

 out of it ; und as there certainly is not a tree or plant 



upon the face of the land answering to every hundred 

 square feet, that is, to every square of ten feet, and 

 rising to the height of one hundred feet, we may 

 safely say that one foot of habitable depth is an ample 

 allowance for the land. It is not, in fact, the tenth, 

 or even the hundredth part of this ; but we shall 

 allow it to be one foot, and then let us proceed to 

 compare its habitable and supporting extent with the 

 habitable and supporting extent of the sea. To 

 gauge the sea is out of the question, for it is rather a 

 difficult task to gauge a mill-pond, if it be anything 

 irregular in shape and depth ; but those who have 

 paid the most attention to such analogies as are 

 attainable upon a subject so vastly great, have as- 

 signed to the whole of the sea an average depth of 

 between four and five miles. Let us, however, take 

 it at the depth at which fish have actually been 

 caught, namely, fifty fathoms, or six hundred feet 

 (and we are not warranted in saying that this is the 

 lowest limit), and we have every mile of sea equal to 

 six hundred miles of land, or the whole pasture of the 

 fishes to that of the land animals as fourteen hundred 

 to one. It is true, that the fishes which are taken at 

 these great depths are peculiar that they have great 

 eyes like the owls and other nocturnal feeders among 

 land animals, indicating a deficiency of light in their 

 profound abode ; but we know not the limit, even in 

 the depth of the ocean, beyond which we are war- 

 ranted in saying that there can be no living creature. 

 Such is the pasture which the Author of Nature has 

 prepared for the fishes ; and, in order that they may 

 increase and multiply, so as to replenish this ample 

 pasture, he has endowed them with reproductive 

 powers of the most extraordinary character. Some 

 of the land animals are no doubt very prolific, but 

 the races which are so are very minute in their size, 

 and the duration of their lives is brief, they being 

 seasonal only on most parts of the land, and in most 

 situations. Some of the most productive inhabitants 

 of the sea are, on the other hand, of large dimensions, 

 and, instead of being merely seasonal, as is the case 

 with land animals of very numerous progeny, they 

 not only last for years, but, as we shall show by and 

 by, they do not contain in their structure that 

 element of death which ultimately brings the most 

 long-lived inhabitants of the land to mingle with its 

 dust. As an instance, we may mention the common 

 cod-fish, which contributes so largely and so whole- 

 somely to the food of many nations, and which, not- 

 withstanding the great number of hands employed in 

 its capture, never appears one jot less plentiful. A 

 single cod-fish produces, at one birth, as many as 

 between three millions and four millions of young ; 

 while the common flounder produces not much less 

 than a million and a half. These statements are well 

 calculated to stagger the belief of any one who has 

 not attended to the subject ; but they are the results 

 of actual observation in counting the number of eggs 

 in the roe, by those who could have no earthly object 

 in the matter other than the discovery of the truth. 

 We have thrown out these hints in order to show how 

 well worthy the finny tribes are of our most careful 

 observation and study ; and having done so, we 

 shall proceed to give a brief general view of the 

 class. In order to render this view as intelligible, 

 and, at the same time, as complete as the narrow 

 limits within which we must confine it will allow, we 

 shall divide it into four parts or sections : first, the 

 general structural definition, of a fa'sh ; secondly, a 



