ICHTHYOLOGY. 



Such are the leading features of the Stromateus Depres- 

 susj to which we may add, that in Nature (although in its 

 dry state this is but imperfectly shewn) the colours are 

 delightfully vivid and pleasing. The center of the body 

 is of a pearly colour and resembles the Opal in its prismatic 

 variations of tints ; the back, face, and tail of yellow or 

 amber colour, and in the place of teeth there is a rough 

 boney process on the upper and lower jaw of the Fish. 



At first sight it appears to resemble a good deal, the 

 John Dory, a Fish caught frequently in the British Seas, 

 and which has been often celebrated as an eminent topic of 

 conversation with epicures ; but the generic character is 

 very different and as before said peculiarly its own. If a 

 certain method of drying and preserving the Fish of the 

 Southern regions of the Globe, could be adopted by Natu- 

 ralists and Travellers visiting those almost unknown regions, 

 there is no doubt that such a collection might soon be 

 formed as would tend very much to make the various pro- 

 ductions of the great deep seem not the least, but most 

 numerous of the animated families of the Globe, and perhaps 

 the one least likely ever to be completely numbered. It has 

 been indeed attempted to number the Animals and Birds, 

 but in the numberless myriads of Fish that are spread thro' 

 the Atlantic, Southern, and Pacific Seas, a slight compari- 

 son and view seems to be all that Mankind can ever attain 

 to: Nature is boundless and infinite, while the knowledge 

 of Man takes in but a small span of the wide and extensive 

 scale of beings existing through the different stages of AnU 

 mal life. 



