HISHES, 645 
habits and other peculiarities, to interest the reader, conscious of its 
many imperfections. Where every creature which moves and breathes 
in the watery world is so full of interest, it will not surprise the reader 
to learn that one of the writer's chief difficulties has been that of 
selection, his most painful task that of rejecting the vast mass of 
interesting matter he had necessarily to pass in review. 
We have shown in the first chapter of this work that nearly three- 
fourths of the surface of the earth is bathed by the sea. Struck with 
this vast extent of ocean, a witty French writer says, ‘One is almost 
tempted to believe that our planet was specially created for fishes.” 
They are, indeed, a very important part of creation; they form, as it 
were, a bond uniting the vertebrate to invertebrate animals. They 
have a more complicated organisation than any of the other oceanic 
inhabitants (except the Cetacea), as they are also the most numerous, 
the most varied in form, and by far the most brilliant in colour, and 
the most active in their movements. 
Pliny, the naturalist, describes ninety-four species of fishes. Lin- 
nzeus has characterised 478. The naturalists of the present day know 
upwards of 13,000, a tenth of which are. fresh-water fishes. 
