The Saw-snouted Shark or Saw-fish (Squalus pristis), which grows to fifteen feet in length, and the Sword-fish (Xiphias gladius, platypterus), are furnished with peculiarly formidable weapons. The long flat snout of the former is set with teeth on both sides through its whole length, while the upper jaw of the latter terminates in a long sword-shaped snout. A twenty-feet long sword-fish once ran his sword with such violence into the keel of an East Indiaman, that it penetrated up to the root, and the fish itself was killed by the violence of the shock. The perforated beam, with the driven-in sword, are both preserved in the British Museum, and give a good idea of the prodigious power of the leviathans of ocean.

While most fishes only rely upon their well-armed jaws, their physical strength, or their rapidity, for attack or defence, some of them are provided with more mysterious weapons, and stun their victims or their enemies by electrical discharges.

The Torpedo of the Mediterranean is furnished with wonderful organs for this purpose, situated on each side of the anterior part of the body,—perfect galvanic batteries, consisting of a multitude of small prismatic columns, subdivided into cells, and interwoven with a multitude of nerves, which serve to disengage the electric fluid, and discharge it according to the will of the fish, or when it is excited by some external stimulus. The shock of the torpedo is not so strong as that of the electric eel (Gymnotus electricus) of the Orinoco, which is able to stun a horse, but its power suffices to paralyse the arm of a man. A Sly, or Silurus, found in the Nile or Senegal, and called by the Arabs raasch, or lightning, and one of the many Tetrodons inhabiting the tropical seas, is endowed with a similar faculty of producing galvanic shocks.

Some fishes, to whom nature has denied all other offensive weapons, have recourse to stratagem for procuring their food. Hidden in the mud, the Star-gazer (Uranoscopus scaber) exposes only the tip of the head, and waving the beards with which its lips are furnished in various directions, decoys the smaller fishes and marine insects, that mistake these organs for worms.

The Angler, or Sea-devil (Lophius piscatorius), a slow swimmer, who would very often be obliged to fast if he had only his swiftness to rely upon, uses a similar stratagem. Crouching close to the ground, he stirs up the sand or mud, and, hidden by the obscurity thus produced, attracts many a prize by leisurely moving to and fro the two slender and elongated appendages on his head, the first of which, the better to deceive, is broad and flattened at the end, inviting pursuit by the shining silvery appearance of the dilated part. Even the great European Sly, a fish which has been known to grow to the length of fifteen feet, and to attain a weight of 300 lbs. is not ashamed to owe its food to similar deceits. Like a true lazzarone, the fat creature lies hidden in the mud of rivers, its mouth half open, and angling with its long beards.

But no fish catches its prey in a more remarkable manner than the Beaked, or Rostrated Chætodon, a native of the fresh waters of India. When he sees a fly alighting on any of the plants which overhang the shallow water, he approaches with the utmost caution, coming as perpendicularly as possible under the object of his meditated attack. Then placing himself in an oblique direction, with the mouth and eyes near the surface, he remains a moment immoveable, taking his aim like a first-rate rifleman. Having fixed his eyes directly on the insect, he darts at it a drop of water from his tubular snout, but without showing his mouth above the surface, from which only the drop seems to rise, and that with such effect, that though at the distance of four, five or six feet, it very seldom fails to bring its prey into the water. Another small East Indian fish, the Toxotes jaculator, catches its food by a similar dexterous display of archery.

While all other fishes hunt only for their own benefit, the Indian Remora, or Sucking-fish (Echeneis Naucrates), owes to the remarkable striated apparatus on its head, by which it firmly adheres to any object—rock, ship, or animal,—to which it chooses to attach itself, the rare distinction of being employed by man as a hunting-fish. When Columbus first discovered the West Indies, the inhabitants of the coasts of Cuba and Jamaica made use of the remora to catch turtles, by attaching to its tail a strong cord of palm-fibres, which served to drag it out of the water along with its prey. By this means they were able to raise turtles weighing several hundred pounds from the bottom; "for the sucking-fish," says Columbus, "will rather suffer itself to be cut to pieces than let go its hold." In Africa, on the Mozambique coast, a similar method of catching turtles is practised to the present day. Thus a knowledge of the habits of animals, and similar necessities, have given rise to the same hunting artifices among nations that never had the least communication with each other. Everybody knows the fables that have been related of the small Mediterranean remora (Echeneis remora). It even owes its Latin name to the marvellous story of its being able to arrest a ship under full sail in the midst of the ocean; and from this imaginary physical power a no less astonishing moral influence was inferred, for the ancients believed that tasting the remora completely subdued the passion of love, and that if a delinquent, wishing to gain time, succeeded in making his judge eat some of its flesh, he was sure of a long delay before the verdict was pronounced.

