BAROBT CUVIER. 69 



Happy if we could hope, in our turn, that our endeavours 

 may rank among those which have marked the epochs oi 

 science. It is to this that all our efforts tend." 



From the history, M. Cuvier proceeds to give a genera! 

 idea of the nature and organization of Fishes. The fol- 

 lowing is an extract from this part : — " Being aquatic, that 

 is to say, living in a liquid which is heavier, and offers more 

 resistance than air, their forces for motion have been neces- 

 sarily disposed and calculated for progression, and elevation, 

 which is also accomplished by them with ease. Hence 

 arises that form of body which offers least resistance, the 

 chief seat of muscular force residing in the tail, the brevity 

 of their members, the expansibility of these members, and 

 the membranes which support them, the smooth or scaly 

 tegimients, and the total absence of hairs or feathers- 

 Breathing only through the medium of water, that is, for 

 the purpose of giving an arterial nature to their blood, profit- 

 ing by the small quantity of oxygen contained in the air^ 

 which is mingled with the water, their blood is necessarily 

 cold, and their vitality, the energy of their senses and 

 movements, are consequently less than in IMammaha and 

 Birds. Their brain, therefore, or rather a composition simi- 

 lar to it, is proportionably much smaller, and the external 

 organs of their senses are not of a nature to admit of pow 

 erful impressions. Fishes, in fact, are, of all vertebrated 

 animals, those w4iich have the least apparent signs of sensi- 

 .bility. Having no elastic air at their disposal, they have 

 remained mute, or nearly so, and all those sentiments 

 awakened or sustained by the voice have remained un- 

 known to them. Their eyes almost immoveable, their bony 

 and rigid countenance, their members deprived of inflexion, 

 and every part moving at the same time, do not leave them 

 any power of varying their physiogomy or expressing their 

 emotions. Their ear, enclosed on every side by the bones 

 of the skull, without external conch or internal labyrinth j 

 and composed only of a few bags and membranous canals^ 

 scarcely allows them to distinguish the most striking sounds; 

 and, in fact, an exquisite sense of hearing would be of very 

 httle use to those destined to live in the empire of silence, 

 and around whom all are mute. Their sight, in the depths 

 of their abode, would he little exercised, if ^he greater mim- 



