after this care they leave them to the other agencies of nature to mature. But the young fry need no further attention. At the proper time, varying in each species, they emerge from their oval abode,* and immediately move about with great agility, and apparently in the full possession of their appointed faculties. Their wants are so few, and the supply so immediate, that as soon as they come into sentient being they have about them all that they require. They need no parental nutrition. A mother, in their element, could not do more for them than to provide a proper birthplace for them; and every maternal fish performs this office by moving to the right stations with the instinctive accuracy which resembles selecting judgment.†

Their food is that which their element contains, and of which there is always abundance within the power of their easy attainment. Some subsist only on plants of various sorts, which grow in the sea or on its shores. Many more

*The salmon continues in the egg four months; the carp only three weeks. The spawning time varies. Trouts are full about Christmas; perch in February; pikes in March; carp and tench in May.-Tull. in Phil. Tr. vol. xlviii. This gentleman found the abstraction of the ovaries to increase the size of the fish; but it is a cruel operation.

† Summer is the most usual time for their productive process. In June, the ling approach the shore, and deposite their ova in muddy bottoms, and among sea-weed, near the mouths of rivers.-P. 243. ... In May or June, the shad and the thunny spawn.-T. L. 825. Several ascend the rivers in spring, and remain several weeks or months before they return towards the coast in winter, as the anchovy, from December to March.-869. The haddock appears in vast shoals on the Yorkshire coast about Christmas.-725. The codfish lays its innumerable eggs in the spring, under the stones it finds; the whiting trout deposites its spawn among rocks in a southerly shore.-726.... The plaice lays its ova among the rocks and marine plants, about March.-Bing. 253. ... The fry of crabs, and of other crustaceous species, is deposited at the bottom of the waters; but it rises and floats on the surface in warm and rainy weather, where it is vivified by the sun's heat. When the cold comes, it sinks to the bottom, and the young ones bury themselves in the bottom of the sea or among the fuci and algae of the sub-marine rocks.-Donovan, F. M.

The unicornis chætodon, about an ell long, which is numerous on the Arabian coasts, feeds on herbs.-T. Linn. 781. Two species of the scarus, also in the same locality-one, the rivulatus, a yard long; the other, stellatus, only half a foot, which lives among the coral banks. -790. The sciana studens also, which is likewise an Arabian fish.-807. .... Both carp and tench may be reared and fed like capons, with brewing grains, malt coarsely ground, or any grain boiled, especially pease. Encyc. Brit. 259. .... Mackerel (scomber) are also herb-eaters. They are particularly fond of the sea-plant called the narrow-leaved palmated sea wrack, which grows in great abundance on the English

feed on herbs, with the addition of worms and insects.* Some also use a kind of soft and fat earth. A larger number seek their sustenance from worms and insects without the vegetable mixture. Several live on crabs and shellfish. But the great majority of the fish nation subcoast and other places.... This plant, the "zostera, is a common material for packing, and for stuffing cottagers' cushions."-Lind. Nat. B. 290.

*The salmo wartmannus, in the Alpine lakes of Switzerland, 17 inches long, a very fertile animal, feeds on worms, insects, herbs, and sort of sponge.-T. L. 855..... The latus cyprinus, which inhabits in great shoals the lakes and still rivers of Northern Europe, about a pound weight, very prolific, also feeds on worms and herbs.-887.....So the tench, roach, and gudgeon, and several others; some also taking young fry and smaller fish. The dobula takes likewise the leeches it finds. p. 881.

†The carp and bream swallow earth. So the prickly ophidium, the fossilis cobitus, and orfus. The carassius uses mud for its digestive purposes.-T. Linn. 872, 876, 837, 882, 885, 714.....The common codfish, for some benefit to itself, will often swallow stones and hard substances.-726.....The beautiful fish of the rivers to the north of the Great Slave Lake, towards the arctic regions, named backs graylings, corogonas signifer, described by Dr. Richardson, has "its stomach generally filled with gravel or black earth."-Frankl. Voy. p. 713.