Most fishes have only a rapid flight to depend upon for their safety; some, however, more favoured by nature, have been provided with peculiar defensive weapons. Thus the dorsal fins of the Dragon-weever (Trachinus draco), a small silvery fish, frequently occurring on our shores, are armed with strong spines, that effectually provide against its being easily swallowed by a more powerful enemy. The wounds it inflicts are very troublesome and painful, though it does not appear that the spines contain any poisonous matter, as the fishermen generally believe. At all events, the dragon-weever is not nearly so dangerous as the Clip bagre, a kind of silurus or sly, inhabiting the Brazilian rivers, that inflicts with its long spines such painful wounds as to deprive the sufferer of consciousness, and to produce an inflammation that lasts for several weeks. The Lance-tails, or Acanthuri, have a sharp bony process, not unlike the very large thorn of a rose-tree, placed on each side of the tail; by this they can inflict a deep cut on the hand of any one who is so imprudent as to seize them in that part.

I could still add a long list of spine-armed fishes, but content myself with noticing the Stickleback, which frequently owes its preservation to the sharp needles with which it is provided.

The Tetrodons and Diodons have the power of inflating their body at pleasure, and thus raising the small spines dispersed over their sides and abdomen in such a manner, as to operate as a defence against their enemies. These beautiful and remarkable fishes chiefly inhabit the tropical waters, but sometimes wander into higher latitudes. Man is not the only creature driven by the currents of fate far from the place of his birth.

The Flying-fishes (Exoceti) are provided with pectoral fins of so great a length, as to be able to carry them, like wings, a great distance through the air. According to Mr. George Bennett ("Wanderings in New South Wales"), they cannot raise themselves when in the atmosphere, the elevation they take depending entirely on the power of the first spring or leap they make on leaving their native element. Their flight, as it is called, carries them fifteen or eighteen feet high over the water, and the lines which they traverse when they enjoy full liberty of motion, are very low curves, and always in the direction of their previous progress in the usual element of fishes. Their silvery wings and blue bodies glittering beneath the rays of a tropical sun, afford a most beautiful spectacle, when, as is frequently the case, they rise into the air by thousands at once, and in all possible directions. The advantage afforded them by their wing-like fins, in escaping from the pursuit of the bonitos and albacores, often, however, leads to their destruction in another element, where gulls and frigate-birds frequently seize them with lightning-like rapidity, ere they fall back again into the ocean. It is amusing to observe a bonito swimming beneath the feeble aëronaut, keeping him steadily in view, and preparing to seize him at the moment of his descent. But the flying-fish often eludes the bite of his enemy, by instantaneously renewing his leap, and not unfrequently escapes by extreme agility.

The specific gravity of the flying-fish can be most admirably regulated in correspondence with the element through which it may move. The swim-bladder, when distended, occupies nearly the entire cavity of the abdomen, thus containing a large volume of air; and in addition to this, there is a membrane in the mouth which can be inflated through the gills. The pectoral fins, though so large when expanded, can be folded into an exceedingly slender, neat, and compact form, so as to be no hindrance to swimming. A light displayed from the chains of a vessel in a dark night, will bring many flying-fishes on board, where they are esteemed as a great delicacy. Their fate, thus to be persecuted in both elements and to find security nowhere, has often been pitied in prose and verse; but although they excite so much sentimental commiseration, they are themselves no less predaceous than their enemies, feeding chiefly on smaller fishes.

The flying-fish of the West Indian waters is frequently allured by the tepid waters of the Gulf-stream into higher latitudes, and Pennant cites several examples of its having been found near the British coast.

The Flying-Gurnard (Trigla volitans) of the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Indian seas, a highly singular and beautiful species, also raises itself into the air by means of its large pectoral fins . It does not fly very high, but swings itself as far as a musket-ball reaches, and may thus elude even the rapidity of the dolphin. That strangely formed fish, the Pegasus of the Indian seas, is also enabled by its large pectoral fins to support itself for some moments in the air, when it springs over the surface of the water.

