Most fish are of
exquisite
beauty, and some glisten with dazzling
brightness, as they glide through the deep.
brightness, as they glide through the deep.
Childrens - The Creation
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? LETTER IX.
155
present, than follow his arrangement; and though the names of the
classes and orders may at first sight seem difficult to remember, yet, as I
remarked to you in the letter on the atmosphere, the terms of science
all carry their meaning in their etymology ; and when once engraved
on the memory, are never effaced; therefore, when we know the class
and order to which any animal referred to belongs, instantly its con-
formation, food, habits, companions and all, present themselves to the
mind after a most pleasing and easy manner.
The first great division above alluded to, is arranged by Linnaeus,
under the order of " Cete," which means Whales.
CETE.
The animals comprised under this order are:--the Whale, the
Cachalot or Sperm Whale, the Grampus, Porpoise, Narwhal or Sea
Unicorn, and the Dolphin; all these, though inhabitants of the deep,
are viviparous, that is, they bring forth their young alive; they also
suckle them, and respire through lungs, like quadrupeds.
The Great Whale. --The word great may indeed be applied, with
all justice, to this giant of the deep, for he has been known to reach
between ninety and a hundred feet in length. I was but a lad when
I saw one for the first time, and the sight is still fresh in my memory.
Just imagine a garden or lane a hundred feet in length, and then
realize a whale as stretched out to that enormous extent.
There are many different species of whale:--the principal are the
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? 156
THE CREATION.
common, the pike-headed, the round-lipped, and the beaked; but as in
their great features they are alike, we will only look at the former,
i. e. the common whale.
The Whale is, to look at, of an unwieldy shape, the head being
one-third the size of the whole body; the colour is not uniform, but
generally of dark and dingy shades; the eyes are very small in pro-
portion to its size, not being larger than those of an ox, but they are
placed far back in the head, so that the animal enjoys a very wide
range of vision; there are two orifices, or holes, in the middle of the
head, through which it spouts out the water, (unavoidably taken into
its mouth as it feeds,) as from a fountain, to an amazing height, and
sometimes with great noise; the tail is in shape something like a
crescent--drawn in at the centre. That substance called whalebone,
the properties of which I have already explained to you, is found on
the upper jaw, and is composed of thin parallel layers, some of them
twelve feet in length. Its use is to strain from the water the minute
animals on which the whale subsists.
The food of the whale is a small molluscous animal about an inch
long, called the Clio Borealis.
The whale is fond of domestic happiness, and is faithful to his mate,
who returns an attachment that manifests itself even unto death;
instances of this have been witnessed in the female* whale, who,
* Goldsmith, in his "Natural History," vol. iii. p. 443, relates a striking fact in
proof of this. "Two whales were sailing together, a male and female, one of
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? LETTER IX. 157
when her partner has been struck, has voluntarily sacrificed her own
life with his. Parental love also is especially marked in this family;
the mother suckles her young with great tenderness for twelve months,
and if attacked, willingly sacrifices her own life in its defence. * The
cruel and faithless husband or wife, or the unnatural father or mother,
that can desert their offspring, may go to the whale and learn lessons
of conjugal and parental fidelity and attachment.
One can hardly bear to turn from this scene to speak to you of
other branches of the natural history of the whale; but I promised
you to do so, and therefore at once seek to fulfil my word.
Though, as we have seen, the whale is so peaceable; ye the has
enemies, and two of very different characters, the one, the sword Jish,
who darts his fearful weapon through and through the skin and blubber,
to the very flesh, and reddens the sea with the blood of its victim; the
other, the whale louse, a little animal that pitches its tent upon the
which was harpooned by the whalers; it made a long and formidable resistance;
its companion attended and assisted it, and when the wounded one expired,
stretched itself with great bellowing sounds upon the dead fish, and voluntarily
shared its fate. "
? Waller, in his poem of the " Summer Islands," mentions the fact of a grampus,
(of the same great family as the whale,) which had got on shore with her young,
and on being attacked escaped; but the young one was not so quick: the mother
finding this, and seeing no hope of rescuing it, preferred death with her young, to
life without it. See Sharon Turner's " Sacred History of the World," vol. i.
p. 310; a work in which more interesting matter is collected together, and facts
narrated connected with natural history, than can be found probably in the same
compass, in any book in our language; in nine months it went through three
editions, and in three years more attained its sixth.
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THE CREATION.
whale's very body, and subsists upon its substance. But these two
are insignificant enemies when compared with man, who, with an
avidity and boldness that is startling to contemplate, pursues, and
overtakes, and conquers an animal, a thousand times larger than himself.
But. in this, and many other ways, we find that wonderful promise to
Noah fulfilled,--" And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto
them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the
fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the
earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the
earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they
delivered. " (Gen. ix. 1, 2. )
The method of taking the whale is so extraordinary, that I have
thought a few remarks concerning it might interest you.
The vessels which are occupied in the whale fishery, are called
emphatically " Whalers ;" they are always chosen vessels, of several
hundred tons burthen, with a captain and crew well appointed, and
everything fitted for this one express purpose. Their boats, six in
number, are called whale boats; they are of a peculiar form,--the head
and stern both sharp. Six men are appointed to each boat, besides
the steersman and the man with the harpoon; and thus equipped,
they leave their native land, some going to the Arctic seas, and some
to the Southern Ocean, for fish: for though Naturalists will not allow
whales to be fish, yet the sailor thinks that everything that swims is
fish; and he enumerates his success--by having " taken so many Fish. "
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But imagine the vessel arrived at her destination, where the whales
are supposed to be in numbers. --Just at noon, when the sun is bright,
the man from the crow's nest calls aloud, " a fish! " Instantly all is
activity, the boats are manned, and one of them pulls directly to the
whale, others following; all this while, the animal seems quite un-
conscious of the terrible scene that awaits it--it darts not into its
deep and unfathomable home, but lets the enemy come right to its
side. Instantly that the boat is close to its prey, its approach
being as quiet as possible, the harpooner lifts up his hand, and then,
with all his power, plunges "the barbed arrow" into this quiet
monarch of the sea. The whale feels the deadly blow, and plunges,
now too late, with tremendous velocity, sometimes, it is said, even to
eight hundred fathoms, in the deep. Fastened to the barb is a line,
consisting of six parts, each a hundred and twenty fathoms in length,
which, spliced together, makes in all a rope four thousand three
hundred and twenty yards; this clearly coiled up, is drawn out of
the boat with such violence, that if ought impeded it, all would be
destruction. But now, the line slackens, and the prisoner rises from
the bottom of the deep, panting for breath,--those two orifices through
which he had spouted in his pastime, and darted the sparkling foun-
tain in the sunbeam, now (if the barb has deepened in the flesh) shoot
out with blood. The boats, only intent on one thing, again approach
their victim--another barb follows the first, and again he seeks to
escape: but now, twice captive and weakened through the loss of blood,
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? 160
THE CREATION.
