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? THE CREATION.
149
LETTER IX.
AND GOD SAID, LET THE WATERS BRING FORTH ABUNDANTLY THE MOVING CREA-
TURE THAT HATH LIFE, AND FOWL THAT MAY FLY ABOVE THE EARTH IN THE
OPEN FIRMAMENT OF HEAVEN. AND GOD CREATED GREAT WHALES, AND EVERY
LIVING CREATURE THAT MOVETH, WHICH THE WATERS BROUGHT FORTH ABUN-
DANTLY, AFTER ITS KIND, AND EVERY WINGED FOWX AFTER HIS KIND: AND GOD
SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD. AND GOD BLESSED THEM, SAYING, BE FRUITFUL, AND
MULTIPLY, AND FILL THE WATERS IN THE SEAS, AND LET FOWL MULTIPLY IN
THE EARTH. -- Genetis i. 20--22.
My dear Children,
Though the sun had shone with brightness and glory on all
the newly-created beauty of the third day; yet still, up to the
morning of the fifth, all was hushed and silent; life had indeed per-
vaded the vegetable world, yet still it was inanimate; but now the
creative word has gone forth, " Let the waters bring forth abundantly
the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly in the open
firmament of heaven. " Instantly birds of every wing lighted on the
trees of Eden, and the air became vocal with their song; while the
great whales and fish sported in the deep. We can have no concep-
tion of the exceeding joy and happiness that must have accompanied
this fifth day's creation; the Lord himself, in his controversy with Job,
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? 150
THE CREATION.
briefly refers to it. --" Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and
make her nest on high ? doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch
her wings towards the south ? gavest thou the goodly wings to the
peacock,* or wings and feathers to the ostricli ? What time she lifteth
up herself on high, she scorneth the horse and the rider. 1' Purpose
and design mark the whole character of the Lord's creation, and this
is strikingly manifest in these allusions.
The first birds and fishes did not pass through the weakness of
early life, as all future generations, but came at once into a state of
perfect existence.
All was in peace in Eden, for sin had not entered. The eagle and
the lark soared on high in happy company, and the vulture and the
dove lighted on the same branch; no discord existed then, but all
was uninterrupted joy. The sun had opened the flowers of the third
day, and perfectly matured the fruit of the varied trees, and now
birds of the most dazzling plumage, and sweetest melody, sang in
their branches; every bird we now see had its first parent m Eden ;
and the same is also true of the fishes of the deep, for the scriptures
record no creation either before or since--the thorn, indeed, excepted.
But now the shades of evening drew in, and by an instinctive call
(wearied with the ceaseless flight of their first day's existence), the
feathered tribes seek repose, and again creation is at rest.
* See the marginal reading, Job xxxii. 13.
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? LETTER IX.
151
But let us now, my beloved children, consider the mercies of this
day, for they are indeed great and manifold.
Though man has not called into immediate servitude the fowl of
the air, and fish of the deep, yoking the ostrich to his chariot, and the
whale to his ships; as he has the animals of the sixth day, yet both king-
doms come to him in untold blessings, for, not only do they supply
him with food in boundless varieties, but they also minister to his
comfort in many other ways. I will just enumerate a few:--
Before the illumining property of the carburetted hydrogen gas was
applied to light our streets, and great places of resort, oil, both sperm
and common, was in general use; and it was the "great whale" of
two different species that supplied both, as I shall show you when we
come to this part of the subject. Large fleets go out annually to
procure this valuable commodity. But the whale also aids us in
other ways; that tough, and yet elastic bone, which bears the
name of whalebone, comes from this fish, singular fringed plates of
it hanging down from the upper jaw. The uses of whalebone are
various ; light, strong, and elastic, it answers admirably for umbrellas,
&c. , and then by a fine process shavings are peeled from it, and made
into plat, which is manufactured into hats and bonnets of most durable
texture.
