ENEMIES OF FISH. I/ 



rous enemies, and enjoy a more safe and con- 

 tented repose, rest and quietness being as natural 

 and helpful to their feeding as to other creatures. 

 Some waters are more nourishing than others : 

 a thick kind, if it is not foul or muddy, is of a 

 better consistency, and the parts better disposed 

 and qualified for nutrition, than those of a more 

 thin and rarified substance. No element that is 

 pure and without mixture is well adapted for 

 nourishment, neither can fishes live by pure wa- 

 ter, respiration, or sucking in those slender par- 

 ticles of their beloved element alone, without the 

 concurrence and assistance of some grosser and 

 terrene qualities, which ate intermingled with 

 those liquid bodies. 



Having mentioned that fishes are exposed to 

 numerous enemies, I shall conclude this chapter 

 by giving the reader a poetical enumeration of 

 them. 



A thousand foes the finny people chace, 

 Nor are they safe from their own kindred race : 

 The pike, fell tyrant of the liquid plain, 

 "With ravenous waste devours his fellow train ; 

 Yet, howsoever with raging famine pined, 

 The tench he spares, a salutary kind. 

 Hence too the perch, a like voracious brood, 

 Forbears to make this generous race his food ; 

 Though on the common drove no bound he finds, 

 But spreads unmeasured waste o'er all the kinds. 

 Nor less the greedy trout and glutless eel 

 Incessant woes and dire destruction deal. 

 The lurking water-rat in caverns preys, 

 And in the weeds the wily otter slays. 

 The ghastly newt in muddy streams annoys, 

 And in swift floods the felly snake destroys. 

 Toads for the shoaling fry forsake the lawn, 

 And croaking frogs devour the tender spawn. 

 Neither the 'habitants of land nor air 

 (So sure their doom) the fishy numbers spare ! 

 The swan, fair regent of the silver tide, 

 Their ranks destroys and spreads their ruin wide : 

 C 2 