he rises in faintness and weakness, and becomes (each man darting
his lance into him) the easy prey of his adventurous enemies.
Quickly the fins and tail are cut off, and the whale tugged to the
ship, where the blubber,* a thick substance from which the oil is run,
is sliced from the trunk. The whalebone is cut from the upper jaw,
and then the carcase is cut adrift, and becomes the food of a variety of
animals that inhabit the ocean; while the ship passes on her way in
quest of other prey.
But the whale fishery is attended with great danger. Sometimes
the whale strikes the boat with its tail, and destruction and loss of life
almost always follow; at other times the whale has been known reso-
lutely to choose, as if by instinct, the ship itself for its opponent; and
swimming to some distance a-head, has returned with terrible speed,
and struck the vessel in the bow, and she has foundered.
One turns with delight, my beloved children, from these scenes of
death, to contemplate those days so blessedly called the times of
restitution; and though the scriptures have not fully expressed what
the extent of the blessings of those times will be; yet restitution
always implies three things (itself the third;) first, possession; second,
loss; third, restitution. This truth all will allow,--that the re-
deemed creation will not be less glorious than the first. I will
? A large whale will yield seventy barrels of oil, and even the tongue itself
has been known, to melt down to five or six barrels. The value of a large fish is
estimated at a thousand pounds.
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enlarge on this in my next; yet I could not help dropping a word on
it now.
The Sperm Whale. --The second animal, under the order Cete,
is the sperm whale--sometimes called the Cachelot. This animal is not
so large as the Greenland whale, rarely exceeding sixty feet in length.
It is found in the southern ocean; and as the sperm oil is so much
more valuable than the common, it is sought with increased avidity.
Naturalists have found a difficulty in arranging the varieties of this
genus; but they may be divided into three. The " blunt headed,"
" round headed," and " high finned. " If the head of the great whale
is large, that of the sperm whale is still larger, constituting nearly
one-half of the whole body; and it is said, that the thorax is capacious
enough to admit an ox. In the stomach of the former, scarcely any-
thing is found: not so the cachelot; for vast quantities of fish give
the full proof that he is as voracious as the whale of the north is
gentle and, so to speak, abstemious.
There are instances of this whale being taken off the island of
Bermuda; and I remember, before I was thirteen years of age, pulling
into the romantic harbour of St. George's, the capital of that island,
and to my great astonishment, seeing a large sperm whale, that had
been caught and to wed in the previous day. Several Negroes were
standing on it, with hatchets, and cutting out its flesh in large lumps
of some pounds weight, which they hang up and dry; and it is by no
means either an unsightly, or unpalatable food, if the whale is young;
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? 162
THE CREATION.
indeed, disguised with sauces, it was, even at the Admiral's table,
mistaken for veal. Some writers have commended the flesh of the
porpoise; but whale is a delicacy compared to it.
The oil of this whale is called sperm oil; and the cavities of its
head are filled with what is called spermaceti. A single whale will
yield sixteen barrels of that substance. Oftentimes also ambergris is
found in the belly of the Cachelot, sometimes in lumps of upwards of
a hundred pounds in weight.
The Grampus. --This animal rarely exceeds twenty-six feet in
length. It is in its habits like the sperm whale; and is often met with
in the Atlantic.
The Porpoise is about eight feet long. This animal is well
known in our own seas, and indeed rivers; and oftentimes is seen in
the Severn, and even far up above the ships in the Tamar, and at
Portsmouth. It seems very happy and playful, as perhaps the whole of
the inhabitants of the sea are, more than any other part of creation.
The Narwhal, or Sea Unicorn. --Though the Narwhal is much
larger than the grampus or porpoise, yet I preferred treating of it
separately, as it seems more distinct from that family.
The Narwhal is seldom more than sixty feet in length; and though
armed with a most formidable nasal horn, projecting to the length of
twelve feet from his upper jaw, it is a quiet, gentle, inoffensive
animal--fond of society; it is seen in the northern seas in large herds.
They are much handsomer, and more in what we call proportion
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than the whale. The Horn of the Narwhal is perfectly straight,
about four inches in diameter near the jaw, and wreathed in a curious
manner as it tapers to a point. It is whiter, harder, and heavier than
common ivory.
The Dolphin. --This beautiful inhabitant of the deep, was, of old
times, a great favourite with historians, philosophers, and poets; and
many and wonderful are the traditions about it. Leaving England
for the East or West Indies, when the weather begins to get warm,
and you are drawing towards the trade winds, and sometimes before,
when perhaps for many days nothing has been seen, but " the dark
blue sea," it is a cheering sound to hear " a number of dolphins are
round our vessel;" the passengers, one and all, are up, and many for
the first time gaze on this beautiful creature; meanwhile some of the
sailors, with an imitative flying fish, get to that part of the vessel just
under the bowsprit, called " the dolphin striker," and with a bottle
midway to their bait, they suddenly jerk it out of the water, to
imitate the flying fish. The unwary dolphin, caught by the sight of
his prey, springs like a shot from the water, and learns, too late, a
lesson, which all are prone to forget,--" that the fairest appearances
Iiave oftentimes a hidden barb beneath. " When the dolphin is brought
on deck, every body is around to watch it change its colours; and
though poets may have rather heightened the description, yet the
scene must be witnessed to appreciate it.
