DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER OF ANIMALS. 



185 



rapacious birds that are perpetually hovering over the \\raler to take advan- 

 tage of its ascent. There are, however, various other fishes that have a 

 similar power of flight or suspension, and from a similar cause, but none in 

 so complete a degree. It is to this curious power Dean Swift makes allusion 

 in the following lines : — 



" So fishes, rising from the main, 



Can soar with moist en'd wings, on high : 

 The moisture dried, they sink again, 

 And dip their wings again to fly." 



The FIFTH ORDER OF FISHES is denominated branchiostegous, in conse- 

 quence of its gills being destitute of bony rays ; by which it is peculiarly 

 distinguished from all the preceding orders, and obtains a mark which has 

 been laid hold of by Linnaeus as constituting its ordinal character. It con- 

 sists, for the most part, of a group of sea-monsters, or natural deformities, if 

 the term might be allowed ; as the ostraceon or trunk-fish, the diodon and 

 tretradon, sun-fish, and lump-fish, many of which are so completely truncated 

 at either end as to resemble the niiddle part of any common large fish with 

 its head and tail lopped off ; the syngnathus, pipe or needle-fish ; and the 

 lophius or frog-fish. In one of the species of this last kind we meet with a sin- 

 gular decoy for entrapping smaller fishes as its prey. This species, 1. pisca- 

 torius, which is about seven feet long, and inhabits most European seas, lurks 

 behind sand-hills or heaps of stone, and throwing over them the slender appen- 

 dages on his head, which have the appearance of worms, entices the smaller 

 fishes to advance and play around them till they come within his reach, when 

 he ijistantly darts forward and secures them as his spoil. 



The SIXTH and last order of fishes is denominated chondropterygious, 

 as having the gills wholly cartilaginous, which constitutes its ordinal charac- 

 ter. It includes, among other kinds, the acipenser or sturgeon, squalus or 

 shark, raia or ray, petromyzon or lamprey, and gastrobranchus or hag-fish. 

 Of these, one of the most useful is the sturgeon : its different species may 

 be ranked among the large fishes ; they are inhabitants of the sea, but ascend 

 rivers annually. The flesh of all of them is most delicious ; from the roe is 

 procured the sauce called caviare, and from the sounds and muscular part is 

 made isinglass. They feed on worms and other fishes, and the females are 

 larger than the males. 



This order, in the shark, contains the most dreadful of all the monsters of 

 the main. The squalus Carcharias or white shark, which often extends to 

 thirty feet in length, and four thousand pounds in weight, follows ships with 

 a view of devouring every thing that comes in his w^ay, and has occasionally 

 been known to swallow a man whole at a mouthful. But in order to guard 

 us in some degree against the perils of their presence, a peculiar stream of 

 light issues in the dark from their tapering, subcompressed bodies, which 

 cannot well be mistaken ; and as some compensation for their rapacity, we 

 obtain from their liver a large quantity of useful oil, and find in their skin a 

 very valuable material for carriage-traces in some countries, and for polish- 

 ing wood, ivory, and other hard substances, in all countries. 



The next class to that of fishes in an ascending direction is named amphibia ; 

 which, for the sake of brevity, and having no English synonym to meet it, I 

 shall take leave now, as I have on former occasions, to render amphibials. 

 The term, indeed, whether regarded as Greek or English, is not very strictly 

 precise in its preseat application ; for it intimates an intention to include in 

 this class all animals capable of existing in the two elements of air and 

 water. We have already observed, however, that there are various fishes, as 

 the eel-tribe generally, one species of the perch, and two or three of the exo- 

 coetus or flying-fish, to which many more might be added, that are capable 

 of existing in air as well as in water ; while the insect kinds ofi'er us a still 

 greater number that are similarly endowed, and the worms a still more nume- 

 rous train. It has been said, indeed, that the animals of this class have a 

 peculiar agreement in the structure of their organs of respiration, which 