Neither the quadrupeds nor the birds are subject to so many persecutions as the fishes, which have inexorable enemies in all classes of animals. Numberless molluscs and zoophytes feed upon their eggs, or devour their minute fry; myriads of sea-birds are on the look-out for them along the strands, or on the high ocean; seals and ice-bears lie in wait for them, while with weapons and deceit, with net, angle and harpoon, man carries death and destruction into their ranks. It would be a difficult task to state with any degree of exactness the number of fishermen disseminated over the face of the globe, but if we consider that, on a moderate calculation, at least a million of persons are directly or indirectly engaged in fishing in Great Britain and Ireland alone, and then cast a glance over the immense coast-line of the ocean, we may without exaggeration affirm that at least one-fiftieth part of the human race lives upon the produce of the seas. If we further reflect that fishes form a great part of the food of all coast-inhabitants, and consider in what masses they are sent into the interior,—fresh, dried, salted, smoked, and pickled,—we cannot doubt that the great extent of the ocean only apparently limits the numbers of the human race, for how many thousands of square miles of the most fruitful soil would it not require to bring forth the quantity of food which the blue and green fields of ocean supply to man? "Bounteous mother," "Alma parens," was the name given by the grateful ancients to the corn and grass-producing, herd-feeding earth; but how much more deserving of that endearing appellation is the sea, that, without being ploughed or manured, dispenses her gifts with such inexhaustible profusion! Numberless indeed are the various kinds of fishes which she furnishes to man, for almost every species affords an equally agreeable and healthy food: but of all the finny families or tribes that people the ocean none can compare for utility with that of the Clupeidæ, or Herrings, small in size but great in importance. In mile-long shoals, often so thickly pressed that a spear cast into them would stand upright in the living stream, the common herring appears annually on the coasts of north-western Europe, pouring out the horn of abundance into all the lochs, bays, coves, and fiords, from Norway to Ireland, and from Orcadia to Normandy. Sea-birds without end keep thinning their ranks during the whole summer; armies of rorquals, dolphins, seals, shell-fish, cods, and sharks devour them by millions, and yet so countless are their numbers, that whole nations live upon their spoils.

As soon as the season of their approach appears, fleets of herring boats leave the northern ports, provided with drift-nets, about 1200 feet long. The yarn is so thick that the wetted net sinks through its own weight, and need not be held down by stones attached to the lower edge, for it has been found that the herring is more easily caught in a slack net. The upper edge is suspended from the drift-rope by various shorter and smaller ropes, called buoy ropes, to which empty barrels are fastened, and the whole of the floating apparatus is attached by long ropes to the ship. Fishing takes place only during the night, for it is found that the fish strike the nets in much greater numbers when it is dark than while it is light. The darkest nights, therefore, and particularly those in which the surface of the water is ruffled by a fresh breeze, are considered the most favourable. To avoid collisions, each boat is furnished with one or two torches. From off the beach at Yarmouth, where often several thousand boats are fishing at the same time, these numberless lights, passing to and fro in every direction, afford a most lively and brilliant spectacle. The meshes of the net are exactly calculated for the size of the herring, wide enough to receive the head as far as behind the gill-cover, but not so narrow as to allow the pectoral fins to pass. Thus the poor fish, when once entangled, is unable to move backwards or forwards, and remains sticking in the net, like a bad logician on the horns of a dilemma, until the fisherman hauls it on board. In this manner a single net sometimes contains so vast a booty, that it requires all the authority of a Cuvier or a Valenciennes to make us believe the instances they mention. A fisherman of Dieppe caught in one night 280,000 herrings, and threw as many back again into the sea. Sometimes great sloops have been obliged to cut their nets, being about to sink under the superabundant weight of the fish.

