CLASS V. PISCES. 



423 



the sand, aiul arc vivified when the water returns. Excluding tlie infusoria, fishes arc of every 

 size, from the shark to the minnow. Some of them move in shoals, which stretch out for miles, 

 and surpass in numbers all human calculation. Not even the myriad insects of the earth and 

 the air, upon the grasses, amid the flowers, on the leaves of the forests, at all approach in num- 

 bers the varied inhabitants of the sea. Every part of their element is occupied, some habitually 

 living on the surface, some in middle-water, and some on the bottom, a hundred fathoms deep, 

 these kinds being technically called Surface, Mid-water, and Ground- Swimmers. We have 

 no measures, no examples, upon the land, of such teeming animal life as is found in the sea. 

 Shoals of fishes are often met with, so crowding the waters as to cause obstruction to boats. 

 Eight millions of pilchards have been drawn ashore at a single draught !* AVho will attempt to 

 calculate the numbers of these creatures, living story above story for five hundred feet, and 

 extending over a surface of one hundred and fifty millions of square miles ? There are species 

 suited to every temperature: the golden carp thrives at 80° of Farenheit; some species 

 exist in hot springs at 120°, and Humboldt saw fishes thrown up alive and in apparent health 

 from volcanos along with water and vapor, at 210° — two degrees only below the boiling point! 

 On the other hand, perch and eels are often traijsported in a frozen state, and on being thawed, 

 are instantly restored to life and activity. A gold-fish, frozen solid iu a marble basin, and ap- 

 pearing crystalized with ice, if gently thawed out, resumes his pleasures and duties as if nothing 

 had happened. 



Fislies not oidy aftbrd the chief resource for food to innumerable species of birds, Tiud even of 

 quadrupeds, but they are of vital importance to man. In his savage state they often become his 

 principal means of subsistence, and to civilized society the fisheries rise to the importance of 

 national interests, protected by fleets, regulated by legislation, and made the subject of solemn 

 international compacts. Fishes contribute not only to the solid necessities of man, but even to 

 his luxuries and his amusements. They have their place in religion, and reconcile the members 

 of " The Church" to its Friday's fasts and the long penance of Lent. On the other side of the 

 Avater, the epicure gloats over his turbot, his sole, and his John Doree, and on this, over the 

 sheep's-head, the tautog, and the attihawmeg. Fishes have their literature : Izaak Walton is as 

 much a classic as Will Shakspeare, and Frank Forester as Ben Franklin. Despite Dr. John- 

 son's definition of an angler, "a pole and line, with a fool at one end and a worm at the other,'' 

 there are tens of thousands who find a calm delight in strolling with hook and line, along the 

 nooks and crannies of the sea, or the winding, singing, and sauntering brooks of the land ; nay, 

 the pensive fisher may often be moved to ecstasy when his skill is called into exercise by some 

 crafty trout or dashing salmon. The professed sea-fisher of our country, who sets his sharp canvas 

 in the teeth of the gale, and stretches away for the cloudy and tempestuous regions of the Grand 

 Banks, or hugs more closely the capes of Cod and Montaug, casting his line into the inky waters, 

 and drawing thence, as providence may decree, cod, haddock, and halibut — as well as the race 

 of fishermen upon the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and still further north along 

 the borders of Denmark and Norway — looking like amphibia, and braving the storm and the 



* The following table, made from very careful calculations, shows the relative fertility of several species of ovip- 

 arous fishes, and also the amazing fecundity of them all: 