As the shad, dace, and dab.-p. 869, 881, 763.....The common eel feeds on snails as well as worms; and at night will quit its watery element, and wander along meadows in search of them.-p. 707.... The herrings, in their season of shoaling, feed largely, as they float, on that insect which at this time covers the sea with a kind of scum, and which Rondoletius fully describes, and calls the sea caterpillar. The red char alpinus, in the northern mountain lakes, feeds on larvæ of the gnat kind.-T. Linn. 849.....The chaetodon rostratus, an Indian fish, living chiefly near the shore, or the mouths of rivers, feeds on the insects which fly near the surface of the water. It catches them by ejecting water at them from its tubular snout, which strikes them down within its reach. -T. Linn. 770....The sparus insidiator, also in the Indian sea, has the same habit, and the same success from its projectile dexterity.-p. 785... The zeus insidiator, in the fresh waters of India, obtains insects in a similar way. It sucks water into its gills, and casts it upwards suddenly from its mouth, so as to wet their wings, and disable them from imme. diate flight, till it can take them.-p. 759.

The sea monster, chimæra, in the deeps of the Atlantic and North Seas, feeds on crabs, molluscæ, and testaceous animals.-p. 913..... The monoceros balistes, in the seas of Asia and South America, from one to three feet long, seeks young crabs and polypi.-p. 898..... The aculeatus, in the Red Sea, lives on crabs. The dragonet, callionymus, feeds on echini and starfish.-722..... The blenny lives chiefly on crabs.-736..... The wolf-fish, which feeds on the lesser shellfish, grinds them to pieces with its teeth, and swallows the shelly matter as well as the animal. p. 713.....The conger eel takes the crabs in their soft state.--p. 708.....The teira, in the Arabian and Indian seas, feeds on the corals and testaceous animals.-729.....The sparus auratus lives chiefly on shellfish, which it breaks and macerates with its strong teeth

S

sist on each other. Some are so indiscriminatingly voracious as to consume those of their own tribe which they can master or meet with.* A few make sea-birds a part of their nutriment. The spawn and fry of other species are the food of many; and some will consume the animal dead bodies they find.‡

There is something splenetic in many of our writers, when they dissert on fishes. Our pleasing essayist, poet, dramatist, and novelist, but too hasty and careless writer on Animated Nature, speaks of them with much ill-humour and misconception; and, with inattention to their general habits and nature, characterizes all their thousand species by the particular appetites of a few. Others follow his track of misrepresentation. Although the worthy doctor began his account with justly declaring that "millions reside in their extensive and undiscovered abode, whose manners are a secret to us, and whose very form is unknown;"

before it passes them into its stomach.-784..... The tiger shark, of India, 15 feet long, feeds on the testaceous and crustaceous animals of the sea.-Pennant, Ind. Zool. p. 55.

*Not only the shark and pike have this habit, but the common cod will also prey upon its own species.-T. Linn. 726. The trout likewise. -847. One species of perch, lucioperca.--810.

† As the scrofa scorpæna, in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and North Seas.--Ib. 756.....The salmo rhombous, of Surinam, is said to bite off the legs of the ducks that come to the waters to seek the first fish they can master.--p. 857.....But this is only "diamond cut diamond."

The conger eel has this taste.--p. 708. So the barbel and the gudgeon, 873, 874; the surmullet, 820; the lamprey, 931. The shark and pike take every thing. The hyrpuris coryphæna is as voracious; from four to five feet long; it follows ships, and greedily devours what is thrown overboard.-p. 741.

Thus, "their rapacity seems insatiable."...."Fish are of all other animals, the most voracious and insatiable."...."The life of a fish, from the smallest to the greatest, is but one scene of hostility, violence, and evasion."...."Such is the general picture of these heedless and hungry creatures."-Golds. N. Hist. vol. iii. p. 419, 421, 431,..."All fish live upon each other."-p. 540. "All fish are enemies one to another."-p. 544. Both these assertions are notoriously unfounded; and the doctor repeatedly contradicts them, without perceiving it, by several facts that he states of their particular classes.