The oldest mention of the herring-fishery is found in the chronicles of the monastery of Evesham, of the year 709; while the first French documents on the subject only reach as far as the year 1030. As far back as the days of William the Conqueror, Yarmouth was renowned for its herring-fishery; and Dunkirk and the Brill conducted it on a grand scale centuries before William Beukelaer of Biervliet, near Sluys, introduced a better method of pickling herrings in small kegs, instead of salting them as before in loose irregular heaps. It is very doubtful whether Solon or Lycurgus ever were such benefactors of their respective countries as this simple uneducated fisherman has been to his native land; for the pickled herring mainly contributed to transform a small and insignificant people into a mighty nation. In the year 1603, the value of the herrings exported from Holland amounted to twenty millions of florins; and in 1615, the fishery gave employment to 2000 buysen, or smacks, and to 37,000 men. Three years later we see the United Provinces cover the sea with 3000 buysen; 9000 additional boats served for the transport of the fishes, and the whole trade gave employment to at least 200,000 individuals. At that time Holland provided all Europe with herrings, and it may without exaggeration be affirmed that this small fish was their best ally and assistant in casting off the Spanish yoke, by providing them with money, the chief sinew of war. Had the emperor Charles V. been able to foresee that Beukelaer's discovery would one day prove so detrimental to his son and successor Philip II., he would hardly have done the poor fisherman the honour to eat a herring and drink a glass of wine over his tomb.

But all human prosperity is subject to change; and thus towards the middle of the sixteenth century a series of calamities ruined the Dutch fisheries. Cromwell gave them the first blow by the Navigation Act; Blake the second, by his victories; in 1703 a French squadron destroyed the greatest part of their herring-smacks; and finally, the competition of the Swedes, and the closing of their ports by the English, under the disastrous domination of Napoleon I., completed the ruin of that branch of trade which had chiefly raised the fortunes of their fathers.

In the year 1814, when the Dutch first began to breathe after having shaken off the yoke of the modern Attila, they made a faint attempt to renew the herring-fishery with 106 boats, which, up to the year 1823, had only increased to 128; since 1836, however, there has been a steady progress, and herring-catching in the Zuyder Zee during the winter months is yearly increasing in importance.

During the second half of the last century, while the herrings began to desert the Dutch nets, they enriched the Swedes, who, during the year 1781, exported from Gottenburg alone 136,649 barrels, each of them containing 1200 herrings. But some years after, the shoals on the Swedish coasts began also to diminish, so that in 1799 there was hardly enough for home consumption. And now commenced the rapid rise and increase of the Scotch herring-fisheries; and it is certainly remarkable that this should have taken place at so late a period, since the British waters are perhaps those which most abound in herrings. When we think of the present grandeur of British commerce, which extends to the most distant parts of the globe, and ransacks all Nature for new articles of trade, it seems almost incredible that up to the middle of the sixteenth century the herring-fishery on the British coasts was left in the hands of the Dutch and Spaniards, and that the acute and industrious Scotchmen should have been so tardy in working the rich gold-mines lying at their gates. But if their appearance in the market has been late, they have made up for lost time, by completely distancing all their competitors. In 1855, the Scotch herring-fisheries employed no less than 11,000 smacks or boats, manned by 40,000 seamen, who were assisted by 28,000 curers and labourers, exclusive of the vessels and men bringing salt and barrels or engaged in carrying on the export trade.

The English herring-fishery is also extremely important, for Yarmouth alone employs in this branch of trade about 400 sloops, of from forty to seventy tons, the largest of which have ten or twelve men on board. Three of these sloops, belonging to the same proprietor, landed, in the year 1857, 285 lasts, or 3,762,000 fishes; and as each last was sold for £14 sterling, it is probable that no whaler made a better business that season. The importance of the Yarmouth herring-fishery may be inferred from the fact, that it gives employment and bread to about 5,000 persons during several months of the year, and engages a capital of at least £700,000. No wonder, that among the north seamen the herring-fishery is called the "great" fishery, while that of the whale is denominated only the "small."

But the herring is a very capricious creature, seldom remaining long in one place; and there is not a station along the British coast which is not liable to great changes in its visits, as well with regard to time as to quantity. The real causes of these irregularities are unknown; the firing of guns, the manufacture of kelp, and the paddling of steam-boats have been assigned as reasons, but such reasons are quite imaginary. The progress of science promises to find, however, a remedy even for the caprices of the herring; and if his shoals frequently appear and disappear again in the more retired bays or fiords of Norway, before the fishermen are apprised of his movements, the electric telegraph (the most wonderful discovery of a time so rich in wonderful inventions), will be used for his more effectual capture. By this time the wires are already laid, which are to communicate along the whole Scandinavian coast, and with the rapidity of lightning, every important movement of the marine hosts. Poor herring! who would have thought, when Franklin made his first experiments upon electricity, that that mysterious power should ever be used for thy destruction!

