184 



ON ZOOLOGICAL SYSTEMS, AND THE 



The only other genus it will be necessary to glance at under this order, is 

 the xiphias or sword-fish ; so denominated from its long sword-like and ser- 

 rated snout, with which it penetrates and destroys its prey. Its chief species 

 is found in the Mediterranean and other European seas, sometimes not less 

 than twenty feet long ; is very active, and, in one instance, has been known 

 to attack an East Indiaman with so prodigious a force, as to drive its sword 

 or snout completely through the bottom of the ship, and must have destroyed 

 it by the leak which would hereby have been occasioned, had not the animal 

 been killed by the violence of its own exertion ; in consequence of which, 

 the snout remained imbedded in the ribs of the ship, and no leak of any extent 

 was produced. A fragment of this vessel, with the sword imbedded in it, 

 has been long lodged as a curiosity in the British Museum. 



The JUGULAR ORDER of fishes, distinguished by the ventral or belly fins 

 being placed before the pectoral or chest fins, is the next in succession, and 

 contains only six separate kinds ; of which the two most familiar to our own 

 country are the gadus or codfish, including, among a variety of other.species, 

 the haddock, whiting, and ling; and the blennius orblenny, including several 

 species of the hake. In these the ventral or belly fins are advanced so far 

 forward, as to be immediately under the jole. 



Of the TmRD or thoracic order, in which the ventral fins lie somewhat 

 backwarder, and directly under the pectoral or chest fins, I may instance, 

 among those most familiar to us, the zeus or John doree ; the pleuronectes, 

 including the numerous families of plaice, flat-fish, flounder, sole, turbot ; the 

 eyes of all which are situate on the same side of the head, in some species 

 on the left side, in others on the right, but always on one side alone : the 

 perca or perch, one species of which, perca scandens, has a power, like the 

 eel, of quitting the water, and climbing up trees, which it eff'ects by means of 

 the spines on its gill-covers, and the spinous rays of its other fins ; and the 

 gasterosteus or stickle-back. Among the more remarkable or curious kinds, 

 I may mention the echeneis, remora, or sucking-fish, which inhabits the Me- 

 diterranean and Pacific seas ; and though only from twelve to eighteen inches 

 long, adheres so firmly to the sides of vessels and of larger fishes, by its 

 head, that it is often removed with great difficulty ; and was, by the ancients, 

 supposed to have the power of arresting the motion of the ship to which it 

 adhered. I may also mention the chaetodon rostratus, beaked or rostrate 

 chaetodon, an inhabitant of the Indian seas, which curiously catches for its 

 food insects that are flying over the surface of the sea, by ejecting water from 

 its tubular snout with so exact an aim as to strike and stun them with the 

 greatest certainty, and hereby to bring them down into its jaws. 



The FOURTH ORDER of the Linnaean class of fishes, is called abdominal ; in 

 consequence of having the ventral or belly fins placed considerably more 

 backward, and behind the pectoral or chest fins : and here, as in all the pre- 

 ceding, the gills are bony. The salmo or salmon, with its numerous families 

 of trout, smelt, char, and grayling ; the esox or pike, including the gar-fish ; 

 the clupea or herring, which, as a genus, comprises the pilchard, sprat, and 

 anchovy ; the cyprinus or carp, including the gold-fish, gudgeon, tench, and a 

 variety of similar species ; the mugil or mullet ; are among the more familiar 

 kinds of this extensive order. 



Of these, the herring is one of the most remarkable, from its migratory 

 habits ; and the carp, from its great longevity, "having in many instances been 

 known to reach more than a hundred years of a^e- and from its facility of 

 being tamed and made to approach the edge of a fishspond on the sound of 

 its dinner-bell, and to eat crumbs of bread out of a man's hand. 



But amid the most singular of the kinds belonging to this order is the 

 exocoetus or flying-fish, wiiich, though occasionally traced in other seas, is 

 chiefly found between the tropics, and has a power, by means of its long 

 pectoral fins, of raising itself out of the water and continuing suspended in 

 the air till these fins become dry ; by which means it effectually avoids the jaws 

 of such predatory fishes as are in pursuit of it. But unhappily it is often 

 seized at the same time by the talons of ospreys, sea-gulls, or some other 



