348 



THE UNIVERSE. 



be considered as the favourite residence of their innumer- 

 able cohorts, and that it is from thence that the long bands 

 start which annually bear to Europe so much food, and 

 give such an impulse to maritime commerce. Their ex- 

 treme fecundity alone explains how these fish subsist in 

 spite of the enormous consumption of them during so many 



192. Stickleliack in its Nest — Gasterostcus trachura^. 



ages. When their wandering masses issue from the Polar 

 seas, they are said to divide into two columns. One of 

 these advances toAvards Iceland, and skirts the shore of 

 America ; the other takes an opposite direction along the 

 broken shores of Norway, and furnishes a branch to the 

 Baltic, whilst the mass spreads out on the coasts of France 

 and Great Britain. The route is so regular that some 

 authors have ventured to trace it out on the geographical 

 charts which accompany their works. 



The fishermen recognize the presence of the shoals of 



