244 



HISTORY OF FISHES. 



a muscle, which serves to lengthen or flatten 

 it, according to the necessities of the animal. 

 The crystalline humour, which in quadrupeds 

 is flat, and of the shape of a button-mould, in 

 fishes is round as a pea; or sometimes oblong, 

 like an egg. From all this it appears that 

 fish are extremely near-sighted ; and that 

 even in the water they can see objects at a 

 very small distance. This distance might 

 very easily be ascertained, by comparing the 

 refraction of bodies in the water with that 

 formed by a lens that is spherical. Those un- 

 skilled in mathematical calculations, will have 

 a general idea of this, from the glasses used 

 by near-sighted people. Those whose crys- 

 talline humour is too convex, or, in other 

 words, too round, are always very near-sigh ted; 

 and obliged to use concave glasses, to correct 

 the imperfections of nature. The crystalline 

 humour of fish is so round, that it is not in 

 the power of any glasses, much less of water, 

 to correct their vision. This crystalline humour 

 in fishes all must have seen ; being that little 

 hard pea-like substance which is found in 

 their eyes after boiling. In the natural state 

 it is transparent, and not much harder than a 

 jelly. 



From all this it appears how far fish fall 

 behind terrestrial animals in their sensations, 

 and consequently in their enjoyments. 1 Even 

 their brain, which is by some supposed to be 

 of a size with every animal's understanding, 

 shows that fish are inferior even to birds in 

 this particular. It is divided into three parts, 

 surrounded with a whitish froth, and gives off 

 nerves as well to the sense of sight as of smell- 

 ing. In some fish it is gray , in others white ; 

 in some it is flatted, in others round ; but in 

 all extremely small, compared to the bulk of 

 the animal. 



Thus Nature seems to have fitted these ani- 

 mals with appetites and powers of an inferior 



1 Comparison by Baron Cuvier between fishes and 

 birds. " The aerial being discovers with facility an im- 

 mense horizon : its subtile ear appreciates every sound, 

 every intonation, which it re-produces with its voice. 

 If its beak is hard, if its body is covered with a kind of 

 down, to preserve it from the intense cold of the high 

 regions which it visits, it finds in its legs all the perfec- 

 tion of the most delicate touch. It enjoys all the sweets 

 of conjugal and paternal love, and it fulfils all its duties 

 with courage. The parents defend each other, and also 

 their offspring, a most surprising art presides in the 

 construction of their habitations. When the season is 

 come they work together and without remission ; while 

 the mother hatches the eggs with an extraordinary pa- 

 tience, the father from an impetuous lover, becomes the 

 most tender husband, and delights with his songs the 

 melancholy of his mate. The bird even in confinement 

 attaches itself to its master; it submits to him, and exe- 

 cutes by his order, the most neat and delicate actions ; 

 it hunts for him like the dog, and returns at his voice 

 liom the greatest height in the air; it imitates even his 

 language, and it is with some degree of difficulty that 

 we are compelled to refuse it a kind o f reason. 



kind ; and formed them for a sort of passive 

 existence, in the obscure and heavy element 

 to which they are consigned. To preserve 

 their own existence, and to continue it to their 

 posterity, fill up the whole circle of their pur- 

 suits and enjoyments ; to these they are im- 

 pelled rather by necessity than choice, and 

 seem mechanically excited to every fruition. 

 Their senses are incapable of making any dis- 

 tinctions ; but they drive forward in pursuit 

 of whatever they can swallow, conquer, or 

 enjoy. 



A ceaseless desire of food seems to give the 

 ruling impulse to all their motions. This ap- 

 petite impels them to encounter every danger; 

 and indeed their rapacity seems insatiable. 

 Even when taken out of the water, and almost 

 expiring, they greedily swallow the very bait 

 by which they were allured to destruction. 



The maw is, in general, placed next the 

 mouth, and though possessed of no sensible 

 heat, is, however, endued with a surprising 

 facility of digestion. Its digestive power 

 seems, in some measure, to increase with the 

 quantity of food it is supplied with ; a single 

 pike having been known to devour a hundred 

 roaches in three days. Its faculties also are 

 as extraordinary ; for it digests not only fish, 

 but much harder substances ; prawns, crabs, 

 and lobsters, shells and all. These the cod 

 or the sturgeon will not only devour, but dis- 

 solve down, though their shells are so much 

 harder than the sides of the stomach which 

 contains them. This amazing faculty in the 

 cold maw of fishes, has justly excited the cu- 

 riosity of philosophers ; and has effectually 

 overturned the system of those who supposed 

 that the heat of the stomach was alone a suffi- 

 cient instrument for digestion. The truth 

 seems to be, and some experiments of the skil- 

 ful Dr Hunter seem to evince, that there is a 

 power of animal assimilation lodged in the 



"The inhabitant of the water does not attach itself. 

 It has no language, no affection ; it does not know what 

 it is to bo husband arid father, or to make an abode for 

 itself. In time of danger it hides itself under the rocks 

 of the ocean, or rushes down into the depths of the sea ; 

 its life is monotonous; its voracity leads to its sole em- 

 ployment, and it is only thereby that we are able to direct 

 its motions by certain signs from above. Yet these 

 beings who possess so few enjoyments, have been adorned 

 by nature with all kinds of beauty, variety in their forms, 

 elegance in their proportions, diversity of colour: they 

 have everything adapted to attract the attention of man, 

 and it seems that it was this attention that nature was 

 desirous to excite. Reflecting the lustre of every metal 

 and precious stone, refracting the colours of the rainbow, 

 in bands, in spots, in undulating, angular, but always 

 regular and symmetrical lines, and always in shades ad- 

 mirably arranged and contrasted ; for what purpose have 

 they received these gifts they who hardly see one 

 another in depths where light can scarcely penetrate, 

 and who, could they gaze on one another, can scarcely 

 be supposed to feel any kind of pleasure by relations 

 thus established ?" 



