Beavty in Form anp Cororine. 91 
In shameless conduct. For as modern laws 
Forbid them now to water their stale fish, 
Some fellow, hated by the gods, beholding 
Tis fish quite dry, picks with his mates a quarrel, 
And blows are interchanged. Then when one thinks 
Tle’s had enough, he falls and seems to faint, 
And lies like any corpse among his baskets. 
Some one calls out for water; and his partner 
Catches a pail, and throws it o'er his friend 
So as to sprinkle all his fish, and make 
The world believe them newly caught and fresh.” 
In regard to propagating fishes, the experiments of the an- 
cients amounted to little more than robbing the nests of her- 
bivorous fishes, and planting the eggs in other waters; but the 
moderns have, within the past thirty years, invented success- 
ful theories for studying the habits of fishes at their aqueous 
homes, in rapid streams, or placid lakes, and deep down into 
the depths of old ocean, As these will be explained in this 
work under their appropriate titles of ancient and modern 
fish culture, I merely allude to them in passing as havine— 
through their developments of the habits of fishes—opened 
up a subject so attractive as to have induced anglers and 
men of science to study more assiduously and minutely these 
creatures of elegant forms, whose colors vie with the rainbow, 
and reflect the hues of every precious stone. See their scin- 
tillant scales, their metallic rays, and colors more beautiful 
than are given to birds of most favored plumage! What, 
satin sheen, aurora borealis, or heavenly sunset can vie with 
the prismatic colors of the hving trout or the dying dolphin ? 
What gold so finely burnished as the spots on the Spanish 
mackerel? or what shade of carmine so brilliant as the spots 
on a samlet? * What so transcendently lustrous and bean- 
tiful as a fresh-run salmon ? 
The Spanish mackerel, salmon, and bonetta combine to 
form the models for the speed and beauty of our ships. 
Even as far back as the Revolutionary War, one of our ships 
was named “Bonetta.” In symmetry of form and beautiful 
coloring, fishes stand at the head of animal creation. 
