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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.(47) ₺ It seems to have been ascertained that even a carp may live for one or two centuries.(48) Some have the comforts of family association ;(49) others, that of large mutual society.(50) One kind has the gratification of suckling and nursing.(51) Their sportiveness evidences their enjoy

(47) Lord Bacon has thus estimated these advantages: "Most of the disorders incident to mankind, arise from the changes of the atmosphere: but fishes reside in an element little subject to change. Theirs is a uniform existence. Their movements are without effort, and their life without labor. How long a fish continues to live, is not ascertained; perhaps the life of man would not be long enough to measure that of the smallest."

(48) 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 backbone. 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 backbone. By this mode, Buffon found a carp to have lived 100 years. Gesner had one as old; and Alberti affirms, that another was of double that period. Buffon's Nat. Hist. Goldsmith's Nat. Hist. v. 3, p. 428. The age of the skate and ray, which have no scales, must be judged of by the backbone. Dr. Forster saw carp in Prussia, between 60 and 70 years old. Phil. Trans. In the royal pond at Marli, some particular fish were alive in the middle of the eighteenth century, which were traditionally recorded to have been placed there in the reign of Francis I. in the sixteenth. A pike was found to be 90 years old; and Gesner states, that in 1497, one was taken in Swabia, that had a brazen ring with the date of 1230. But it is desirable to have such facts confirmed by modern experience. ... Buffon thought that whales had lived 1000 years; but Schultz argues, not unreasonably, that this inference is not sufficiently grounded. Sch. Arist. Anim.

(49) The seals, and walrus or morse, live in the society of their own families and of each other, and are frequently seen basking together by scores and hundreds. The porpoises are seen swimming together in large herds, sometimes in regular lines very slowly, and tumbling about in the waters; at other moments, darting forwards with great velocity in an irregular manner. Kerr's Linn. p. 363. . . "When a manați is hooked or struck, the whole herd will attempt its rescue." Bingl. v. 1. p. 154.

...

(50) The numerous fishes that live and sail together in vast shoals, are instances of this kind of association.

(51) The common whale suckles her young, and takes care of it with great affection. Kerr's Linn. 357. The female seals also suckle their offspring for six or seven weeks, in caverns or hollow rocks, and then take them out to sea when able to take care of themselves. Kerr, p. 124. The

ment;(52) and their motion by swimming, being always governable as to its celerity by their own will, is gentle or rapid, just as they please, and must therefore be an exercise as pleasurable to them as those of our own race, who can simitate it, find and declare it to be to human sensibility. Even their fear can subside when the reason for it ceases.(53)

The just conclusion, from an extended and impartial review 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; and possess, for the most part, that peaceful comfort. of life and feeling, which gives the great charm to sentient existence in every form and region. 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. No life can be simpler than theirs-none seems

morse tribes also suckle their young with attention and fondness. The dugon trichicus has breasts like a woman. Kerr, 118.

(52) The seals are seen wallowing in their miry beds, and tumbling playfully over each other. Kerr, 122. . . . The dolphin and porpoise are often seen sporting on the water. Many fish display the same kind of joyous activity on the water. . . . Crantz mentions, that walruses, when playing about the water, have been frequently observed to draw, with their long tusks, sea-fowl beneath the surface, and after a little while, to throw them up into the air. "As they do not eat these birds, this can be done only out of wantonness and frolic." Bingl. 1, p. 154. "A seal tamed in an island near Edinburgh, had all the affection and playfulness of a dog. It fawned about its masters, licked their hands, and met them on their return. It would snatch up a stick or brush, scamper off to the water, and swim about with it to a distance. It always came back with what it had taken, and laid it at their feet, fawning and fondling all the while." The British Naturalist.

(53) When the seals are attacked, "they fall into the utmost confusion, and tumble down, and tremble so violently, that they are scarce able to use their limbs. When, however, they find it impossible to escape without fighting, they become desperate, and turn on their assailant with vast noise and fury. But when they find themselves uninjured, and that there is no intention to assail them, they soon overcome their fear of mankind. Steller, when he was on Behrin's island, lived for six days in a hovel that was surrounded by these animals. They were soon reconciled to him; would observe with great apparent calmness what he was doing; would lie down near him; and even suffer him to take hold of and play with their cubs." Bingl. An. Biog. vol. 1, p. 168.

more universally soothing and pleasurable. Pain has but little or brief residence among them; for, even when absorbed by larger ones for nutriment, they are swallowed without laceration, and entombed in darkness and death, before they are well conscious of their change of situation. Death therefore is to them what the Druids, in their mythological theories, sang it to be to man :

A change which can but for a moment last

A point between the future and the past.

