OF FISHES IN GENERAL. 23 



In the mean time, it will readily be allowed, that 

 flflies, though for ever hungry and prowling, can endure 

 the want of food for a long time. In them, habits feem 

 to be formed by the circumftances in which they are 

 placed. Want produces abllinence ; from abundance 

 they learn voracity. A pike, oneofthemofl gluttonous 

 of fifhes, will live, and even thrive, in a pond where 

 there is none but itfelf ; and the gold and filver fifhes, 

 which we confine in glafs vafes, fubfifl, frequently for 

 years, without any vifible fupport but water. Rondclctius 

 mentions one that was kept at his houfe, in this manner, 

 for three years, which grew to fuch a fize, that the vafe 

 could fcarcely contain it, nor could it be brought out at 

 the fame paffage by which it was introduced into the 

 velTel *. It would appear, therefore, that, in certain fitu- 

 ations, fifhes are as remarkable for abflinence, as, in 

 others, they are diflinguiflied for voracity ; and that Na- 

 ture, in compaflion to the want which they muft often 

 fiifFer, has indulged them with a power of accommodating 

 their appetite to fparcity of food, as well as to abun« 

 K^ance, 



Section IV. 



Of the Gejteration, Fecundity^ S^c, ofFiJhest 



i HE grand divificn of fiilies into the cetaceous, cartila- 

 ginous, and fpinous, v/as formed by Arijlotle, according 



to 



* Hoc modo fuavifTima mea conjux, tres annos, pifcem domi aluit ; fic- 

 quc educatus, in earn corporis molcm accrevit, ut tandem ncc vas eu» 

 capcre, ncc qua ingrclTus fuerat, eadem exire pofTet. Rondekt. 