Once I remember off the southern coast of North America, seeing
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? 164 THE CREATION.
a dolphin in pursuit of a shoal of flying fish; he darted like lightning
to his prey, and they seeing their danger, spread their silvery wings,
and skimmed the air, and passed beyond their pursuer; but in a little
while their wings were dry, and the effort with which they shot their
flight was spent, and they dropped for a moment in the ocean; this
brought them again within the reach of their enemy, but again they
shot into the air; and again returned for strength, till at last, the
dolphin, wearied with the chase, left them. At other times, as
Capt. Basil Hall, in 'his " Fragments," so eloquently describes,--
the shoal becomes successively the prey of the spoiler. But the
flight of this beautiful fish varies; if small, it is short and low; but if
large, it is higher and longer. We will now consider the second
great divison of the inhabitants of the sea.
THE FISH OF THE DEEP.
Most fish present the same external form,--sharp at the extremities,
and swelling in the middle, the very form adapted to the element they
are called to move in; and then, as to their structure,--design marks
the whole. Their fins balance them ;* their tail propels them; and the
* If you watch a boat skilfully impelled with the stern oar, (which evolution is
called sculling,) you at once see the principle by which the fish glides on its way;
and as the hulls of vessels took their pattern from the bodies of fish; so, doubtless,
the new propelling power, now coming into such common use in steam ships, i. e. ,
the Archimedean Screw, perhaps, owes its invention to a careful observation of the tail
of a fish; and just in proportion as art copies from God's perfect models in his
creation,--in that proportion it excels.
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air bladder, (which most of them possess) distended or contracted
at pleasure, gives them the power of rising or sinking in the water
without effort.
The eye of the fish is also of most marked contrivance; a projecting
eye, to an animal living in so dense an element as water, and called to
glide with such rapidity, would have been continually liable to danger.
To meet this difficulty, the cornea is flat; and then, to make amends
for this, the crystalline lens is spherical.
The peculiarity of the arrangement of the scales must not be omitted,
for here the most minute care is visible; and whilst the smooth
surface presented by the scales (which are covered moreover with a
slimy substance) enables the fish to move forward with exceeding
ease, these are so closely fitted tegether, that their coat of mail is
quite waterproof: and thus though water is all around them, they are
never wet.
Most fish are of exquisite beauty, and some glisten with dazzling
brightness, as they glide through the deep. One family is especially
called " the angel fish," a name most appropriate. I have seen these
near " the Summer Islands," and hardly knew how to take my eyes
off them, green--blue--purple--and all the tints you can imagine.
The king fish, called Luna, frequenting the coast of Normandy, is
also of great beauty; and the mackarel of our own seas, both in its
symmetry and colours, is much to be admired. And then, I suppose, few
little boys have not watched with pleasure the pretty gold and silver
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? 166
THE CREATION.
fish, in large globes of water. You remember those beautiful ones of
our friend Mr. P. , that swam round the artificial rock, at the bottom
of his globe. They seemed happy enough in their captivity; but
after all, the best way to see the animal creation happy, is when they
are not imprisoned, but roaming abroad in all their unbounded freedom.
Fish seem to live a happy, inoffensive life; and, it is calculated,
attain to great age. This fact has been ascertained by marking them
in private ponds; and besides which, as the horse tells us his age by
his teeth, and the rattle-snake by its rattles, so some naturalists think
that fish do, by the concentric circles on their scales, which are said
to increase one every year. Buffon says, by this means, he found a
carp to have lived a hundred years; Gessner had one as old; and
Alberti affirms, that another attained the age of two hundred.
The increase of fish also is beyond all calculation; for, whilst the
whale family bring forth their young singly, and rarely in pairs, and
suckle them for the whole year; the lobster, prawn, and shrimp, bring
forth their thousands; the carp, sole, and mackarel, their hundreds of
thousands; and the cod and flounder, their millions. These all, with a
wonderful instinct, choose the places most suited to deposit their spawn;
some in mud, some beneath rocks, some on the surface of the water;
which at the appointed time springs into life*--a new generation.
* The plan of the Chinese, who are a curious people for contrivance and imita-
tion, is to hatch the spawn of particularly choice fish, under a hen; at the proper
season, people, whose business it is, procure the spawn, and sell it to gentlemen
who have ponds: by them the spawn is deposited in an empty egg, provided for
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The Crab lays its spawn at the bottom of the sea or river, and when
the sun comes out warm, and the weather is hot, the spawn is drawn
up to the surface, and vivifies in the heat; and when cold comes, the
little family sink down among the rocks, and contrive for themselves
in a thousand different ways; contrivance and wisdom, after a most
wonderful order, marking every movement of God's providence.
Thus having considered the great family of the ocean, under these
seven most interesting particulars:--1, their symmetry and propor-
tion; 2, their fins and tail; 3, the air bladder; 4, the beauty and
order of their scales; 5, their age; 6, their peculiar colours and
brightness of their appearance; 7, the amazing increase of the whole
family; we will now proceed, according to the Linnean arrangement,
to look at the subject in regular order.
Professor Gmelin, in his revised edition of Linnaeus's works,
arranges the whole of this great family in six orders, which again he
divides into seventy-two genera, and sub-divides into eight hundred
and seventy-three species. These have since been added to; so that
now we have near nine hundred species clearly defined. But knowing
most children are fond of tabular arrangements, by which they can take
a bird's eye view of the whole scene, I have made one out; and when I
speak of the orders separately, I will explain the difficult names to you.
the purpose, which, when filled, is hermetically sealed. The hen sits on this for
some days ; the egg is then opened, and placed in a vessel of water heated by the
sun, and when the little brood are sufficiently strong, the egg is broken, and they
are loosed from their strange imprisonment, and put into ponds to roam at large.
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? 168 THE CREATION.
