242 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



hundreds of thousands, they could not possibly maintain them- 

 selves against the vast number of their enemies. " Not one egg 

 too much," every one will say who considers that of all the 

 myriads of germs which are deposited on the shallow sand- 

 banks and shores to be quickened by the fructifying warmth 

 of the sun, not one in a hundred comes to life, as fishes and 

 molluscs, crabs and radiata, devour the spawn with equal voracity; 

 that a thousand dangers await the young defenceless fry, since 

 everywhere in the oceanic realms no other right is known than 

 that of the stronger ; and that, finally, the insatiable rapacity of 

 man is continually extirpating millions on millions of the full- 

 grown fishes. But if very few of this much-persecuted race 

 die a natural death, a life of liberty makes them some amends 

 for their violent end. The tortured cart-horse or the imprisoned 

 nightingale would, if they could reflect, willingly exchange their 

 hard lot and joyless existence for the free life of the independent 

 fish, who, from the greater simplicity of his structure, his want 

 of higher sensibilities, his excellent digestion, and the more 

 equal temperature of. the element in which he lives, remains 

 unmolested by many of the diseases to which the warm-blooded 

 and particularly the domestic animals are subject. 



Dary. 