The supposed migration of herrings to and from the high northern latitudes is not founded on fact; the herring has never been seen in abundance in the northern seas, nor have our whale-fishers or Arctic voyagers taken any particular notice of them. There is no fishery for them of any consequence either in Greenland or Iceland. On the southern coast of Greenland the herring is a rare fish, and, according to Crantz, only a small variety makes its appearance on the northern shore. This small variety, or species, was found by Sir John Franklin on the shore of the Polar basin, on his second journey. There can be no doubt that the herring inhabits the deep water all round our coast, and only approaches the shores for the purpose of depositing its spawn within the immediate influence of the two principal agents in vivification—increased temperature and oxygen—and as soon as that essential object is effected, the shoals that haunt the superficial waters disappear, but individuals are found, and many are to be caught throughout the year. So far are they from being migratory to us from the north only, that they visit the west coast of Cork in August, arriving there much earlier than those which come down the Irish Channel, and long before their brethren make their appearance at places much farther north. Our common herring spawns towards the end of October, or the beginning of November, and it is for two or three months previous to this, when they assemble in immense numbers, that the fishing is carried on, which is of such great and national importance. "And here," Mr. Couch observes, "we cannot but admire the economy of Divine Providence, by which this and several other species of fish are brought to the shores, within reach of man, at the time when they are in their highest perfection and best fitted to be his food." The herring having spawned, retires to deep water, and the fishing ends for that season. While inhabiting the depths of the ocean, its food is said, by Dr. Knox, to consist principally of minute entomostraceous animals, but it is certainly less choice in its selection when near the shore.

Although the common herring of our northern seas is beyond all doubt the most important of the tribe, yet there is no sea, no coast, where other species of the same family are not a source of abundance to man, and of astonishment by their vast numbers. Thus the enormous shoals of Pilchards appearing along our south-western coasts are not less valuable to the fishermen of Devon and Cornwall than the common herring to those of the North Sea. The older naturalists considered the pilchard, like the herring, as a visitor from a distant region, and they assigned to it also the same place of resort as that fish, with which indeed the pilchard has been sometimes confounded. To this it will be a sufficient reply, that the pilchard is never seen in the Northern Ocean. They frequent the French coasts, and are seen on those of Spain, but on neither in considerable numbers or with much regularity; so that few fishes confine themselves within such narrow bounds. On the coast of Cornwall they are found throughout all the seasons of the year, and even there their habits vary in the different months. In January they keep near the bottom, and are chiefly hauled up in the stomachs of ravenous fishes; in March they sometimes assemble in schulls, but this union is only partial and not permanent and only becomes so in July; when they regularly and permanently congregate so as to invite the fisherman's pursuit. The season and situation for spawning, and the choice of food, are the chief reasons which influence the motions of the great bodies of these fish; and it is probable that a thorough knowledge of these particulars would explain all the variations which have been noticed in the doings of the pilchard, in the numerous unsuccessful seasons of the fishery.

They feed with voracity on small crustaceous animals, and Mr. Yarrell frequently found their stomachs crammed with thousands of a minute species of shrimp, not larger than a flea. It is probably when they are in search of something like this, that fishermen report they have seen them lying in myriads quietly at the bottom, examining with their mouths the sand and small stones in shallow water. The abundance of this food must be enormous, to satisfy such a host.

"When near the coast," says the author of the "History of British Fishes," "the assemblage of pilchards assumes the arrangement of a mighty army, with its wings stretching parallel to the land, and the whole is composed of numberless smaller bodies, which are perpetually joining together, shifting their position, and separating again. There are three stations occupied by this great body, that have their separate influence on the success of the fishery. One is to the eastward of the Lizard, the most eastern extremity, reaching to the Bay of Bigbury in Devonshire, beyond which no fishing is carried on, except that it occasionally extends to Dartmouth; a second station is included between the Lizard and Land's End; and the third is on the north coast of the county, the chief station being about St. Ives. The subordinate motions of the shoals are much regulated by the tide, against the current of which they are rarely known to go, and the whole will sometimes remain parallel to the coast for several weeks, at the distance of a few leagues; and then, as if by general consent, they will advance close to the shore, sometimes without being discovered till they have reached it. This usually happens when the tides are strongest, and is the period when the principal opportunity is afforded for the prosecution of the sean-fishery." The quantity of pilchards taken is sometimes incredibly large. In 1847, a very productive year, 40,000 hogsheads were cured in Cornwall alone, representing probably, after all deductions, a net value to the takers of £80,000. The Sardine (Clupea sardina), a fish closely allied to the Pilchard though smaller, is considered as the most savoury of all the herring tribe. It is chiefly found in the Mediterranean, on the coasts of South France and Africa, and about the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, where it plays a no less important part than the Pilchard on the coasts of Cornwall and Devonshire.

