656 



A HISTORY OF 



threepence. Thusthe money paid for pilchards 

 exported, has annually amounted to nenr fifty 

 thousand pounds." 



Whence these infinite numbers arc derived, 

 still remains obscure ; but it will increase our 

 wonder to be told, that so small a fish as the 

 stickleback, which is seldom above two inches 

 long, and that one would think could easily 

 find support in any water, is yet obliged to 

 colonize, and leave its native fens in search of 

 new habitations. Once every seventh or 

 eighth year, amazing shoals of these appear 

 in the river Welland, near Spalding, and come 

 up the stream, forming one great column. 

 They are supposed to be multitudes collected 

 in some of the fens, till overcharged with 

 numbers, they are periodically obliged to mi- 

 grate. An idea may be had of their numbers, 

 when we are informed, that a man, employed 

 by a farmer to take them, for the purpose of 

 manuring his grounds, has got, for a consider- 

 able time, four shillings a day, by selling them 

 at a halfpenny a bushel ! 



Thus we see the amazing propagation of 

 fishes along our own coasts and rivers ; but 

 their numbers bear no proportion to the vast 

 quantities found among the islands of the 

 Indian ocean. The inhabitants of these coun- 

 tries are not under the necessity even of pro- 

 viding instruments for fishing ; it is but going 

 down to the shore, and there the fish are 

 found in great numbers in the plashes that 

 still continue to have water in them. In some 

 of these places the quantity is so great, that 

 they are left in shoals on those swamps, dried 

 up by the sun, and their putrefaction contri- 

 butes to render the country unhealthful. 



This power of increasing in these animals, 

 exceeds our ideas, as it would, in a very short 

 time, outstrip all calculation. A single her- 

 ring, if suffered to multiply unmolested and 

 undiminished for twenty years, would show a 

 progeny greater in bulk than ten such globes 

 as that we live upon. But happily the 

 balance of nature is exactly preserved ; and 

 their consumption is equal to their fecundity. 

 For this reason we are to consider the por- 

 poise, the shdrk, or the cod-fish, not in the 

 light of plunderers and rivals, but of benefac- 

 tors to mankind. Without their assistance, 

 the sea would soon become overcharged with 

 the burden of its own productions; and that 

 element, which at present distributes health 



and plenty to the shore, would but load it 

 with putrefaction. 



In the propagation of all fish, some degree 

 of warmth seems absolutely necessary, not 

 only to their preservation, but to the advance- 

 ment of their posteriiy. Their spawn is 

 always deposited in those places where the 

 sun-beams may reach them, either at the bot- 

 tom of shallow shores, or floating on the sur- 

 face in deeper waters. A small degree of 

 heat answers all the purposes of incubation, 

 and the animal issues from the egg in its state 

 of perfect formation, never to undergo any 

 succeeding change. 



Yet, still 1 have some doubts whether most 

 fish come from the egg con pletely formed. 

 We know that in all the frog tribe, and many 

 of the lizard kind, they are produced from the 

 egg in an imperfect form. The tadpole, or 

 young frog, with its enormous head and slen- 

 der tail, are well known ; a species of the 

 lizard also, which is excluded from the sh< 11 

 without legs, only acquires them by degn PS, 

 and not till after some time does it put off its 

 serpent form. It is probable that some kinds 

 of fish in like manner suffer a change ; and 

 though it be too inconsiderable to strike the 

 fisherman or the inattentive spectator, yet it 

 makes a very material difference to the natu- 

 ralist, and would perhaps disarrange his most 

 favourite systems. A slight alteration in the 

 fins or bones that cover the gills would over- 

 turn the whole fabric of the most applauded 

 ichthyologist ; and yet, as I observed, it is 

 most probable that these minute alterations 

 often take place. 



As a proof of this, during the month of July, 

 there appear near Greenwich innumerable 

 shoals of small fishes, which are known to the 

 Londoners by the name of White Bait. It is 

 universally agreed that they are the young of 

 some fish ; they are never seen but at this 

 time of the year, and never found to have any 

 roe, a circumstance that proves their not 

 bring come to maturity. The quantity is 

 amazing ; and the fish that produces them in 

 such numbers must be in plenty, though it is 

 not yet known what that fish is, as they cor- 

 respond with no other species whatever. 

 They most resemble the smelt in form ; and 

 yet they want a fin, which that animal is 

 never without. They cannot be the bleak, 

 as they are never found in other rivers where 