Thus they represent to the contemplative mind an actual image of placid happiness in life, and of unfelt departure from it.

Such are fish. It is our advantage above them, that we can add to their physical placidity the enjoyment of the moral principles, the mental sensibilities, occasional delights of exquisite joys, intellectual activities, the sublimer feelings of our highest destination, and the gratifying pleasures of social communication. All these occupy and attract us, and furnish many a banquet in the succession of our revolving years. Yet, amid life's varied streams and sources of transport and pain, often mingled and often alternating, we learn at last to prefer those milder and more certain or enduring pleasures which calmly sooth us, to the bustle, the labor, and the excitements that engage and animate our youth and maturer strength. Agitation and emotion at length lose their charm: they disturb more than they amuse us. As advances to its sober evening, we perceive and appreciate the value of conscious life without pain; of sedate tranquillity; of reposing yet not inactive thought; of sensibility without perturbation; of patient hope; of resting movability; of sensations that please but do not agitate; of intellectual rumination; and of those solemn aspirations of sacred foresight, of prospective gratitude, and of humble reliance on the great mediatorial Benefactor, which close our mortal days with true dignity, and make even dissolution an inestimable blessing.(54)

age

(54) Among the living creatures in the waters, are the TESTACEOUS and CRUSTACEOUS classes. The first are remarkable for the softness of their bodies, the continuity of their parts, the simplicity of their mouth, and the permanency of their attachment to their calcareous dwellings. Their

shells are principally composed of carbonate of lime, with a small portion of animal matter. They are divided into three arrangements: the BIVALVES, including oysters, cockles, muscles, scallops, &c.; the UNIVALVES, as periwinkles, limpets, welks, and snails; and the MULTIVALVES. Bosc has classified these under several subdivisions, in his Hist. Nat. des Coquilles, in the Dict. Naturelle. In his system, the arrangement is more methodical, and the genera more definite, than in the Linnæan system. The supplement of the Ed. Encycl. art. Conchology, details the classification of Bosc. Conchology comprises the shells which protect the molluscous animals. Ib.

The CRUSTACEOUS have a fibrous texture, articulated members, complicated organs of mastication, and at stated periods renew their coverings. Their shells contain phosphate of lime. Suppl. Ed. Ency. p. 284.

LETTER X.

ON THE NATURE AND PHENOMENA OF THE MENTAL PRINCI PLE WHICH APPEARS IN THE FISH ORDER OF ANIMATED BEINGS.

THE habits of fishes are too little known for us to form sufficient ideas of the extent and degree of the mental faculty which accompanies their living principle. The similarity of their brain to that of birds was remarked by one of our distinguished anatomists of that grand function of our present mode of existence.(1) Their organs of sense resemble ours in the principle of their construction, with particular modifications to suit them to the watery medium in which they live.(2)

That they possess and exercise volition, many show. The two sword-fishes who plunged their beaks into the ships they pursued, apparently supposing them to be whales, or some analogous substance, exhibited a vigorous determination of their will to their own perdition. (3) Yet,

(1) Dr. Th. Willis. As he had traced many resemblances between the brain of man and that of quadrupeds, so he remarks of birds and fishes, "Both these species of animals, coetaneous, and as it were twins at their creation, have their affinity in nothing more strongly than in the fabrication of the brain." He proceeds to detail the similarities. Careb. Anat. 67-76. The parts wanting in the one, are absent in the other. The additional peculiarities are exhibited by both.

(2) Borelli examined the optic nerves of the sword-fish, thunny, and others; and disputed with Eustachius and others on their structure: contending, that they were cross-barred and complicated like cloth, and not longitudinal fibres. Lett in Malph. Op. v. 2, p. 1-7. . . .. The optic nerves intercussate in them, as in animals. The medulla oblongate is exactly analogous to that of birds; fitting the one to swim in the sea, and the other for that flight in the air which may be called an aerial natation. Willis, 75. Their cerebellum resembles that of the more perfect animals. 76. Casserius Placentinus ascribed olfactory nerves to them. Ib.

(3) See before, note 24, p. 269. The whale endeavors to strike its as-` sailant with its tail, of which one blow would destroy him. The sword