,252 CLASS IV. r PISCES. 



appendage. However, they are all hairy in many parts 

 of the body, and particularly about the head. 



CLASS IV PISCES, OR FISHES. 



IN proportion as animals are minute, or concealed from 

 human observation, they must consequently be less known. 

 The ocean being the great receptacle of fishes, from which 

 only a few of them migrate up the rivers to deposit their 

 spawn, it is probable that thousands of living creatures 

 reside there whose manners and very form are, and ever 

 have been, among the secrets of nature. The curiosity 

 of man has indeed drawn many from their depths, and 

 his wants more: with the figures at least of these he is 

 acquainted ; but their pursuits, habits, and various other 

 interesting qualities, are wholly enveloped in the deep and 

 turbulent element that surrounds them. 



The number of fishes with whose names and figures 

 naturalists are in some degree acquainted does not amount 

 to five hundred ; but in regard to the particular history 

 even of these they must confess their ignorance. Most 

 fishes present the same external form ; sharp at the extre- 

 mities, and swelling in the middle : which figure, as before 

 observed in speaking of birds, enables them with more 

 facility and celerity to cleave the element, which they are 

 destined to inhabit. That peculiar shape which is im- 

 pressed on fishes by the hand of nature, human art has 

 endeavoured to imitate in ships ; but the progress of such 

 machines must be rated as very inferior in comparison 

 with the swiftness of the finny tribes. Most of the larger 

 fishes can outstrip the best-rigged vessel ; and, as if to 

 show their superiority, will play round it, and dart again 

 before it at pleasure. Indeed, every part of a fish is 

 adapted to accelerate its motion : the fins, the tail, the 

 undulation of the spine, all tend to assist progression ; 



