VORACITY OF FISH. Io3 



the terrible conflict. At length they could breathe 

 freely. Human heroism and skill had triumphed; 

 the man was seen pushing the carcase of the monster 

 towards the shore, where he tore out his entrails, and 

 took from them the mangled remains of his friend. 



Nearly all the other inhabitants of the sea are 

 voracious; but their small dimensions, and their 

 feebleness relative to their means of attack, render 

 them less terrible to man, and mask their massacres 

 and depredations of all kinds. It needs the eye of 

 the naturalist and the sailor to observe those lesser 

 details of oceanic life which do not affect us directly, 

 nor strike our imaginations like the more frightful 

 ravages of the great marine monsters. 



The turbot and the sole, those deformed outcasts 

 of society, as some might think, are nevertheless 

 your true cosmopolites. They are equally at home 

 in sandy and rocky places, but their flesh acquires a 

 preferable taste in the latter. They are fished upon 

 the coasts of Europe, at the Cape of Good Hope, in 

 the Indian Ocean, and even in the Chinese seas. 

 Everywhere they are the prey of numerous enemies, 

 yet let us not be too prodigal of our pity for them. 

 What they need is strength alone, not voracity. The 

 bait used in their fisliery are morsels of herrings, 

 little lampreys, worms, limpets, and mussels. They 

 will only eat, however, either living or freshly-killed 



