animals do by lungs; the tail, an instrument of progressive motion, which serves to row them forward; eyes peculiarly formed, to enable them to correspond to all the convergencies and divergencies of rays, which the variations of the watery medium, and the refractions thereof, may occasion, in which respect they bear a near resemblance to birds.

Fishes are distinguished into sea or salt-water fish, pisces marini; as the whale, herring, mackarel, &c.: river or fresh-water fish, pisces fluviales ; as the pike, trout, &c.: and pond ur lake fish; as the carp, tench, &c.: to which may be added, others, which abide indifferently in fresh water or salt; as salmon, shad-fish, &c.

There is also an amphibious kind, which lives indifferently on land or water; as the castor, otter, &c.

Aristotle, and after him Mr. Willoughby, more accurately distinguishes fishes into cetaceous, cartilaginous, and spinous.

The cetaceous, called also bellua marina, have lungs, and breathe like quadrupeds: they copulate also like them, and conceive and bring forth their young alive, which they afterwards suckle with their milk.

The cartilaginous are produced from large eggs, like birds, which are also excluded the womb like those of birds.

The spinous are also oviparous; but their eggs are smaller, and they have spine up and down their flesh to strengthen it.

Willoughby thinks it would be yet more proper to divide fishes into such as breathe with lungs and such as breathe with gills; and then to subdivide those that breathe with gills, not into

cartilaginous and spinous, but into viviparous and oviparous.

The viviparous, that breathe with gills, he subdivides into long; such as the galei and canes, or sharks and dog-fish: and broad; such as the pastinaca, raja, &c.: the subdivisions of each whereof, he gives in his chapter of cartilaginous fishes in general.

The oviparous, that breathe with gills, are the most numerous; and these he subdivides into such as are what we usually call flat fish, and such as swim with their backs upright, or at right angles with the horizon.

The plain or flat fish, called usually plani spinosi, are either quadrati, as the rombi and passeres, or those of the turbot or flounder kind; or longiusculi, as the sola, or sole-kind.

Such as swim with their backs erect are either long and smooth, and without scales, as the eelkind, or shorter and less smooth; and these have either but one pair of fins at their gills, which are called orbes and congeneres, or else another pair of fins also on their bellies: the latter he subdivides into two kinds-1st, such as have no prickly fins on their backs, but soft and flexible ones; 2nd, such as have prickly fins on their backs.

Those fishes which have only soft and flexible fins on their backs may be divided into such as have three, two, or but one single fin there.

No fish but the aselli have three fins on their backs.

Fishes with two fins on their backs are either the truttaceous, trout-kind; or the gobionites, loche or gudgeon kind.

Fishes with but one soft back-fin are of three

sorts. The first has one long continued fin from head to tail, as the hipparus of Rondeletius, &c.

The fins of the second are but short, and placed just in the middle of their back: and these are either marine, as the herring-kind; or fluviatile, as those we call leather-mouthed fishes, such as carp, tench, &c.

Fishes with prickly fins on their backs are of two kinds such as have two prickly fins on their backs, and in these the interior radii of their fins are always prickly; 2nd, such as have but one prickly fin there.

The English fishes that we have in our ponds, rivers, &c. are as follow: 1. Cyprinus, the Carp. 2. Tinca, the Tench. 3. Cyprinus latus, the Bream or Bruma. 4. Orfus Germanorum, the Rudd, Oerve, or Nersling. 5. Capito seu Cephalus, the Chubb or Chevin. 6. Barbus, the Barbel. 7. Leucissus, the Dace or Dare. 8. Rutilus seu Rubellio, the Roach. 9. Alburnus, the Bleak or Bley. 10. Gobius fluviatilis, the Gudgeon. 11. Cobites fluviatilis barbatula, the Loche or Loach. 12. Varius, seu Phoxinus lavis, the Pink or Minnow.

These twelve are called Malacostomi, or leather-mouthed fishes, because they have no teeth in their jaws, but only deep down in their mouths. To proceed. 13. Passer fluviatilis sive amphibious, the Flounder. 14. Anguilla, the Eel. 15. Gobio fluviatilis, the Bull-head or Miller's Thumb. 16. Thymallus, the Gragling, Grayling, or Umber. 17. Salmo, the Salmon. 18. Trutta fluviatilis duum generum, the Trout. 19. Albula Salmoni similis, the Guinniad. 23. Trutta Salmonata, the Salmon-Trout. 21. Trutta La

custris, the Scurf or Bull-Trout. 22. Umbla minor Gesn, the Red Charr or Welsh Torgoch. 23. Carpio lacus Benaci, the Guilt or Gilt Charr. 24. Lucius, the Pike or Pickerel. 25. Perca fluviatilis minor seu aurata, the Ruff. 26. Piscis aculeatus vulgaris seu pungitius Alberti, the Common Prickle-back, Sharpling, or Banstickle. 27. Piscis aculeatus minor, the Lesser Prickleback. 28. Perca fluviatilis, the Perch.

The share of life which some fish possess is worthy the notice of every curious angler. The eel, being cut in pieces, maintains life and motion for several hours. A carp will move vigorously some time after the intestines are taken out of its body; but I shall say more on several of these heads in treating of each particular species of fish.

Fish, considered as a food, make a considerable addition to the furniture of the table; and the breeding, feeding, &c. thereof, is a peculiar art, and very necessary, for the sake of economy, that every country gentleman should know something of the method. To this relate the ponds, stews, &c. which shall be described in their proper places.

It may not be here unacceptable to give the reader some general rules on the subject.

RULE I.

FOR BREEDING FISHES.

The quality of the pond, water, &c. proper to this end, is scarcely determinable by any certain symptom or rule; for some very promising ponds do not prove serviceable that way. One of the best indications of a breeding pond is, when there is a good store of rushes and grazing about it,

with gravelly shoals, such as horse-ponds usually have; so that when a water takes thus to breeding, with a few milters and spawners, two or three of each, a whole country may be stocked in a short time. Eels and perches are of a very good use to keep down the stock of fish; for they prey much upon the spawn and fry of bred fish, and will probably destroy the superfluity of them. As for pikes, tenches, roaches, perches, &c. they are observed to breed almost in any waters, and very numerously; but eels never breed in standing waters that are without springs, and in such are neither found, nor increase by putting in; yet where springs are they are never wanting, though not put in: and, what is most strange of all, no person ever saw in an eel the least token of propagation, either by milt or spawn; so that, whether they breed at all, and how they are produced, are propositions equally mysterious, and never yet clearly resolved.

RULE II.

FOR FEEDING FISHES,

Observe the following remarks :—1. In a stew thirty or forty carps may be kept from October to March, without feeding; and by fishing with trammels or flews, in March or April, you may take from your great waters to recruit your stews: but you must not fail to feed all the summer, from March to October again, as constantly as cropped chickens are fed; and it will prove profitable.

2. The constancy and regularity of serving the fish, conduce very much to their eating well and thriving.