the water, as death soon impairs the colors. Several kinds of fish have a golden hue or spots, difficult to account for; and many, a silvery gloss, as though particles of this metal formed a part of their skin. Some display a fine tinge of blue; some, very pleasing tints of green; and delicate gradations of other colors make other species very interesting to us. In short, the general appearance of the fish creation, in their forms, colors, brilliancy, gliding movement, rapid and changeful activity, and universal animation and vigor, excites sentiments of pleasure and admiration.

To us with the exception of a few, principally of the shark tribe. they are wholly inoffensive, as even sharks are in some places. None of them leave their element to attack us. Not many, even in their own domain, would molest us; but all, even the most hostile, however great their size, remain there, helpless and indefensible against our power. All are at our mercy. The fiercest cannot long resist our means of annoyance. We kill and take what we please. None can either master or escape us. The divine command, that man "should have dominion over the fish of the sea," has been unceasingly fulfilled in all parts of the world, and in every generation, both of their races and of our own.

The general character of fish is not that of voracity and hostility. It is gentleness, harmlessness, sociality, and animation. They are peaceful animals; happy in themselves, and for the most part harmonizing together, without any general display of savage cruelty or malignant passions. Such as are appointed to be the food of others are sought and taken for that purpose, when the appetite actuates, but no further. But fish cannot be justly stigmatized as voracious for this habit, more than ourselves for taking and eating them, and cattie, sheep, fowls, and other living creatures. We are carnivorous, but not voracious. We kill and cook the animals we feed on, but we have no malice, or ill-will, or hostility in such action

or diet, any more than in plucking the apple, grinding the corn, or boiling the potato.

The mild and harmless character of fish is impressively exhibited by most of the largest tribes of these animals. The great Greenland whale pursues no other animal; leads an inoffensive life; and is harmless in proportion to its strength to do mischief. The massy sturgeon is of the same gentle nature. The formidable sea unicorn, with all its size and powerful weapon of offence, displays the same disposition. The Oronooko manati, which has been found so huge in bulk that twenty-seven men could not draw it out of the water, and the others of this tribe, of which some are twenty-eight feet long, and weigh eight thousand pounds, are likewise gentle and peaceable animals. These mightier chiefs of the finny nation are the true representatives of its general character. All are for the most part the same mild, playful, animated, and unoffending beings; and have been so designed and organized as to be continually of this placid temperament.

But the ocean contains some of a different humor, as the woods and mountains have the wolf and the tiger. A warring and vindictive temper appears at times in the Indian swordfish, with a strength which resembles that of an elephant. The upper jaw of this fish is lengthened into a flat, sharp, ivory-like beak, which resembles a sword, but far more strong and solid. With this it attacks whales, and sometimes ships. When the "Leopard," a vessel belonging to the British navy, returned from Guinea and was cleaned in 1725, the beak of a swordfish was found in its bottom, which had passed through the sheathing and a three inch plank, and four inches beyond that into the solid timber. It had followed the ship, and struck it while under sail, and the sword must have broken off in the animal's struggle to disengage it. The grampus, with its sword-like dorsal fin, will attack the passing whale, and disturb the seals. The beautiful dorado pursues the flying-fish, which escapes by emerging into the air with its

pinion-like fins: but the object here is food, or the pleasure of the chase, not animosity. The fish which devour others for their subsistence act but like all the carnivorous animals of nature; and they are in every case the smallest number of their order. The general peace of the deep is proverbial, and its usual aspect is that of its animated inhabitants gliding cheerfully, undistinguished and undisturbing.

