ICHTHYOLOGY. 



REMARKS. 



IN the various scales of living creatures which the exten- 

 sive Field of Nature opens to our view, none is more calcu- 

 lated to strike us with astonishment and admiration than 

 the Wonders of the Deep. Although the quantity of Birds, 

 Animals and Insects which inhabit the terrestrial part of 

 the Globe, is so great as almost to baffle all calculation, yet 

 it is impossible not to suppose that the Ocean contains ani- 

 mals in a far greater variety and number than has been 

 hitherto conceived or imagined. 



In each individual Fish the increase of the progeny is 

 almost incredible ; if then we take into our enumerations 

 the various Regions hitherto unexplored, the Bays and 

 Gulphs. the Seas and Rivers, with all their boundless 

 variety, we shall be lost in astonishment in so wide and 

 extensive a view of Nature. 



The habits and propensities of Fisli are as various as 

 their forms, whilst some by their voracious qualities are 

 wisely designed to thin the over numerous swarms of the 

 shallow coasts and rivers ; others are singularly defended 

 by a curious coat of external armour, resembling the spines 

 of the hedgehog, or by a most deadly weapon fixed upon 

 their beak, as the Sword Fish and the Narwhal. 



The most destructive fish, the Shark, produces only 

 a few young ones at a time, and by this means the admira- 

 ble economy of nature is kept up, for if these iish were 

 to be multiplied as rapidly as some of the smaller ones, the 

 Ocean would be shortly exhausted of its population. 



