23 
OF FISHES IS GENERA*,. 
tinues not, in that Hate, for above three weeks ; and the 
gold fitlx from China, is produced in a ftill Ihorter pe- 
riod *. 
When excluded from the egg, the young fiihes all, at 
firft, efcape by their minutenefs and agility. They per- 
form all their motions with much greater celerity and 
eafe, than grown and bulky fillies ; and can make their 
way into thallow water, where they cannot eafily be pur- 
fued. But, with all thefe advantages, not one, perhaps, 
of a thoufand, furvives the dangers of its youth. There 
is no inftance, among the fpinous fiihes, of any thing re- 
fembling parental affection : They all abandon their eggs 
to be hatched by the heat of the feafon f ; and, if they 
ever return to the fpot where their young have begun 
the career of life, the male and female that gave them 
birth, forgetting all parental relation, become enemies 
as formidable as the moft rapacious plunderers of the 
deep. 
Though the fifhes fall in millions by the rapacity of 
one another, yet they have other enemies than the ani- 
mals of their own kind. Many of the quadrupeds fre- 
quent the fliores,- rivers, and lakes, where filh is almoft 
their only food ; and we have already had occafion to 
remark, that a great proportion of the fowls refide con- 
Jlantly on the fea, where they either feed upon fpawn, 
or become the mercilefs invaders of the fmall fifhes. 
Thoufands too of the human race, wander, in a favage 
llate, around the lakes and rivers, whence they derive a 
confiderable portion of their fuftenance. And, among 
thofe 
* * Goldfmith’s Nat. Hift. Vol, VT. 
t The cdlh bov;a is the only exception to this cbfervation j it is faid t$ 
fit upon its eggs at the bottom of the water. 
