264 
LIFE, IN ITS HIGHER FORMS. 
and 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 — tbo 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, 
hake, ling, burbot, torsk, turbot, holibut, solo, 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 — 
