FISHES. 



Platax Vespertilio, or But Chsetodon. 



Diodon, or Short-Sun-fish 



Polypus. 



The Platax Vespertilio, or Bat Chaetodon, is found off the coast of Ceylon, it has a very compressed hody, 

 a large, vertical back-fin, brownish-hued, with the anterior spines almost concealed in the membrane, long 

 ventral fins, and with trenchant front teeth, each three-pointed. It grows to a large bulk, and generally 

 inhabits deep water. 



The Short Sun-fish is named from the curious structure of the jaws. It has often been caught on 

 nearly all parts of the British coasts. It is singularly shaped, looking like the head and shoulders of a very large 

 fish, from whose entire body three-fourths had been cut off. It has been known to weigh three hundred 

 pounds, while but four feet five inches long. It lives chiefly at the bottom of the sea, but occasionally 

 rises to the surface, when the sailors kill it with a harpoon, and eat it. Another variety is distinguished 

 by having a longer body. 



The Polypus, in structure, may be likened to the finger of a glove, open at one end and closed at the 

 other. The closed end represents the tail, by which the animal fastens itself to the substance it chances 

 to be upon, and the open end the mouth. If we conceive six or eight small strings issuing from this end, 

 we have an idea of its arms, which it lengthens, contracts, and erects at will, as a snail does its horns. 

 The animal is very voracious, and uses his arms as a net to catch whatever small animals comes within 

 reach Lengthening these arms several inches, and keeping them apart, it occupies a large space in the 

 water. So exquisite is their sensibility, that if a small insect touches one of them it closes about him, 

 the other arms come to help, and the creature is drawn into the Polypus's mouth and swallowed. 



With the microscope, the body of the old Polypus is seen covered with minute Polypuses, which cast 

 their tiny arms abroad, like the parent, for prey, and this prey apparently nourishes at once old and young. 

 And stranger still, these young, while still attached to the parent's body, have young ones springing 

 from themselves, and the food, caught by one, serves to nourish successively all the rest ! But, most 

 wondrous of all, cut a Polypus into minute pieces, and each piece soon becomes a distinct and complete 

 animal, so that destruction is but the generator of new forms of life ! 



The animals belonging to this extensive and remarkable class, possess an organization so low in the scale 

 of being, that there is very considerable difficulty in distinguishing many of them from the cryptogamic 

 families of the vegetable kingdom. 

 (347) 



