BOOK in. 



OF SPINOUS FISHES. 

 CHAPTER I. 



THE DIVISION OP SPINOUS FISHES. 



THE third general division of fishes is into that of the spinous or 

 oony kind. These are obviously distinguished from the rest by hav- 

 ing a complete bony covering to their gills, by their being furnished 

 with no other method of breathing but gills only ; by their bones, 

 which are sharp and thorny ; and their tails, which are placed in a 

 situation perpendicular to the body. This is that class which alone 

 our later naturalists are willing to admit as fishes. The cetaceous 

 class, with them, are but beasts that have taken up their abode in 

 the ocean ; the cartilaginous class are an amphibious band, that are 

 but half denizens of that element ; it is fishes of the spinous kind 

 that really deserve the appellation. 



This distinction the generality of mankind will hardly allow ; but 

 whatever be the justice of this preference in favour of the spinous 

 class, it is certain that the cetaceous and cartilaginous classes bear no 

 proportion to them in number. Of the spinous classes are already 

 known above four hundred species; so that the number of the former 

 are trifling in comparison, and make not above a fifth part of the fin- 

 ny creation. 



From the great variety in this class, it is obvious how difficult a 

 task it must have been to describe or remember even a part of what 

 it contains. When six hundred different sorts of animals offer them- 

 selves to consideration, the mind is bewildered in the multiplicity of 

 objects that all lay some claim to its attention. To obviate this con- 

 fusion, systems have been devised, which, throwing several fishes that 

 a'jree in many particulars into one group, and thus uniting all into 

 so many particular bodies, the mind that was incapable of separately 

 considering each, is enabled to comprehend all when thus offered in 

 larger masses to its consideration. 



Indeed, of all the beings in Animated Nature, fishes most demand 

 a systematical arrangement. Quadrupeds are but few, and can be ah 

 known ; birds, from their seldom varying in their size, can be very 

 tOierably distinguished without system ; but among fishes, which no 

 size can discriminate, where the animal ten inches, and the animaS 

 len feet long, is entirely the same, there must be some other criterion 