A TABLE OF THE SIX ORDERS OF FISHES.
ACCORDING TO LINNAEUS.
ORDER.
NAME.
PROPERTIES.
GIN.
SPE.
I.
Apodal . . . .
12
40
II.
Jugular . . . .
With Ventral Fins before the Pectoral
6
52
III.
Thoracic . . . .
The Ventral under the Pectoral . .
21
425
IV.
Abdominal . . .
The Ventral far behind the Pectoral .
16
202
(In these four the Gills have bony rays. )
V.
Branchiostegious .
Gills destitute of bony rays . . . .
10
84
VI.
Chondropterygious
Gills with cartilaginous rays . . .
7
70
72
873
THE FIRST ORDER--APODA. "
WITHOUT VENTRAL FINS. --TWELVE GENERA. -- FORTY SPECIES.
The Eel. --The common Eel is a well known inhabitant of our
rivers, creeks, and streams. It is thought by some to be viviparous;
it survives a long while out of water, and its tenacity of life is such,
that it lives some time even after cut in pieces. Near Oxford, in the
Isis, there is a peculiar kind, called Grills, with a larger head than the
common Eel. There is no fish that comes to our table that is so liked
or disliked; however, most consider it very nutritious. It varies in
size, from six inches to two feet, and is of a dark colour.
? The word apoda is derived from the Greek word--to lack, or be deficient of
feel.
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The Conger. This differs from the common eel in size and colour;
and is an inhabitant of the ocean. It grows much larger also, some-
times reaching from four to eight feet in length; and sometimes ten.
It is very voracious, and if hunger impels it, eats all that comes in its
way. Contrary to the habits of the fresh water eel, they spawn their
young; immense quantities of which come up the Severn in April,
followed by the Chad; in this state they are called Elvers ,' and are
considered by some a great delicacy. The Conger abounds in the
Hebrides, or Western Islands (Scotland); but the natives in some
cases have an aversion to them, from their likeness to serpents.
The Electrical Eel. Except the Torpedo, no other animal in nature
possesses such extraordinary powers. Its size varies from three to
four feet in length: its head is blunt. When touched, it gives a
shock exactly the same as an electrical shock of the atmosphere.
Mr. J. Hunter, on examining it, found that the nerves that exercised
this power were much larger than the others*--several persons
standing together will feel the shock, if a little finger of one touches
this singular creature. It is found in Guiana and Surinam.
The iMunce Eel. This resembles in some measure the common
eel, though it is not such a snake-like looking fish; it has a long fin
the whole length of the back; also a pair of fins at the gills. It is
* There is one now exhibiting in the Adelaide Gallery, Strand; but of late its
shocks are so violent, that few are bold enough to try the experiment. It is
upwards of three feet long.
I
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? 170
THE CREATION.
destitute of scales. It is found in the sandy shores of England,
Scotland and Wales, and is considered good for the table.
The Sword-fish. This fish sometimes weighs a hundred pounds; it
is found in great numbers in the Mediterranean; and has been seen
off our own coast. The body is long, and rounded near the head; the
back is black; and the belly silvery white. The sword proceeds from,
or is a prolongation of the upper jaw. The dorsal fin extends almost
the entire length of the body. The tail is beautifully forked. It has
one pair of fins at the gills; but none on the belly. It is a very
voracious fish. The method of taking it, is by spearing. Strabo
mentions it in his day, and the very same method of taking it. It is
considered very good for food.
THE SECOND ORDER--JUGULARES.
VENTRAL FINS BEFORE THE PECTORALS--SIX GENERA. --FIFTY-TWO SPECIES.
The God, Haddock, Pollack, Hake, Coal-fith, Ling, Burbot, Urenscope,
are of this family ; and they all come to our aid for food (especially in
our own country) in teeming multitudes.
The Cod. This valuable fish not only supplies us with food for
present use, but its flesh is of that firm nature, that when salted it will
keep as well as meat: thus, though they do not swim into latitudes
warmer than thirty-five degrees north, that is, about the latitude of
Gibraltar; yet they are carried all over the globe. Some have said,
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that the banks of Newfoundland, where the Cod is found in such abun-
dance, are of more value to England than the mines of Potosi were
to Spain: and this is quite true; for the Newfoundland cod-fishing
gives employment to numerous fleets of our small shipping, and
is a hardy school for our merchant navy. The season commences in
February, and ends in May. Not that the cod is confined to the
" banks," though these indeed are their metropolis, where they meet
by millions and millions; but they are found all along our own coasts,
and those of Ireland, and in the North Sea, and about the Hebrides.
Indeed the cold North seems the home of this most prolific and in-
valuable fish. Off the coast of America, near Halifax, I have caught
them as fast as the line could be let down. The length of the cod is
from two to four and even five feet; and they weigh from twelve to
forty pounds. I have been thus particular about this fish; but I can-
not promise you to say so much on all the other species of this Order.
Haddock. This is a much smaller fish than the cod. The body
is long and slender; the back is dark; the belly silvery; the tail
bifid. The haddock is found in abundance off our own coasts; but
especially off Yorkshire, where they return periodically--the fisher-
men say, even to the very day of the month. Shoals of them have
been seen three miles in breadth. They have a deadly enemy in the
dog-fish. Their own food is principally young herrings. Through
the winter months they are much esteemed for the table. They weigh
in general from two to three pounds.
i2
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THE CREATION.
Pollack. This fish likes the rocky coast of our island; and abounds
in the summer. The under jaw of this fish is longer than the upper.
They are fond of springing from the water; and seem to rejoice in
life. They weigh from eight to twelve pounds, and sometimes more.
As food they are excellent.
Whiting. This delicate fish is well known along the coast of
England; it seldom exceeds twelve inches in length. It is beautiful
in its proportions. By act of Parliament, no whiting, of less than
six inches, is allowed to be taken in the Thames or Medway, nor at
any season except from Michaelmas to Easter week. The flesh of
this little visitor is considered the most delicate and digestible of all
this Order.
Hake.
? LETTER IX.
