OF FISHES IN GENERAL. ,35 



The dietical ufes of fifhes are to us the moll important 

 article of their hiftory, a part that is happily free from 

 that uncertainty and darknefs in which many other cir- 

 cumftances relating to their manners and economy arc 

 Hill involved. All fifh whatever, and particularly thofe 

 without the tropics, are capable of being converted into 

 "wholefome food. Every European fifh, while in fea- 

 fon, is nutritive; the various methods of preparing 

 and drefling them are detailed by the Authors to whom 

 that province belongs. Such difquifitions conflitute the 

 hiftory of an art, but they are not the objeds of fai- 

 ence. 



Fifhes, In general, when out of feafon, are unwhole- 

 fome, and even pernicious ; and this is more efpecially 

 the cafe with the oily kinds ; fuch as the herring, the 

 mackerel, the eel and the falmon. So little is this fa6i: 

 attended to, that the eating of the latter of thefe fifhes, 

 at an improper feafon, has been the immediate caufe of 

 an epidemic fever. Some of the fifhes that frequent the 

 fliores of the Wejl-lndian iflands, are faid to be poifon- 

 ous : that they are naturally fo, however, may be juflly 

 quefiioned ; though there can be no doubt of their be- 

 coming pernicious in certain clrcumflances. If they feed 

 upon copper-banks, their food may contain fo great a 

 quantity of the polfon combined with that metal, as may 

 render their flefii noxious ; and the fame confequence 

 will enfue if they devour the feeds of fome poifonous 

 plants that grow in thefe parts of the globe. 



The improvement of the arts tends greatly to extend 

 the dominion of man over the inferior animals ; the art 

 of navigation, in particular, may be faid to have com- 

 pleted his conqueft of the ocean, and brought a vafl ac- 



E a ccfTion 



