XIV INTRODUCTION. 



diately when taken out of water, and have flesh prone to 

 rapid decomposition : Mackerel, Sahnon, Trout, and Her- 

 rings are examples. On the contrary, those fish that live 

 near the bottom of the water have a low standard of respira- 

 tion, a high degree of muscular irritability, and less necessity 

 for oxygen ; they sustain life long after they are taken out of 

 the water, and their flesh remains good for several days : 

 Carp, Tench, Eels, the different sorts of Skate, and all the 

 Flatfish, may be quoted. But as this subject is occasionally 

 referred to in the body of this work when describing the 

 powers of particular species, farther details here will be un- 

 necessary. 



With tenacity of life is connected the extraordinary power 

 observed in some fishes of sustaining extremes of high and 

 low temperature. The Goldfish not only lives, but thrives 

 and breeds to excess, in water the temperature of which is 

 constantly kept as high as 80° Fahr. Fishes exist in the 

 hot springs and baths of various countries the temperatures 

 of which are found to range between 118 and 120 degrees of 

 Fahr.; and Humboldt and Bonpland, when travelling in 

 South America, perceived fishes thrown up alive, and appa- 

 rently in health, from the bottom of a volcano, in the course 

 of its explosions, along with water and heated vapour, that 

 raised the thermometer to 210 degrees, being but 2 degrees 

 below the boiling point. 



On the other hand, in the Northern parts of Europe, 

 Perch and Eels are advantageously transported from place to 

 place while in a frozen state, without destroying life. Mr. 

 Jesse, in the second series of his Gleanings in Natural His- 

 tory, page 277, says, a friend of his, who resided near Lon- 

 don, had a single Goldfish with the water in a marble basin 

 frozen into one solid body of ice. He broke the ice around 

 it, took it out, and found it to all appearance lifeless, and 