155
present, than follow his arrangement; and though the names of the
classes and orders may at first sight seem difficult to remember, yet, as I
remarked to you in the letter on the atmosphere, the terms of science
all carry their meaning in their etymology ; and when once engraved
on the memory, are never effaced; therefore, when we know the class
and order to which any animal referred to belongs, instantly its con-
formation, food, habits, companions and all, present themselves to the
mind after a most pleasing and easy manner.
The first great division above alluded to, is arranged by Linnaeus,
under the order of " Cete," which means Whales.
CETE.
The animals comprised under this order are:--the Whale, the
Cachalot or Sperm Whale, the Grampus, Porpoise, Narwhal or Sea
Unicorn, and the Dolphin; all these, though inhabitants of the deep,
are viviparous, that is, they bring forth their young alive; they also
suckle them, and respire through lungs, like quadrupeds.
The Great Whale. --The word great may indeed be applied, with
all justice, to this giant of the deep, for he has been known to reach
between ninety and a hundred feet in length. I was but a lad when
I saw one for the first time, and the sight is still fresh in my memory.
Just imagine a garden or lane a hundred feet in length, and then
realize a whale as stretched out to that enormous extent.
There are many different species of whale:--the principal are the
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? 156
THE CREATION.
common, the pike-headed, the round-lipped, and the beaked; but as in
their great features they are alike, we will only look at the former,
i. e. the common whale.
The Whale is, to look at, of an unwieldy shape, the head being
one-third the size of the whole body; the colour is not uniform, but
generally of dark and dingy shades; the eyes are very small in pro-
portion to its size, not being larger than those of an ox, but they are
placed far back in the head, so that the animal enjoys a very wide
range of vision; there are two orifices, or holes, in the middle of the
head, through which it spouts out the water, (unavoidably taken into
its mouth as it feeds,) as from a fountain, to an amazing height, and
sometimes with great noise; the tail is in shape something like a
crescent--drawn in at the centre. That substance called whalebone,
the properties of which I have already explained to you, is found on
the upper jaw, and is composed of thin parallel layers, some of them
twelve feet in length. Its use is to strain from the water the minute
animals on which the whale subsists.
The food of the whale is a small molluscous animal about an inch
long, called the Clio Borealis.
The whale is fond of domestic happiness, and is faithful to his mate,
who returns an attachment that manifests itself even unto death;
instances of this have been witnessed in the female* whale, who,
* Goldsmith, in his "Natural History," vol. iii. p. 443, relates a striking fact in
proof of this. "Two whales were sailing together, a male and female, one of
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? LETTER IX. 157
when her partner has been struck, has voluntarily sacrificed her own
life with his. Parental love also is especially marked in this family;
the mother suckles her young with great tenderness for twelve months,
and if attacked, willingly sacrifices her own life in its defence. * The
cruel and faithless husband or wife, or the unnatural father or mother,
that can desert their offspring, may go to the whale and learn lessons
of conjugal and parental fidelity and attachment.
One can hardly bear to turn from this scene to speak to you of
other branches of the natural history of the whale; but I promised
you to do so, and therefore at once seek to fulfil my word.
Though, as we have seen, the whale is so peaceable; ye the has
enemies, and two of very different characters, the one, the sword Jish,
who darts his fearful weapon through and through the skin and blubber,
to the very flesh, and reddens the sea with the blood of its victim; the
other, the whale louse, a little animal that pitches its tent upon the
which was harpooned by the whalers; it made a long and formidable resistance;
its companion attended and assisted it, and when the wounded one expired,
stretched itself with great bellowing sounds upon the dead fish, and voluntarily
shared its fate. "
? Waller, in his poem of the " Summer Islands," mentions the fact of a grampus,
(of the same great family as the whale,) which had got on shore with her young,
and on being attacked escaped; but the young one was not so quick: the mother
finding this, and seeing no hope of rescuing it, preferred death with her young, to
life without it. See Sharon Turner's " Sacred History of the World," vol. i.
p. 310; a work in which more interesting matter is collected together, and facts
narrated connected with natural history, than can be found probably in the same
compass, in any book in our language; in nine months it went through three
editions, and in three years more attained its sixth.
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? 158
THE CREATION.
whale's very body, and subsists upon its substance. But these two
are insignificant enemies when compared with man, who, with an
avidity and boldness that is startling to contemplate, pursues, and
overtakes, and conquers an animal, a thousand times larger than himself.
But. in this, and many other ways, we find that wonderful promise to
Noah fulfilled,--" And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto
them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the
fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the
earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the
earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they
delivered. " (Gen. ix. 1, 2. )
The method of taking the whale is so extraordinary, that I have
thought a few remarks concerning it might interest you.
The vessels which are occupied in the whale fishery, are called
emphatically " Whalers ;" they are always chosen vessels, of several
hundred tons burthen, with a captain and crew well appointed, and
everything fitted for this one express purpose. Their boats, six in
number, are called whale boats; they are of a peculiar form,--the head
and stern both sharp. Six men are appointed to each boat, besides
the steersman and the man with the harpoon; and thus equipped,
they leave their native land, some going to the Arctic seas, and some
to the Southern Ocean, for fish: for though Naturalists will not allow
whales to be fish, yet the sailor thinks that everything that swims is
fish; and he enumerates his success--by having " taken so many Fish. "
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? LETTER IX.
