180 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
The Basse is a larger and coarser kind of perch, which 
sometimes grows to the weight of fifteen pounds. It is, 
however, of rather a longer make, more resembling that of 
a salmon. The back is dusky, tinged with blue, and the 
belly white. The Sea Perch grows to about a foot 
long. The head is large and deformed, and covered with 
sharp spines. The colour is red, with a black spot on the 
covers of the gills, and some transverse dusky lines oh the 
sides. 
The Riiffe is a well known fish. It is armed with spines 
like the perch, but has only one back fin. It is of a dirty 
green, and almost transparent, and spotted with black. It 
is found in shoals in the deep parts of running streams, and 
is esteemed good food. It seldom exceeds six inches in 
length. 
The Stickle-back is a well known little fish. In the 
fens of Lincolnshire they are found in such numbers, that 
they are used to manure the land. There are three species, 
the common, or three spined, the ten spined, and the Jijleen 
spirted. The two first seldom reach the length of two 
inches, the latter sometimes grows to that of six, and is 
found in the sea only. 
The Mackerel genus is distinguished by a number of 
small fins, between the back fin and the tail. The common 
mackerel is a beautiful fish, which is well known for the 
seasonable visits which it pays to our shores. Nothing can 
equal the brilliancy of its colours, which are a fine green, 
varied with blue and black, and which death indeed im- 
pairs, but cannot totally destroy. 
The Mackerel, as well as the Haddock and the Whiting, 
are thought, by some, to be driven upon our coasts rather 
by their fears than their appetites ; and it is to the pursuit 
of the larger fishes, we owe their welcome visits. It is much 
more probable, that they come for that food which is found 
in more plenty near the sea-shore than farther out at sea. 
The limits of a shoal are precisely known ; for if the fisher- 
men put down their lines at the distance of more than three 
miles from the shore, they catch nothing but dog-fish : a 
proof that the haddock is not there. 
The Tunny retains not only the character, but the habits 
of the mackerel. They resort in vast shoals to the Mediter- 
ranean at certain seasons, and, from the earliest periods of 
history, have constituted a considerable branch of commerce 
there. The tunny, however, differs greatly from the mack- 
