264 



LIFE, IN ITS HIGHER FORMS, 



aDd in their elaborate effectiveness, those produced by 

 European art. Every sea, from the Pole to the Equator, 

 is stocked with fishes; they abound in the rivers and 

 lakes of all climates; even the "tarns" and little basins 

 scooped out of the summits of mountain-ranges, hold 

 species of interest and value peculiar to themselves. So 

 that the beneficent Providence of God has thus stored up 

 inexhaustible magazines of wholesome, palatable, and nu- 

 tritious food, and placed them within reach of man for the 

 supply of his necessity — the stimulus and the reward of 

 industry. 



The fisheries of Britain are of national importance ; the 

 amount they contribute to the public wealth is immense ; 

 and they are regulated, even in many minute details, by 

 repeated enactments of solemn legislation. An enumera- 

 tion of the species which form the objects of our fisheries 

 is itself startling: — the surmullet, gurnards of half-a-dozen 

 kinds, sea-bream, mackerel, scad, dory, atherine, gray 

 mullet of two kinds, gar-fish, salmon, herring, pilchard, 

 shad, cod, haddock, pout, whiting of two kinds, pollack, 

 bake, ling, burbot, torsk, turbot, holibut, sole, flounder, 

 plaice, dab, eels of three species, conger, thornback, skate 

 of several kinds, — are all taken in quantities and brought 

 regularly to market ; not to speak of many other kinds, 

 such as perch, trout, char, pike, carp, roach, tench, &c., 

 which are taken for the table, chiefly from our rivers, for 

 individual amusement. 



The quantity of human food thus taken yearly from the 

 water is enormous ; an idea of it may be formed from the 

 fact, that, of one species alone, and that a very local one, 

 being confined to the western extremity of our island — 



