ABUNDANCE OF THE SEA. 207 



It does not fly very high, but swings itself as far as a musket- 

 hall reaches, and may thus elude even the rapidity of the 

 dolphin. That strangely formed fish, the Pegasus of the Indian 

 seas, is also enabled by its large pec- 

 toral fins to support itself for some 

 moments in the air, when it springs 

 over the surface of the water. 



Neither the quadrupeds nor the 

 birds are subject to so many persecu- 

 tions as the fishes, which have inex- 

 orable enemies in all classes of animals. Swimming Pegasus. 

 Numberless molluscs and zoophytes 



feed upon their eggs, or .devour their minute fry ; myriads of sea- 

 birds are on the look-out for them along the strands, or on the 

 high ocean ; seals and ice-bears lie in wait for them, while with 

 weapons and deceit, with net, angle and harpoon, man carries 

 death and destruction into their ranks. It would be a difficult 

 task to state with any degree of exactness the number of fisher- 

 men disseminated over the face of the globe, but if we consider 

 that, on a moderate calculation, at least a million of persons are 

 directly or indirectly engaged in fishing in Great Britain and 

 Ireland alone, and then cast a glance over the immense coast- 

 line of the ocean, we may without exaggeration affirm that at 

 least one-fiftieth part of the human race lives upon the produce 

 of the seas. If we further reflect that fishes form a great part 

 of the food of all coast-inhabitants, and consider in what masses 

 they are sent into the interior, — fresh, dried, salted, smoked, 

 and pickled, — we cannot doubt that the great extent of the ocean 

 only apparently limits the numbers of the human race, for how 

 many thousands of square miles of the most fruitful soil would 

 it not require to bring forth the quantity of food which the blue 

 and green fields of ocean supply to man ? " Bounteous mother," 

 " Alma parens," was the name given by the grateful ancients to 

 the corn and grass-producing, herd-feeding earth ; but how 

 much more deserving of that endearing appellation is the sea, 

 that, without being ploughed or manured, dispenses her gifts 

 with such inexhaustible profusion ! Numberless indeed are the 

 various kinds of fishes which she furnishes to man, for almost 

 every species affords an equally agreeable and healthy food : but 

 of all the finny families or tribes that people the ocean none can 