And as to the birds, their feathers are useful to us in two different
ways. --First, for beds and pillows; and then the larger feathers of
the wings for writing; for, though steel pens have increased to the
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? 152
THE CREATION.
enormous consumption of some thousands of tons annually, yet still the
good old quill cannot be equalled by the most laboured attempt of
art, though, in justice to our manufacturers, it must be allowed, that
the flexibility and softness of these steel pens are wonderful; but the
quill seems natures pen, and the steel that of art.
I have remarked above, my dear children, that man has not enlisted
the bird or fish into servitude, but there are some few exceptions to
this rule; some hundreds of years since, before gunpowder was in
common use, the falcon and the hawk were trained in this country
and on the continent to take game; and so greatly did this custom
prevail, that one of the highest officers of the palace was called the
Grand Falconer; but it was a cruel sport, though then even ladies of
rank much enjoyed it. In our day, also, the carrier pigeons (the sort
your young friend E. H. has,) have been employed on any great occa-
sion, when swiftness was needed to carry letters; but the journey is
so uncertain, that this plan is rarely used; and now, in this age of
wonderful invention, the electro-telegraphic communication seems to
leave behind all other means. *
There is something very interesting connected with the flight of
the raven and the dove, in the history of Noah, after the ark rested
on Ararat. The raven, it is said, was first sent out; and went and
returned, and went again, going and returning until the waters were
? This Telegraph is used on some of the Rail-Roads.
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? LETTER IX.
153
dried up. Seven days elapsed, and Noah sent out the dove, but the
dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and was taken in: again
seven days elapsed, and Noah sent forth the dove, and lo! in the
evening it returned with an olive leaf plucked off; so Noah knew that
the waters had abated. I do not attempt to unfold these scriptures,
but it is a fact of great interest, that a tradition seems to prevail
among many nations that the dove is the emblem of mercy, and the
olive-branch, a sign of peace. I think it is Mungo Park, who relates
in his travels in Africa, that one day he met an ambassador and his
escort; he was going from the king his master to some neighbouring
prince; he had no written communication, but his message was
strikingly set forth in two emblems, always carried before him--an olive
branch and a sword; and our countryman was told, that the form of
delivering the message was this:--on reaching the prince, the ambas-
sador was to stretch out the olive-branch; if he received it, there was
peace ; but if he declined it, the sword was put before him, and there
was war.
There is also in the history of Norway a most interesting incident
connected with the raven, which Montgomery, with great beauty,
interweaves into his admirable poem of " Greenland. " A Norwegian
noble, from some political cause, fled his country ; and, embarking
with a number of his vassals, launched out to sea; they took (as it
should seem was then the custom) a raven with them; after beating
about some days, discovering no land, they loosed the raven; instantly
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? THE CREATION.
it ascended on high, and on seeing land, darted towards it, and became,
as the poet most eloquently describes it--
" A living compass, through a chartless sky. "
The frail bark followed the raven's flight, and soon after they dis-
covered Iceland, and found a home there.
But we will now, my dear children, look at the creation of the fifth
day in the order in which it is mentioned in the scriptures. First,
considering the inhabitants of the deep, and secondly, the fowl of the
air.
I. THE INHABITANTS OF THE DEEP.
Under this head there are two great divisions, most plainly estab-
lished in the first of Genesis, " and God made great whales," marking
the First order, " and every living creature that moveth which the
waters brought forth abundantly," the Second. The most celebrated
writers on Natural History have in their works preserved this arrange-
ment, and therefore we will thankfully take advantage of their labo-
rious researches.
Linnaeus, the great Swedish Naturalist, being generally followed,*
and his system being the most simple, we cannot do better for the
? Linnaeus flourished in the early part of the last century; his first work was pub-
lished in 1735, and in 1766, a twelfth edition appeared; and in twenty-one years
after Professor Gmelin sent forth one revised and enlarged.
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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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? 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.
161
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.
163
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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