Though a much less valuable fish than its larger-sized relatives, the diminutive Sprat is not to be despised. Coming into the market in immense quantities, and at a very moderate price, immediately after the herring season is over, it affords during all the winter months a cheap and agreeable food. Like all other species of the herring tribe, the sprats are capricious wanderers, and make their appearance in exceedingly variable numbers. The coasts of Kent, Essex, and Suffolk, are the most productive. So great is the supply thence obtained, that notwithstanding the immense quantity consumed by the vast population of London and its neighbourhood, there is yet occasionally a surplus to be disposed of at so low a price, as to induce the farmers, even so near the metropolis as Dartford, to use them for manure.

The Mediterranean seems to be the peculiar birthplace of the Anchovy (Engraulis encrasicholus), where it appears in the spawning season in countless multitudes along the shallow coasts. It is about four inches long, of a bluish-brown colour on the back, and silvery-white on the belly. It is covered with large thin and easily deciduous scales, and may be readily distinguished from the Sprat and other kindred species by the anal fins being remarkably short. It is mostly caught in the neighbourhood of Antibes, Frejus, and St. Tropez, and sent pickled in enormous quantities to the fair of Beaucaire, from whence it is transported in small tin boxes to all parts of the world.

The Cod-family, to which among others, the Dorse, the Haddock, the Whiting, the Hake, the Ling, and other valuable fishes belong, ranks next to that of the herrings in importance to man. In the seas with which Europeans are best acquainted the common Cod, the chief representative of the tribe, is found universally, from Iceland to very nearly as far south as Gibraltar, but appears most abundantly on the eastern side of the American continent, and among its numerous islands, from 40° up to 66° N. lat., where it may be said to hold dominion from the outer edge of the great banks of Newfoundland, which are more than three hundred miles from land, to the verge of every creek and cove of the bounding coast. To support such a mass of living beings, the ocean sends forth its periodical masses of other living beings. At one season the cod is accompanied by countless myriads of the Capelin (Salmo arcticus), and at another by equal hosts of a molluscous animal, the Cuttle-fish (Sepia loligo), called in Newfoundland the squid. The three animals are migratory, and man, who stations himself on the shore for their combined destruction, conducts his movements according to their migrations, capturing millions upon millions of capelins and squids, to serve as a bait for the capture of millions of cods. In the United Kingdom alone this fish, in the catching, the curing, the partial consumption, and sale, supplies employment, food, and profit to thousands of the human race; but the banks of Newfoundland are the chief scene of its destruction. As soon as spring appears, England sends forth 2000 ships, with 30,000 men, across the Atlantic, towards those teeming shallows; France about one-half the number; and the Americans as many as both together. On an average, each ship is reckoned to catch about 40,000 fishes; and we may form some idea of the voracity, as well as of the numbers of the cod, when we hear that in the course of a single day a good fisherman is able to haul up four hundred one after another with his line—no easy task considering the size of the fish, which often attains a length of from two to three feet and a weight of from twenty to forty pounds.

The captured fish have but little time left them to bewail their lot, for a few thousands will be "dressed down"—that is, gutted, boned and salted—in the course of two or three hours. For this purpose the crew divide themselves into throaters, headers, splitters, salters, and packers. First the throater passes his sharp knife across the throat of the unfortunate cod to the bone and rips open the bowels. He then passes it quickly to the header, who with a strong sudden wrench pulls off the head and tears out the entrails, which he casts overboard, passing at the same time the fish instantly to the splitter, who with one cut lays it open from head to tail, and almost in the twinkling of an eye with another cut takes out the backbone. After separating the sounds, which are placed with the tongues, and packed in barrels as a great delicacy, the backbone follows the entrails overboard, while the fish at the same moment is passed with the other hand to the salter. Such is the amazing quickness of the operations of heading and splitting that a good workman will often decapitate and take out the entrails and backbone of six fish in a minute. Every fisherman is supposed to know something of each of these operations, and no rivals at cricket ever entered with more ardour into their work than do some athletic champions for the palm of "dressing down" after a "day's catch."

