CLASS y. PISCES. 
423 
the sand, and are vivified Avhen the water returns. Excluding the infusoria, fishes are of every 
size, from the shark to the minnow. Some of them move in shoals, which stretch out for miles, 
and surpass in numbers all human calculation. Not even the mja-iad insects of the earth and 
the air, upon the grasses, amid the flowers, on the leaves of the forests, at all approach in num- 
bers the varied inhabitants of the sea. Every part of their element is occupied, some habitually 
living on the surface, some in middle-water, and some on the bottom, a hundred fathoms deep, 
these kinds being technically called Surface, Mid-water, and Ground-Swimmers. We have 
no measures, no examples, upon the land, of such teeming animal life as is found in the sea. 
Shoals of fishes are often met with, so crowding the waters as to cau.se obstruction to boats. 
Eight millions of pilchards have been drawn ashore at a single draught Who will attempt to 
calculate the numbers of these creatures, living story above story for five hundred feet, and 
extending over a surface of one hundred and fifty millions of square miles ? There are species 
suited to every temperature : the golden carp thrives at 80° of Farenheit ; some species 
exist in hot springs at 120°, and Humboldt saw fishes thrown up alive and in apparent health 
from volcanos along Avith Avater and A^apor, at 210° — tAVO degrees only below the boiling point ! 
On the other hand, perch and eels are often transported in a frozen state, and on being thaAved, 
are instantly restored to life and activity. A gold-fish, frozen solid in a marble basin, and ap- 
pearing crystalized with ice, if gently thaAved out, resumes his pleasures and duties as if nothing- 
had happened. 
Fishes not only aff"ord the chief resource for food to innumerable species of birds, Mid even of 
quadrupeds, but they are of vital importance to man. In his savage state they often become his 
principal means of subsistence, and to civilized society the fisheries rise to the importance of 
national interests, protected by fleets, regulated by legislation, and made the subject of solemn 
international compacts. Fishes contribute not only to the solid necessities of man, but even to 
his luxuries and his amusements. They have their place in religion, and reconcile the members 
of " The Church" to its Friday's fasts and the long penance of Lent. On the other side of the 
water, the epicure gloats over his turbot, his sole, and his John Doree, and on this, over the 
sheep's-head, the tautog, and the attihawmeg. Fishes have their literature : Izaak Walton is as 
much a classic as Will Shakspeare, and Frank Forester as Ben Franklin. Despite Dr. John- 
son's definition of an angler, "a pole and line, Avitli a fool at one end and a Avorm at the other," 
there are tens of thousands Avho find a calm delight in strolling with hook and line, along the 
nooks and crannies of the sea, or the Avinding, singing, and sauntering brooks of the land ; nay, 
the pensive fisher may often be moved to ecstasy when his skill is called into exercise by some 
crafty trout or dashing salmon. The professed sea-fisher of our country, who sets his sharp canvas 
in the teeth of the gale, and stretches away for the cloudy and tempestuous regions of the Grand 
Banks, or hugs more closely the capes of God and Montaug, casting his line into the inky waters, 
and drawing thence, as providence may decree, cod, haddock, and halibut — as Avell as the race 
of fishermen upon the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and still further north along 
the borders of Denmark and Norway — looking like amphibia, and braving the storm and the 
* The following table, made from very careful calculations, shows the relative fertility of several species of ovip- 
arous fishes, and also the amazing fecundity of them all : 
Fish. 
Wei 
gilt. 
"Weight roe. 
No. of Eggs. 
Date. 
oz. 
drs. 
£;rs. 
25 
5 
2.571 
263,109 
April 4. 
Codfish 
0 
0 
12.540 
3,686,760 
Dec. 23. 
Flounder 
24 
4 
2.200 
1,857,400 
March 14. 
Herring 
5 
10 
.480 
36,860 
Oct. 25. 
Mackerel .... 
18 
0 
1.223 
545,631 
June 18. 
8 
9 
.765 
28,823 
April 5. 
Pike 
56 
4 
6.100 
49,304 
" 25. 
Roach 
10 
6i 
.861 
81,586 
May 2. 
Smelt 
2 
0 
.149 
38,278 
March 21. 
Sole 
14 
8 
5.422 
100,362 
June 13. 
Tench 
40 
0 
389,252 
May 28. 
