FIS 



INDEX. 



FIS 



21 



bring the ferret from his hole, straw and other substances burnt at 

 the mouth ; the female less than the male, whom she seeks with 

 great ardour, and often dies without being admitted ; they sleep 

 almost continually, and the instant they awake seem eager for 

 food ; are usually fed with bread and milk ; breed twice a year ; 

 some devour their young as soon as brought forth, and then be- 

 come fit for the malu again ; they litter usually from five to six 

 young, and these consist of more females than males ; its scent 

 foetid ; its nature voracious ; has attacked and killed children in 

 the cradle ; is easily irritated, and then smells more offensively ; 

 its bite difficult of cure ; lias eight grinding teeth ; to the ferret 

 kind may by added an animal called by Mr. Buffon, the vansirc, 

 332, 333 ; comes originally from Africa, 3.11 . 



Fever, opinion that tho lion is in a continual fever, 295. 

 Fumet, name of the excrement of the stag, 202. 

 Fibres, muscular, compose the stomachs of insects, 232. 

 Fieldfare, bird of the sparrow kind, 537. 

 Fielding. See Smile. 



Figure, little known exactly of the proportion of the human 

 figure, 148 ; different opinions concerning it, 149; whence proceed 

 the variations in the human figure, 134 ; the oldest measure of the 

 human figure in the monument of Cheops, in the first pyramid of 

 Egypt, 141. 



Finder, a dog of the generous kind, 312. 



Fins, different purposes they answer in fishes, 606; those of 

 the whale ; their use, 617, 018. 

 Fin-Jink, 610 ; its food, 619. 



Fingers, by habit, and not from a greater number of nerves, be- 

 come exacter in the art of feeling than any other part even where 

 sensation is more delicate and fine, 170. 



Fire, perpetual in the kingdom of Persia, 25; advantages aris- 

 ing from the subterranean fires, 36 ; put out by the sun shining 

 upon it, and why, 98; fleeting balls of fire, 110; great globe of 

 fire seen at Bononia in Italy, not less than a mile long, and half a 

 mile broad, 111, 112; lighted to preserve herds and flocks from ani- 

 mals of the cat kind, 294. 



Fireflare, the dread of the boldest and most experienced fisher- 

 men ; Pliny, ^Elian, and Oppian, supply the weapon of this fish 

 with a venom affecting even inanimate creation ; reasons to doubt 

 of it, 635. -^ 



Fishes, petrified, found in the mountains of Castravan, 13; fish 

 in abundance found in a new formed island ; those who eat of them 

 died shortly after, 37 ; cannot live in water whence the air is ex- 

 h nstcd, 03 ; showers of fishes raised in the air by tempests, 114 ; 

 most of them produced from the egg, 126 ; have no eye-lids at all, 

 142; nor any neck. 147; are allured by music, 105; having n<t 

 organs for feeling, must be stupid, 170 ; a ruminating sort, 232; 

 opinion that all fish are naturally of the salt element, and have 

 mounted up into fresh water by accidental migration ; some swim 

 up rivers to deposit their spawn, of which the size is enormous, 

 and the shoals endless ; all keep to the sea, and would expire in 

 fresh water ; the number to which names are given, and of the 

 figure of which something is known, according to Linnaeus, are 

 above four hundred ; their pursuits, migrations, societies, antipa- 

 thies, pleasures, times of gestation, manner of bringing forth, are 

 all hidden in the turbulent element that protect them ; the history 

 of fishes can have little in it entertaining ; for instead of study- 

 ing their nature, p;iins have been taken to increase their cata- 

 logues ; that shape granted to most fishes, is imitated in such ves- 

 sels as are designed to sail with the greatest swiftness ; any large 

 fish overtakes a ship in full sail, with great ease ; takes voyages of 

 a thousand leagues in a season ; the shark one of the swiftest 

 swimmers ; the chief instruments in the motion of a fish are the 

 fins; in some they are more numerous than in others; it is not 

 always the fish with the greatest number of fins that has the 

 swiftest motion ; how the fins assist the fish in rising or sinking, 

 in turning or leaping out of the water ; all this explained by the 

 experiment of a carp put into a large vessel ; all fishes covered 

 with a slimy glutinous matter that defends tireir bodies from the 

 immediate contact of the surrounding fluid ; they fall behind ter- 

 restrial animals in their sensations ; their sense of touching and 

 fcinclling ; their sense of tasting ; hearing is found still more im- 

 perfect, if found at all ; Mr Gouan's experiment to this purpose; 

 from it is learned they are as deaf as mute ; their sense of seeing ; 

 their brain ; a ceaseless desire of food gives the ruling impulse to 

 all their motions ; their rapacity insatiable ; when out of water, 

 and almost expiring, they greedily swallow the bait by which they 

 were allured to destruction ; the maw placed next the mouth, and 

 though possessed of no sensible heat, is endued with a faculty of 

 digestion, contrary to the system, that the heat of the stomach is 

 aloua sufficient for digestion ; though for ever prowling, can suf- 



fer want of food very long ; instances of it ; life of a fish but one 

 scene of hostility, violence, and evasion ; the causes of animal mi- 

 gration ; all stand in need of air for support ; those of the whale 

 kind come to the surface of the sea every two or three minutes to 

 breathe fresh air ; experiment of a carp in a large vase of water, 

 |j placed under an air-pump ; general method of explaining respira- 

 lj tion in fishes; the description and uses of their air-bladder; full 

 i; play of the gills prevented, or the bony covers kept from moving, 

 i the animal would fall into convulsions, and die, 005 to Oil ; some 

 '; fishes have no air-bladder ; can live but a few minutes without air ; 

