natural abode they seem tranquil, abstinent, and happy ;* and that the emigration from thence to the distant coasts peopled by man, to which they periodically move so multitudinously, is so connected with human subsistence and benefit, that it seems a reasonable inference that special impulses or instincts of movement are given to them, on purpose that mankind may benefit from their immense productivity.t

The contrivance of the frogfish to attract its prey within its reach had drawn the notice of the ancients; and it is now named piscatorius, from the circumstance.‡ Intention, judgment, adaptation of the action to the purpose, and patient vigilance appear in their habit.

The susceptibility to fear is strikingly shown in the lobster. They are apt to cast their claws, on a loud clap of thunder, or on the firing of a cannon ;§ but under the excitation of alarm, they do what has all the appearance of an intellectual action. If at a distance from their usual hold in the rock when frightened, they will spring up towards it, though many feet off, and regulate, in the instantaneous

"Of all migrating fish, the herring and the pilchard take the most adventurous voyages. Herrings are found in the greatest abundance in the highest northern latitudes. In those inaccessible seas, which are covered with ice for a great part of the year, the herring and pilchard find a quiet and sure retreat. In that remote situation, they live at ease, and multiply beyond expression."-Golds. 530. Their food is insects, but as these only appear at their season, the chief part of the herring's life must pass without them.

"From this most desirable retreat Mr. Anderson supposes they would never depart; but that their number renders it necessary for them to migrate. As with bees from a hive, they are compelled to seek for other retreats. For this reason, the great colony is seen to set out from the icy sea about the middle of winter."--Golds. 530. The doctor adds this strong but too rhetorical intimation of their amazing numbers: "If all the men in the world were to be loaded with herrings, they would not carry the thousandth part away."-p. 591. Tropes and figures of speech are sometimes used to signify what it is beyond our power to number; but the allusive hyperbole has its proper limits.

This fish, which grows to seven feet long, is very sluggish, and swims with difficulty, but it has two long slender filaments upon its head, immediately above the nose, which are thicker, and round at the end. It lurks behind sand-hills or heaps of stones, and throwing these appendages over its head, which resemble worms, the little fish are induced to approach them as they float, either for play or food, till they come within his reach, when he springs and seizes them.--Turt. Linn. 908... Pliny mentions this fish, which the Greeks called batrachos, and the Latins rana.

Pennant, Brit. Zool.

motion, both their impulse and direction so exactly, as to throw themselves into their place of safety through an entrance hardly sufficient for them to pass through.*

The annual migrations of the land-crabs of Jamaica, from the mountains to the sea, there to deposite their young brood, exhibit also judging and determined volition in steady and persevering activity for an important and rational end.†

The parental and filial sensibility and attachment of the cetaceous fishes, the walrus and the seal tribes, are so like the same affections in many quadrupeds and in the human race, that it would be an apparent inconsistency to give them any other denomination. Wherever joyous feelings

* "As is frequently seen, by the people who endeavour to take them, at Foley Bridge. They spring, tail foremost, as fast as a bird can fly. The fishermen can see them pass about thirty feet, and suppose they may go much farther. Athenæus remarks this circumstance, and says that the incurvated lobsters will spring with the activity of dolphins."Wood's Zoog. vol. ii. p. 546.

"The animals not only live in a kind of orderly society in their retreats in the mountains, but regularly once a year march down to the seaside, in a body of some millions at a time. The sea is their place of destination, and to that they direct their march with right-lined precision. No geometrician could send them to their destined station by a shorter course they turn neither to the right nor to the left. They will attempt to scale walls, to keep the unbroken tenor of their way. They are com monly divided into three battalions, of which the first consists of the boldest and strongest males. These are pioneers, who march forward, to clear the route, and to face the greatest dangers. The main body is composed of females, which never leave the mountains till the rain is set in for some time; they then descend in columns of fifty paces broad and three miles deep. Three or four days after this, the rear-guard follows, consisting of males and females neither so robust nor so numerous as the former. The night is their chief time of proceeding; but if it rains by day, they do not fail to profit by the occasion. the sun is hot, they make a universal halt, and wait till the cool of the evening. They are sometimes three months in getting to the shore."Goldsmith, from Labat's Voyage, vol. ii. p. 221.

When

"The fidelity of the male and female whale to each other exceeds that of most animals. When a fisherman had killed one of a pair, the other, who had assisted in its defence, stretched itself on the dead one, and shared its fate."-Bingl. vol. ii. p. 160.....The maternal whale carries her young one with her wherever she goes: when hardest pursued, supports it between her fins,-though wounded, still clasps it, takes it with her to the bottom, and rises with it to give it breath.-Ib. 161.....When a female grampus and her cub were attacked, the mother escaped, but finding her young one detained, she rushed back to share its fate.-Ib. 175.....So Captain Cook states "that the female walrus will defend her offspring to the very last, and at the expense of her own life; nor will the young one quit its dam, though she be dead: so that if one be killed, the other is a certain prey." They display also a great attachment to each other.