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But imagine the vessel arrived at her destination, where the whales
are supposed to be in numbers. --Just at noon, when the sun is bright,
the man from the crow's nest calls aloud, " a fish! " Instantly all is
activity, the boats are manned, and one of them pulls directly to the
whale, others following; all this while, the animal seems quite un-
conscious of the terrible scene that awaits it--it darts not into its
deep and unfathomable home, but lets the enemy come right to its
side. Instantly that the boat is close to its prey, its approach
being as quiet as possible, the harpooner lifts up his hand, and then,
with all his power, plunges "the barbed arrow" into this quiet
monarch of the sea. The whale feels the deadly blow, and plunges,
now too late, with tremendous velocity, sometimes, it is said, even to
eight hundred fathoms, in the deep. Fastened to the barb is a line,
consisting of six parts, each a hundred and twenty fathoms in length,
which, spliced together, makes in all a rope four thousand three
hundred and twenty yards; this clearly coiled up, is drawn out of
the boat with such violence, that if ought impeded it, all would be
destruction. But now, the line slackens, and the prisoner rises from
the bottom of the deep, panting for breath,--those two orifices through
which he had spouted in his pastime, and darted the sparkling foun-
tain in the sunbeam, now (if the barb has deepened in the flesh) shoot
out with blood. The boats, only intent on one thing, again approach
their victim--another barb follows the first, and again he seeks to
escape: but now, twice captive and weakened through the loss of blood,
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? 160
THE CREATION.
he rises in faintness and weakness, and becomes (each man darting
his lance into him) the easy prey of his adventurous enemies.
Quickly the fins and tail are cut off, and the whale tugged to the
ship, where the blubber,* a thick substance from which the oil is run,
is sliced from the trunk. The whalebone is cut from the upper jaw,
and then the carcase is cut adrift, and becomes the food of a variety of
animals that inhabit the ocean; while the ship passes on her way in
quest of other prey.
But the whale fishery is attended with great danger. Sometimes
the whale strikes the boat with its tail, and destruction and loss of life
almost always follow; at other times the whale has been known reso-
lutely to choose, as if by instinct, the ship itself for its opponent; and
swimming to some distance a-head, has returned with terrible speed,
and struck the vessel in the bow, and she has foundered.
One turns with delight, my beloved children, from these scenes of
death, to contemplate those days so blessedly called the times of
restitution; and though the scriptures have not fully expressed what
the extent of the blessings of those times will be; yet restitution
always implies three things (itself the third;) first, possession; second,
loss; third, restitution. This truth all will allow,--that the re-
deemed creation will not be less glorious than the first. I will
? A large whale will yield seventy barrels of oil, and even the tongue itself
has been known, to melt down to five or six barrels. The value of a large fish is
estimated at a thousand pounds.
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? LETTER IX.
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enlarge on this in my next; yet I could not help dropping a word on
it now.
The Sperm Whale. --The second animal, under the order Cete,
is the sperm whale--sometimes called the Cachelot. This animal is not
so large as the Greenland whale, rarely exceeding sixty feet in length.
It is found in the southern ocean; and as the sperm oil is so much
more valuable than the common, it is sought with increased avidity.
Naturalists have found a difficulty in arranging the varieties of this
genus; but they may be divided into three. The " blunt headed,"
" round headed," and " high finned. " If the head of the great whale
is large, that of the sperm whale is still larger, constituting nearly
one-half of the whole body; and it is said, that the thorax is capacious
enough to admit an ox. In the stomach of the former, scarcely any-
thing is found: not so the cachelot; for vast quantities of fish give
the full proof that he is as voracious as the whale of the north is
gentle and, so to speak, abstemious.
There are instances of this whale being taken off the island of
Bermuda; and I remember, before I was thirteen years of age, pulling
into the romantic harbour of St. George's, the capital of that island,
and to my great astonishment, seeing a large sperm whale, that had
been caught and to wed in the previous day. Several Negroes were
standing on it, with hatchets, and cutting out its flesh in large lumps
of some pounds weight, which they hang up and dry; and it is by no
means either an unsightly, or unpalatable food, if the whale is young;
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? 162
THE CREATION.
indeed, disguised with sauces, it was, even at the Admiral's table,
mistaken for veal. Some writers have commended the flesh of the
porpoise; but whale is a delicacy compared to it.
The oil of this whale is called sperm oil; and the cavities of its
head are filled with what is called spermaceti. A single whale will
yield sixteen barrels of that substance. Oftentimes also ambergris is
found in the belly of the Cachelot, sometimes in lumps of upwards of
a hundred pounds in weight.
The Grampus. --This animal rarely exceeds twenty-six feet in
length. It is in its habits like the sperm whale; and is often met with
in the Atlantic.
The Porpoise is about eight feet long. This animal is well
known in our own seas, and indeed rivers; and oftentimes is seen in
the Severn, and even far up above the ships in the Tamar, and at
Portsmouth. It seems very happy and playful, as perhaps the whole of
the inhabitants of the sea are, more than any other part of creation.
The Narwhal, or Sea Unicorn. --Though the Narwhal is much
larger than the grampus or porpoise, yet I preferred treating of it
separately, as it seems more distinct from that family.
The Narwhal is seldom more than sixty feet in length; and though
armed with a most formidable nasal horn, projecting to the length of
twelve feet from his upper jaw, it is a quiet, gentle, inoffensive
animal--fond of society; it is seen in the northern seas in large herds.
They are much handsomer, and more in what we call proportion
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? LETTER IX.
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than the whale. The Horn of the Narwhal is perfectly straight,
about four inches in diameter near the jaw, and wreathed in a curious
manner as it tapers to a point. It is whiter, harder, and heavier than
common ivory.
The Dolphin. --This beautiful inhabitant of the deep, was, of old
times, a great favourite with historians, philosophers, and poets; and
many and wonderful are the traditions about it. Leaving England
for the East or West Indies, when the weather begins to get warm,
and you are drawing towards the trade winds, and sometimes before,
when perhaps for many days nothing has been seen, but " the dark
blue sea," it is a cheering sound to hear " a number of dolphins are
round our vessel;" the passengers, one and all, are up, and many for
the first time gaze on this beautiful creature; meanwhile some of the
sailors, with an imitative flying fish, get to that part of the vessel just
under the bowsprit, called " the dolphin striker," and with a bottle
midway to their bait, they suddenly jerk it out of the water, to
imitate the flying fish. The unwary dolphin, caught by the sight of
his prey, springs like a shot from the water, and learns, too late, a
lesson, which all are prone to forget,--" that the fairest appearances
Iiave oftentimes a hidden barb beneath. " When the dolphin is brought
on deck, every body is around to watch it change its colours; and
though poets may have rather heightened the description, yet the
scene must be witnessed to appreciate it.