 i nothing more difficult to account for than the manner of getting 

 this supply ; no part of the account of the use of the air-bladder 

 well supported ; Bacon's observations upon their growth and age ; 

 two methods for determining the age of fishes, more ingenious 

 than certain ; a carp found to be a hundred years old ; the disco- 

 very confirmed by authors ; longevity of these animals, nothing 

 compared to their fecundity ; some multiply by millions ; some 

 bring forth their young alive, and some produce eggs ; the former 

 rather the least fruitful ; the viviparous blenny brings forth two or 

 three hundred at a time, all alive, and playing round the parent ; 

 the cod spawns in one season above nine millions of eggs, the 

 flounder above one million, and the mackarel above five hundred 

 thousand ; different seasons for depositing spawn ; some fishes 

 have the tenderness of birds or quadrupeds for their young ; their 

 copulation as yet a doubt; the flesh of fishes; question to tho 

 learned concerning the flesh of fishes ; cetaceous fishes, 611 to 015 ; 

 cartilaginous fishes, 627 ; sucking fish sticks to the shark ; called 

 the shark's pilot, and why, 631 ; all fish more delicate about a 

 baited hook than their ordinary food, 633 ; best bait for all is fresh 

 herring cut in pieces of a proper size ; experience shows, the larger 

 fish take a living small one upon the hook sooner than any other 

 bait, 634 ; more than those of the ray kind possessed of the numb- 

 ing quality ; Condamine informs us of a fish with the powers of 

 the torpedo, and resembling a lamprey ; lamprey of the English 

 Severn the most delicate fish whatever, 037 ; sun-jish described, 

 043 ; lump-fish, ib. ; pipe-fsh, 644 ; ga.Ury-Jlsh, 645 ; spinous 

 fishes, ib. ; Mr. Gouan's system of spinous fishes, 647 to 651 ; use 

 of it; all fish of the same kinds have the same number of bones ; 

 the small, lean, and with many fins, the most bony ; vulgar expres- 

 sion, that fishes at some seasons are more bony than at others, 

 scarce deserves contradiction ; none imbibe the sea-saltness with 

 their food, or in respiration ; whence then do some fishes live 

 there, and quickly expire in fresh water ; some tribes live only in 

 the sea ; others only in fresh water ; some part of the season in 

 one, and a part in the other, as the salmon, the shad, the smelt, 

 and the flounder ; some fish, as the eel, descend the fresh water 

 stream, to bring forth their young in the sea ; in what season , 

 long voyages undertaken by some tribes that constantly reside in 

 the ocean, and may be called the fish of passage ; the stated re- 

 turns and regular progress of these fish of passage, the most ex- 

 traordinary circumstances in the history of nature ; the names 

 of several migrating fishes ; of all such, the herring and pilchard 

 take the most adventurous voyages ; places where found in abun- 

 dance, 651 to 654 ; in the islands of the Indian Ocean, an over- 

 quantity, in shoals, on the swamps, dried up by the sun ; the putre- 

 faction renders the eountry unhealthful ; amazing propagation 

 along our coasts and rivers not proportionate to the quantities 

 among the islands of the Indian Ocean ; places where the spawn 

 is deposited ; doubts whether most fish come from the egg com- 

 pletely formed ; manner in which the eggs of fishes are impreg- 

 nated wholly unknown ; the eel and the blenny bring forth their 

 young alive ; growth of fishes ; instances in the growth of tho 

 carp and mackarel ; all live upon each other, in some state of their 

 existence ; of those in the ocean of the spinous kinds, the dorado 

 the most voracious ; flying fish chiefly sought by the dorado ; their 

 warfare ; opinion that all fishes are natives of the sea, founded 

 upon their superior fecundity of breeding twenty to one ; certainly 

 fresh-water fishes abate of their courage and rapacity ; greediness 

 of the sea-fish to devour the bait prodigious compared with the 

 manner it is taken in fresh water ; difference of bait with which 

 they are caught ; some fishes rendered so torpid in the northern 

 rivers, as to be frozen up in the masses of ice, and continue there 

 several months, seemingly without life or sensation, waiting the 

 approach of a warmer sun, to invite them to life and liberty ; each 

 species of fish infested with worms of different kinds ; most viva- 

 cious animals ; often live upon substances poisonous to the mor9 

 perfect classes of animated nature ; numbers of fishes making poi- 

 sonous wounds scarcely to be doubted ; some fishes being poison- 

 ous is notorious ; the cause inscrutable ; Dr. Grainger, after re- 

 siding many years at St. Christopher's, affirms, that of fish caught 

 at one end of the island, some were good and wholesome, wfciilo 