As fishes have neither a larynx, or organ of voice, nor lungs to collect and emit the air, they do not communicate their meaning, wants, or feelings by sounds, like the birds and quadrupeds. Yet a few make attempts of this sort. As the tunnies sail in their vast shoals, they utter a very loud, hissing noise. The ground ling makes a similar sound when he is handled. The great morse roars like a bull if disturbed, and snores while asleep. The common seal moans piteously when pursued on land, as it is hurrying to the sea. The ursine kind low like an ox; and the leonine both grunts and snorts. But all these latter partake largely of the quadruped These attempts at utterance may be regarded as efforts of the animal to express its feelings at the moment, and therefore as indications that its mental nature is experiencing those feelings. It is undergoing the emotions of pain or fear, and it is remarkable, that although not organized with vocal organs, the excitement of alarm urges it to endeavor to express its sensations by sound. This is a plain intimation that this marine class of animals have those emotions which we term mental feeling, and when the ursine seal is in that state which we call grief or vexation, it has been even observed to shed a flood of tears.

nature.

But if fish are sensitive to pain and fear, they are as SUSceptive of pleasurable feelings. They have the appearance of a placid and contented state of existence. No bird or quadruped seems happier. None have fewer wants; they need only food; and yet they can subsist even without this when the abstinence is necessary. They suffer nothing from

inclemency of weather, or variations of the seasons; nothing from heat, cold, frost, rain, or bitter winds. They seem to

be generally exempted from disease. They are always in one even temperature; they enjoy a longer continuity of health and strength than most other animals; and from these causes appear to possess a natural longevity, which in some of their classes surpasses that of man.*

The natural conclusion from a careful consideration of the habits and appearance of this class of animals seems to be, that fish have a general tranquillity of character and nature, combined with much agility of movement. Animated and pacific, many species fond of social combinations; the more insulated most commonly inoffensive to each other; those appointed to be the food of others, becoming so without contest or passion; each with few bodily wants or exciting gratifications, — the great deep usually presents to our consideration an immense space of animal harmony and of temperate enjoyment.

LESSON L.

Quadrupeds. IDEM.

THE pleasure and convenience, as well as the sustenance, of man are more intimately concerned with quadrupeds than with the inhabitants of the ocean or the feathered tribes of creation. None are indispensable to him, as he can subsist

* Two ways of determining the age of fishes have been devised. One, by numbering the concentric circles on the scales; the other, by those in a transverse section of the back-bone. On examining a fish's scale by a microscope, it is found to consist of circles, one of which is added every year. The same annual addition occurs to the back-bone. By this mode Buffon found a carp to have lived one hundred years.

without any of them; but he derives such important benefits from all these three classes, that it is rational to suppose, that one of the main ends of their creation was to contribute, in some of their species, to his comfort and service. Nothing can be supposed to have been exclusively formed for our use; but some animals were manifestly made that this application of their pow. ers and qualities might take place. Each exists for its own benefit, as well as for that of others; but many have been specially designed to be also instrumental to our convenience and improvement.

A natural division of quadrupeds would be into the fierce and the gentle,- the wild and the tame, - the carnivorous and those which feed on herbs and grasses. Such a distinction exists in all the orders of animal life. Fish, birds, beasts, insects, and reptiles have each a predatory and a peaceful class; the latter always the most numerous; the former confined to particular objects of pursuit, but always appearing as an inseparable part of the economy of our varied world.

Linnæus has distinguished the quadrupeds of the earth into six orders, and added another for the cetaceous fishes; with the general term of MAMMALIA for all, because they all nurse their offspring and these seven orders, subdivided into fortyeight genera, include above eight hundred species.

"The mammalia, in their structure and various organs, resemble man. They are for the most part quadrupeds, and along with us, they inhabit the surface of the earth; but the largest in size, though by far the smallest in number, are furnished with fins, and inhabit the ocean."

The clothing of quadrupeds distinguishes them from the other orders of created beings. It is composed of soft, separate, flexible hair, little subject to injury, which is more plentifully bestowed on those animals which inhabit cold regions than on those which live in the warmer parts of the earth. "This hair coalesces on urchins and porcupines, to form spines or prickles, and is united into a shelly coat on the armadillo.