INTRODUCTION. Kill 



inhabitants of the sea- shore have been 

 almost supported by fish, and the transpor- 

 tation of them from place to place, as a 

 luxury, is no less diffusive of wealth and 

 employment. When their numbers become 

 overwhelming in appearance, they can be 

 rendered valuable for manure. Our houses 

 are illuminated by the oil they yield ; their 

 bones are converted to a thousand useful 

 purposes ; their skins are not without utility 

 to the arts, and their scales ornament the per- 

 sons of the loveliest part of the creation. 



A systematic classification of fishes greatly 

 assists the study of their nature and proper- 

 ties ; in accordance with which view the fol- 

 lowing slight sketch is submitted of their 

 arrangement under the Natural System of 

 the late Baron Cuvier, where they form the 

 last class of vertebrated animals, divisible into 

 two grand families of bony and cartilaginous 

 fishes, or of acanthopterygians and chondrop- 

 terygians, the first of which divisions, it 

 may be remarked, embraces more than three 

 fourths of all the known fishes. The sub- 

 divisions are as follow: 