So Mr. Wood, in his Zoography, "In the inhabitants of the waters we look in vain for any thing beyond the mere gratification of voracious appetite."-vol. ii p. 115. "The whole race of fishes seem to be impelled by a voracious appetite; they are constantly in action, and perpetually at war. They mutually plunder and devour each other without remorse or moderation. So great is their mutual destruction, that their element would in time cease to be replenished, but that their fecundity exceeds their natural impatience to devour each other "-p. 121.

and although even of those whom "the curiosity and wants of mankind have drawn from their depths," he states that "their pursuits, migrations, societies, antipathies, and pleasures are all hidden in the turbulent element that protects them ;"* yet this proper recollection of our very superficial knowledge of this interesting class of creatures has not saved them from his promiscuous invectives. But many of his remarks on natural history show very hasty and imperfect reasoning: and to prevent your mind from being misled into erroneous notions concerning them, a few circumstances shall be submitted to your consideration in the next Letter, which may incline you to believe that fishes are not such a despicable and disgraceful anomaly in creation as they appear to be in these discoloured and exaggerated caricatures. You will find, that while as a whole they greatly resemble the other departments of the animal kingdom, both in faculties and qualities, they seem to possess some advantages which might make them even happier, but that individual comfort in all the races of sentient beings has been most carefully and universally provided for. This is the law of the formation of all, though the contingencies arising from the external action of other things occasionally and unavoidably cause among them, as among the other classes of nature, disturbing exceptions. We must be wholly insulated from every other being to be entirely free from any exterior agency; yet, who would desire to be a lone hermit in creation, to avoid the pains which fellowcreatures sometimes produce ?†

*Golds. p. 411, 412.

†The growth of fish is very gradual in some. A carp is, in the first year, the size of a willow-leaf; in the next, four inches; in the three following years they grow one inch in each; and after five, they increase in the next three years according to the nature of their pond.-lb. 539.

As to sea-fish, fishermen allege that they must be six years old before they are of a fit size for the table. A mackerel in the first year is of the size of a finger, which it doubles in the second; in the two next years it enlarges, but without melt or roe. Between five and six, it is of the length we eat. The turbot and barbel are in the first year like a crownpiece; in the second, will cover the palm of the hand, and between five and six, are fit to be dressed.-Duhamel, Tr. Peches. p. 100.

LETTER IX.

The Forms and Colours of Fishes-Their general Character-Voices of some-Their Serenity and habitual Comfort.

THE fishes which are most abundant and most frequent in our sight have pleasing forms. Some are more picturesque than beautiful. Occasionally we find grotesque ones; and a few with that structure and look which are called deformity. But what we deem ugliness in nature is very often rather contrast and peculiarity, than absolute defect. We know nothing of beauty and elegance but from the figures, colours, movements, arrangements, and appearances of created things. These are purposely so constructed and diversified by their great Author; and there is such a profusion of what excites feelings of pleasure_and admiration within us, that we consider as inferior, and we depreciate or dislike, whatever is of a dissimilar or opposite nature. If the more attractive objects had not been in existence, and known to us, we should have admired and valued what now, from the comparison, is considered deformity, and becomes our aversion.

But, exclusive of figure, the largest number of the fish tribes are very agreeable objects to our sight; and many eminently beautiful in their colours, and in the general appearance of their neat and glossy skin and scales. Though dwelling in a watery medium, yet the marvellous light,

* The sea bat of Edwards, and the horned fish of Willughby, are of this sort. The latter has no spinal or other hone, but is covered with a thick and strong horney case. The Brazilian guaperva, which may be seen in the "Planches Enluminées," has a strange figure, of a dull red colour. The sea unicorn, monodon monoceros, seventeen feet long, with a horn resembling ivory, protruding seventeen feet farther, and having a skin like polished marble, is a picturesque animal, not unpleasing.

The frogfish, or common angler, piscatorius lophius, called also the sea devil, resembles the tadpole of a frog or toad, but enlarged to the size of four or five feet. The hammer-headed shark and the sea porcupine may be deemed ugly, or only grotesque, according as our imagina. tion inclines to estimate thein.