Once I remember off the southern coast of North America, seeing
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? 164 THE CREATION.
a dolphin in pursuit of a shoal of flying fish; he darted like lightning
to his prey, and they seeing their danger, spread their silvery wings,
and skimmed the air, and passed beyond their pursuer; but in a little
while their wings were dry, and the effort with which they shot their
flight was spent, and they dropped for a moment in the ocean; this
brought them again within the reach of their enemy, but again they
shot into the air; and again returned for strength, till at last, the
dolphin, wearied with the chase, left them. At other times, as
Capt. Basil Hall, in 'his " Fragments," so eloquently describes,--
the shoal becomes successively the prey of the spoiler. But the
flight of this beautiful fish varies; if small, it is short and low; but if
large, it is higher and longer. We will now consider the second
great divison of the inhabitants of the sea.
THE FISH OF THE DEEP.
Most fish present the same external form,--sharp at the extremities,
and swelling in the middle, the very form adapted to the element they
are called to move in; and then, as to their structure,--design marks
the whole. Their fins balance them ;* their tail propels them; and the
* If you watch a boat skilfully impelled with the stern oar, (which evolution is
called sculling,) you at once see the principle by which the fish glides on its way;
and as the hulls of vessels took their pattern from the bodies of fish; so, doubtless,
the new propelling power, now coming into such common use in steam ships, i. e. ,
the Archimedean Screw, perhaps, owes its invention to a careful observation of the tail
of a fish; and just in proportion as art copies from God's perfect models in his
creation,--in that proportion it excels.
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? LETTER IX.
165
air bladder, (which most of them possess) distended or contracted
at pleasure, gives them the power of rising or sinking in the water
without effort.
The eye of the fish is also of most marked contrivance; a projecting
eye, to an animal living in so dense an element as water, and called to
glide with such rapidity, would have been continually liable to danger.
To meet this difficulty, the cornea is flat; and then, to make amends
for this, the crystalline lens is spherical.
The peculiarity of the arrangement of the scales must not be omitted,
for here the most minute care is visible; and whilst the smooth
surface presented by the scales (which are covered moreover with a
slimy substance) enables the fish to move forward with exceeding
ease, these are so closely fitted tegether, that their coat of mail is
quite waterproof: and thus though water is all around them, they are
never wet.
Most fish are of exquisite beauty, and some glisten with dazzling
brightness, as they glide through the deep. One family is especially
called " the angel fish," a name most appropriate. I have seen these
near " the Summer Islands," and hardly knew how to take my eyes
off them, green--blue--purple--and all the tints you can imagine.
The king fish, called Luna, frequenting the coast of Normandy, is
also of great beauty; and the mackarel of our own seas, both in its
symmetry and colours, is much to be admired. And then, I suppose, few
little boys have not watched with pleasure the pretty gold and silver
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? 166
THE CREATION.
fish, in large globes of water. You remember those beautiful ones of
our friend Mr. P. , that swam round the artificial rock, at the bottom
of his globe. They seemed happy enough in their captivity; but
after all, the best way to see the animal creation happy, is when they
are not imprisoned, but roaming abroad in all their unbounded freedom.
Fish seem to live a happy, inoffensive life; and, it is calculated,
attain to great age. This fact has been ascertained by marking them
in private ponds; and besides which, as the horse tells us his age by
his teeth, and the rattle-snake by its rattles, so some naturalists think
that fish do, by the concentric circles on their scales, which are said
to increase one every year. Buffon says, by this means, he found a
carp to have lived a hundred years; Gessner had one as old; and
Alberti affirms, that another attained the age of two hundred.
The increase of fish also is beyond all calculation; for, whilst the
whale family bring forth their young singly, and rarely in pairs, and
suckle them for the whole year; the lobster, prawn, and shrimp, bring
forth their thousands; the carp, sole, and mackarel, their hundreds of
thousands; and the cod and flounder, their millions. These all, with a
wonderful instinct, choose the places most suited to deposit their spawn;
some in mud, some beneath rocks, some on the surface of the water;
which at the appointed time springs into life*--a new generation.
* The plan of the Chinese, who are a curious people for contrivance and imita-
tion, is to hatch the spawn of particularly choice fish, under a hen; at the proper
season, people, whose business it is, procure the spawn, and sell it to gentlemen
who have ponds: by them the spawn is deposited in an empty egg, provided for
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? LETTER IX.
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The Crab lays its spawn at the bottom of the sea or river, and when
the sun comes out warm, and the weather is hot, the spawn is drawn
up to the surface, and vivifies in the heat; and when cold comes, the
little family sink down among the rocks, and contrive for themselves
in a thousand different ways; contrivance and wisdom, after a most
wonderful order, marking every movement of God's providence.
Thus having considered the great family of the ocean, under these
seven most interesting particulars:--1, their symmetry and propor-
tion; 2, their fins and tail; 3, the air bladder; 4, the beauty and
order of their scales; 5, their age; 6, their peculiar colours and
brightness of their appearance; 7, the amazing increase of the whole
family; we will now proceed, according to the Linnean arrangement,
to look at the subject in regular order.
Professor Gmelin, in his revised edition of Linnaeus's works,
arranges the whole of this great family in six orders, which again he
divides into seventy-two genera, and sub-divides into eight hundred
and seventy-three species. These have since been added to; so that
now we have near nine hundred species clearly defined. But knowing
most children are fond of tabular arrangements, by which they can take
a bird's eye view of the whole scene, I have made one out; and when I
speak of the orders separately, I will explain the difficult names to you.
the purpose, which, when filled, is hermetically sealed. The hen sits on this for
some days ; the egg is then opened, and placed in a vessel of water heated by the
sun, and when the little brood are sufficiently strong, the egg is broken, and they
are loosed from their strange imprisonment, and put into ponds to roam at large.
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? 168 THE CREATION.
A TABLE OF THE SIX ORDERS OF FISHES.