Besides its excellent firm flesh, the liver-oil of the cod is used as a valuable medicine, and serves to restore many a scrofulous or rickety child to health. The sound-bladder is also employed by the Icelanders for the manufacture of fish-lime or isinglass. The best quality of the latter article, however, is afforded by a species of Sturgeon (Accipenser Huso) which is chiefly found in the Black and Caspian seas, and ascends the tributary rivers in immense numbers.

The Common Sturgeon (Accipenser sturio), though principally frequenting the seas and rivers of North-Eastern Europe, where, especially in the Volga, extensive fisheries are established for its destruction, is also captured on the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, as examples are by no means uncommon in the fish-mongers' shops of our great cities, a few coming into the hands of the principal dealers every season. Yarrell mentions one caught in a stake-net near Findhorn, in Scotland, in July 1833, which measured eight feet six inches in length and weighed two hundred and three pounds; but in the Baltic specimens of a length of eighteen feet and weighing a thousand pounds have occasionally been captured. The body is long and slender from the shoulders backward, somewhat pentagonal in shape, with five longitudinal rows of flattened plates, with pointed central spines, directed backwards, and the snout is tapering and beak-shaped, the mouth small and toothless, so that the sturgeon, though almost equalling the white shark in size, is of a much more harmless character and formidable only to the crustaceans, small fish, or soft animals, he meets with at the bottom in deep water, beyond the ordinary reach of sea-nets. Hence he is rarely caught in the open sea, but falls an easy prey to the cunning of man when entering the friths, estuaries, and rivers for the purpose of spawning. The sturgeon is a highly valuable fish not only for its well-flavoured flesh but also for its roe, which furnishes the delicate caviar of commerce. The smallest but most highly esteemed of the sturgeons is the Sterlet of the Volga, which sometimes fetches such extravagant prices that Prince Potemkin has been known to pay three hundred roubles for a single tureen of sterlet-soup.

While many of the numerous members of the salmon family confine themselves to the rivulet or to the lake, others alternate, like the sturgeons, between the river and the sea. Of these the most remarkable is the noble fish which has given its name to the whole tribe, and may justly be considered as its head, not only in point of size but also for its wide-spread utility to man.

Every spring or summer the salmon leave the ocean to deposit their spawn in the sweet waters, often at a distance of many hundred miles in the interior of the Continent, so that the same fish which during part of the year may be breasting the waves of the North Sea, may at another be forcing the current of an Alpine stream. Their onward progress is not easily stopped: they shoot up rapids with the velocity of arrows, and make wonderful efforts to surmount cascades or weirs by leaping, frequently clearing an elevation of eight or ten feet. These surprising bounds appear to be accomplished by a sudden jerk, which is given to its body by the animal from a bent into a straight position. If they fail in their attempt, and fall back into the stream, it is only to rest a short time, and thus recruit their strength for a new effort. The fall of Kilmaroc, on the Beauly, in Inverness-shire, is one of the spots where the leaping feats of the salmon can best be witnessed. "The pool below that fall," says Mr. Mudie, in the British Naturalist, "is very large, and as it is the head of the run in one of the finest salmon rivers in the north, and only a few miles distant from the sea, it is literally thronged with salmon, which are continually attempting to pass the fall, but without success, as the limit of their perpendicular spring does not appear to exceed twelve or fourteen feet; at least, if they leap higher than that, they are aimless and exhausted, and the force of the current dashes them down again before they have recovered their energy. They often kill themselves by the violence of their exertions to ascend, and sometimes they fall upon the rocks and are captured. It is indeed said that one of the wonders which the Frasers of Lovat, who are lords of the manor, used to show their guests was a voluntarily cooked salmon at the falls of Kilmaroc. For this purpose a kettle was placed upon the flat rock on the south side of the fall, close by the edge of the water and kept full and boiling. There is a considerable extent of the rock where tents were erected, and the whole was under a canopy of overshadowing trees. There the company are said to have waited until a salmon fell into the kettle, and was boiled in their presence. We have seen as many as eighty taken in a pool lower down the river at one haul of the seine, and one of the number weighed more than sixty pounds."