exist, and attest their existence by spontaneous movements of visible hilarity, we may safely infer a correspondent proportion of mental sensibility. Even the cumbersome whales display such emotions.*

All the actions we have thus alluded to seem to display a thinking mind in varied operation, in addition to that living principle which every animal shares in common with the vegetable kingdom.†

Such was the fish creation-a race of beings both feeling and thinking, in that particular structure of body and residentiary element to which they were assigned. Like the vegetable tribes, they have been made to be useful to man, both in contributing to his sustenance and in supplying him with many important conveniences. But independently of the human race, they have been created to be happy beings in themselves. From their vast numbers and varieties, and the comparatively small knowledge which man has of them, and the few out of their numerous species which have been converted to his use, we may assume that they were made principally on their own account, and for the display to us of our Creator's mind, power, thoughts, inventions, and imagination. They enlarge our knowledge of his omnipotence, and give us ocular sensations of its multifarious potentiality.

Fish seem to be more exclusively confined to themselves than any other classes of animal life. For, excepting the few species of birds and amphibious quadrupeds which seek them as food, no animal but man knows or notices them. They live in an element which is mortal to all but themselves; and no other creature, nor even man, can mo

A naval officer describes his amusement near New-Brunswick, "in looking at the gambols of the whales, who here congregated in greater numbers, and seemed more frolicksome and playful. I saw these immense creatures jumping entirely out of the water, though generally their unwieldy weight allowed little more than half their length to rise above the surface, on which they fell upon their broadside with a noise like thunder."-Un. Serv. Journ. Nov. 1831.

The vital principle in fish can survive the action of frost. Those which were caught by Captain Franklin's party in Winter Lake froze as they were taken out of the nets, and became in a short time a solid mass of ice. But if in this completely frozen state they were thawed before the fire, they recovered their animation. This was particularly the case with a carp, which recovered so far as to leap about with some vigour after it had been frozen for thirty-six hours.

lest them, but as they choose to float near the surface of their waves, or to be tempted by the baited hook that descends deeper. But they are equally unfitted and unable to have any concernment with other beings. They die in no long time if removed from their habitual fluid: and thus they are entirely beings of the world of waters, and have no functions or faculties for any other region or mode of existence. In general, they are made to be helpless to all assailants. Animals have teeth and claws, or horns, and other weapons for fight or escape, but few fish have such endangering instruments. They are an instance that an innumerable class of animated beings may exist in great comfort and activity, whose prevailing character is that of inoffensive and unresisting helplessness. They are subjected to death, and several of their species receive the termination of their being at times, by serving as the food to others; but most of those whose life is not thus intercepted enjoy it for a duration which few other animals experience. But they are principally interesting to the contemplative student for the curious modification which they exhibit of the principles of life and of mind. They show the phenomena of these as they occur in the finny forms, functions, and element. We see in them fish mind and fish feelings, and find similarities between these and the faculties of the higher orders of animals and of ourselves, which deserve all the attention they may excite, and enlarge our conceptions of the nature of the intellectual qualities. They contribute to prove, that life and mind do not arise from form, not depend upon it; for they exhibit these as equally existing in every configuration, and in despite of diversity. No changes of figure prevent or suppress them, nor does the matter of the bodily substance united with them either cause or destroy them. Life and mind are therefore independent of all material structure, and are some great principles added to it and co-existing within it.

LETTER XI.

A brief Review of the Mollusca, Testacea, Zoophyte, and Infusoria Orders; and of their Indications of Feeling and Mind.

IT has already been intimated that one of the great characteristics of creation has been that of multitudinous diversity. This peculiarly appears in the smaller classes of animated nature, and among them, in those other orders of beings which, besides the fish and crustaceous animals, inhabit the sea and other waters. These have received the discriminating denominations of mollusca, testacea, zoophyta, and infusoria. Most of them are of a miniature size, and the latter of that diminutiveness to which we give the general name of animalcules. The greatest part of them inhabit the ocean; but the last kind abound in land waters, and are found in most infusions. They all belong to the division of the invertebrated animals. They have no ver

tebræ.

The MOLLUSCA are described as "naked simple animals, not included in a shell, but furnished with limbs." The slug, limax, is placed by Linnæus as the first genus of the class. There are many genera, and of some of these the species are very numerous. The absence of vertebræ has occasioned them to be considered by some as an inferior class of beings. This degradation in the scale of existence is not satisfactory to other naturalists, who see in their smaller frames indications of a careful and complicated construction.*

The actinia, or sea anemone, is a numerous genus of this

*M. G. Cuvier thinks that the mollusques in general, and especially the cephalopodes, have a richer organization; one in which there are more viscera analogous to those of the superior classes, than the other animals without vertebræ. Hence the mollusca should not be confounded with the polypi and other zoophytes, but be placed a degree higher in the scale. But though their organization approaches that of the vertebrated, yet it is not composed in the same manner, nor arranged on the same plan.-Bull. Univ. 1830, p. 447.....M. Geoffry St. Hilaire takes the other side of the question against M. Cuvier.—Ib. p. 449.