ACCORDING TO LINNAEUS.
ORDER.
NAME.
PROPERTIES.
GIN.
SPE.
I.
Apodal . . . .
12
40
II.
Jugular . . . .
With Ventral Fins before the Pectoral
6
52
III.
Thoracic . . . .
The Ventral under the Pectoral . .
21
425
IV.
Abdominal . . .
The Ventral far behind the Pectoral .
16
202
(In these four the Gills have bony rays. )
V.
Branchiostegious .
Gills destitute of bony rays . . . .
10
84
VI.
Chondropterygious
Gills with cartilaginous rays . . .
7
70
72
873
THE FIRST ORDER--APODA. "
WITHOUT VENTRAL FINS. --TWELVE GENERA. -- FORTY SPECIES.
The Eel. --The common Eel is a well known inhabitant of our
rivers, creeks, and streams. It is thought by some to be viviparous;
it survives a long while out of water, and its tenacity of life is such,
that it lives some time even after cut in pieces. Near Oxford, in the
Isis, there is a peculiar kind, called Grills, with a larger head than the
common Eel. There is no fish that comes to our table that is so liked
or disliked; however, most consider it very nutritious. It varies in
size, from six inches to two feet, and is of a dark colour.
? The word apoda is derived from the Greek word--to lack, or be deficient of
feel.
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? LETTER IX.
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The Conger. This differs from the common eel in size and colour;
and is an inhabitant of the ocean. It grows much larger also, some-
times reaching from four to eight feet in length; and sometimes ten.
It is very voracious, and if hunger impels it, eats all that comes in its
way. Contrary to the habits of the fresh water eel, they spawn their
young; immense quantities of which come up the Severn in April,
followed by the Chad; in this state they are called Elvers ,' and are
considered by some a great delicacy. The Conger abounds in the
Hebrides, or Western Islands (Scotland); but the natives in some
cases have an aversion to them, from their likeness to serpents.
The Electrical Eel. Except the Torpedo, no other animal in nature
possesses such extraordinary powers. Its size varies from three to
four feet in length: its head is blunt. When touched, it gives a
shock exactly the same as an electrical shock of the atmosphere.
Mr. J. Hunter, on examining it, found that the nerves that exercised
this power were much larger than the others*--several persons
standing together will feel the shock, if a little finger of one touches
this singular creature. It is found in Guiana and Surinam.
The iMunce Eel. This resembles in some measure the common
eel, though it is not such a snake-like looking fish; it has a long fin
the whole length of the back; also a pair of fins at the gills. It is
* There is one now exhibiting in the Adelaide Gallery, Strand; but of late its
shocks are so violent, that few are bold enough to try the experiment. It is
upwards of three feet long.
I
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? 170
THE CREATION.
destitute of scales. It is found in the sandy shores of England,
Scotland and Wales, and is considered good for the table.
The Sword-fish. This fish sometimes weighs a hundred pounds; it
is found in great numbers in the Mediterranean; and has been seen
off our own coast. The body is long, and rounded near the head; the
back is black; and the belly silvery white. The sword proceeds from,
or is a prolongation of the upper jaw. The dorsal fin extends almost
the entire length of the body. The tail is beautifully forked. It has
one pair of fins at the gills; but none on the belly. It is a very
voracious fish. The method of taking it, is by spearing. Strabo
mentions it in his day, and the very same method of taking it. It is
considered very good for food.
THE SECOND ORDER--JUGULARES.
VENTRAL FINS BEFORE THE PECTORALS--SIX GENERA. --FIFTY-TWO SPECIES.
The God, Haddock, Pollack, Hake, Coal-fith, Ling, Burbot, Urenscope,
are of this family ; and they all come to our aid for food (especially in
our own country) in teeming multitudes.
The Cod. This valuable fish not only supplies us with food for
present use, but its flesh is of that firm nature, that when salted it will
keep as well as meat: thus, though they do not swim into latitudes
warmer than thirty-five degrees north, that is, about the latitude of
Gibraltar; yet they are carried all over the globe. Some have said,
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? LETTER IX.
171
that the banks of Newfoundland, where the Cod is found in such abun-
dance, are of more value to England than the mines of Potosi were
to Spain: and this is quite true; for the Newfoundland cod-fishing
gives employment to numerous fleets of our small shipping, and
is a hardy school for our merchant navy. The season commences in
February, and ends in May. Not that the cod is confined to the
" banks," though these indeed are their metropolis, where they meet
by millions and millions; but they are found all along our own coasts,
and those of Ireland, and in the North Sea, and about the Hebrides.
Indeed the cold North seems the home of this most prolific and in-
valuable fish. Off the coast of America, near Halifax, I have caught
them as fast as the line could be let down. The length of the cod is
from two to four and even five feet; and they weigh from twelve to
forty pounds. I have been thus particular about this fish; but I can-
not promise you to say so much on all the other species of this Order.
Haddock. This is a much smaller fish than the cod. The body
is long and slender; the back is dark; the belly silvery; the tail
bifid. The haddock is found in abundance off our own coasts; but
especially off Yorkshire, where they return periodically--the fisher-
men say, even to the very day of the month. Shoals of them have
been seen three miles in breadth. They have a deadly enemy in the
dog-fish. Their own food is principally young herrings. Through
the winter months they are much esteemed for the table. They weigh
in general from two to three pounds.
i2
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? 172
THE CREATION.
Pollack. This fish likes the rocky coast of our island; and abounds
in the summer. The under jaw of this fish is longer than the upper.
They are fond of springing from the water; and seem to rejoice in
life. They weigh from eight to twelve pounds, and sometimes more.
As food they are excellent.
Whiting. This delicate fish is well known along the coast of
England; it seldom exceeds twelve inches in length. It is beautiful
in its proportions. By act of Parliament, no whiting, of less than
six inches, is allowed to be taken in the Thames or Medway, nor at
any season except from Michaelmas to Easter week. The flesh of
this little visitor is considered the most delicate and digestible of all
this Order.
Hake.
