iS OF FISHES IN GE-NTERAL. 



tinues not, in that ftate, for above three weeks ; and the 

 gold fifli from China, is produced in a ftill ihorter pe- 

 riod *. 



When excluded from the egg, the joung fifties all, at 

 firft, efcape by tlieir minutenefs and agility. They per- 

 form all their motions with much greater celerity and 

 eafe, than grown and bulky fiflics ; and can make their 

 ■way into fliallow water, where they cannot eaiily be pur- 

 fued. But, with all thefe advantages, not one, perhaps, 

 of a thoufand, furvives the dangers of its youth. There 

 is no inftance, among the fpinous fifties, of any thing re- 

 fembling parental aiftdion : They all abandon their eggs 

 to be hatched by the heat of the feafon f ; and, if they 

 ever return to the fpot where their young have begun 

 the career of life, the male and female that gave them 

 birth, forgetting all parental relation, become enemies 

 as formidable as the mofl; rapacious plunderers of the 

 deep. 



Though the fifties fall in millions by the rapacity of 

 one another, yet they have other enemies than the ani- 

 mals of their own kind. JMany of the quadrupeds fre- 

 quent the ftiores, rivers, and lakes, where filli is almoft 

 their only food ; and we have already had cccafion to 

 remark, that a great proportion of the fowls refide ccn- 

 fiantly on the fea, where they either feed upon fpav/n, 

 or become the mercilefs invaders of the fmall fifties. 

 Thoufands too of the human race, wander, in a favage 

 ftate, around the lakes and rivers, whence they derive a 

 confiderable portion of their fuftenance. And, among 



thofe 



* Goldfmith's Nat. HIil. Vol. VI. 



f the. collii bov'tcs is t'le only exception to this obfcrvaticm ; it is faii t» 

 lit upon its eggs at th: bottom of the Water. 