As the salmon laboriously ascend the rivers, it may easily be imagined that the cunning and rapacity of man seeks every opportunity to intercept their progress. Nets of the most various form and construction are employed for their capture; numbers are entrapped in enclosed spaces formed in weirs, into which they enter as they push up the stream, and are then prevented by a grating of a peculiar contrivance from returning or getting out; and many are speared, a mode frequently practised at night-time, when torches are made use of to attract them to the surface, or to betray them by their silvery reflection to the attentive fisherman.

The ruddy gleam illumining the river banks or sparkling in the agitated waters, the black sky above, the deep contrasts of light and shade, attach a romantic interest to this nocturnal sport, which has been both practised and sung by Walter Scott.

The natural history of the salmon was until lately but very imperfectly known, as the parr (brandling, samlet) and the grilse, which are now fully proved to be but intermediate stages of its growth, were supposed by Yarrell to be distinct fishes. The first person who seems to have suspected the true nature of the parr was James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who in his usual eccentric way took some pains to verify his opinion. As an angler, he had often caught the parr in its transition state, and had frequently captured smolts (at that time the only acknowledged youthful salmon) with the scales barely covering the bars or finger marks of the parr. Wondering at this, he marked a great number of the lesser fish and offered rewards of whisky (being himself a great admirer of the genuine mountain-dew) to the peasantry to bring him any fish that had evidently undergone the change. These crude experiments of the talented shepherd convinced him that the parr were the young of the salmon in the first stage, and since then professed naturalists have fully settled the question by watching the egg into life, and tracing the growth of the young fish step by step until it ultimately changed into the kingly salmon.

This ignorance of the true nature of the parr had most disastrous effects, as it largely contributed to the depopulation of our streams, for the farmers and cottars who resided near the rivers used not unfrequently, after filling the frying-pan with parr, to feed their pigs with them, and myriads were annually killed by juvenile anglers. This truly deplorable havoc has fortunately been arrested by Act of Parliament, but the killing of grilse is still, I believe, a fertile source of destruction,[O] and should undoubtedly be restrained by law, as the wholesale slaughter of these juvenile fishes is a most lamentable example of improvident waste.

In former times our rivers abounded with salmon, more than 200,000 having been caught in a single summer in the Tweed alone, and 2,500 at one haul in the river Thurso; but, besides the causes above mentioned, over fishing or fishing at an improper season, and probably in many cases the pollution of the streams with deleterious matter from mines or manufactories, have considerably reduced their numbers. Fortunately, public attention has at length been thoroughly aroused to the danger which menaces our king of fishes; and, what with better laws for his protection and the successful attempts that have latterly been made in artificial fish-breeding, we may hope that more prosperous times are in store for our salmon-fisheries.

The salmon not only frequents the streams of Northern Europe but ascends in vast multitudes the giant rivers of Siberia and of North America. It is fished by the Ostjak and the Tunguse, and speared by the Indian of the New World. Ross's Arctic salmon, which is of a more slender form than the common salmon, differently marked and coloured, and with a remarkably long under jaw, is so extremely abundant in the sea near the mouths of the rivers of Boothia Felix that 3,378 were obtained at one haul of a small-sized seine. The rivers of Kamtschatka abound in salmon of various kinds, so that the stream, swelling as it were with living waves, not seldom overflows its banks and casts multitudes ashore. Steller affirms that, in that almost uninhabited peninsula, the bears and dogs and other animals catch more of these fishes with their mouths and feet than man in other countries with all his cunning devices of net and angle.

The salmon of Iceland, which formerly remained undisturbed by the phlegmatic inhabitants, are now caught in large numbers for the British market. A small river, bearing the significant name of Laxaa or Salmon river, has been rented for the trifling sum of 100l. a year by an English company which sends every spring its agents to the spot, well provided with the best fishing apparatus. The captured fish are immediately boiled and hermetically packed in tin boxes, so that they can be eaten in London almost as fresh as if they had just been caught. Other valuable salmon-streams in Iceland and Norway pay us a similar tribute; and as commerce, aided by the steamboat and the railway, extends her empire, rivers more and more distant are made to supply the deficiencies of our native streams. More than 150,000 salmon are annually caught in Aljaska—not a quarter of a century ago a real "ultima Thule"—and after having been well pickled and smoked at the various fishing-stations are chiefly sent from Sitcha to Hamburg.

Nature has denied the salmon to the streams of Australia and New Zealand; but as the eggs of this fish can be preserved for a very long time, they have been transported with perfect success to those far-distant colonies.