brought from a mountain lake in China, but now domesticated in almost every country of the Old and the New World, is the gold-fish-those beautiful pets and playthings which have attracted so much attention and admiration on account of the exceeding brilliancy of their coloring. They are usually kept in glass globes filled with water, where their golden hues are reflected to the best advantage. Moore, in his Lallah Rookh, alludes to them in the following lines:

"On one side, gleaming with a sudden grace
Through water, brilliant as the crystal vase
In which it undulates, small fishes shine,
Like golden ingots from a fairy mine."

3. And very beautiful is the allusion which the poet Words. worth makes to the crystal vase in which they are usually kept:

แ

"Type of the sunny human breast

Is your transparent cell,

Where fear is but a transient guest,
Nor sullen humors3 dwell;
Where, sensitive of every ray

That smites this tiny4 sea,
Your scaly panoplies repay
The loan with usury."

4. The Chinese ladies pay great attention to the rearing of these fish, having the richest glass vessels prepared for them in their apartments, and small ornamental ponds and basins in their gardens. If they are obliged to transport them from one vessel to another, they take great care not to touch them with the hand, and not to remove them entirely from the water. In this country they are usually fed with crumbs of bread, and yolks of eggs boiled hard and reduced to powder, and occasionally they should be supplied with a bed of moss or turf. A writer, in the following lines, seems to doubt the justice of making them prisoners for our pleasure:

5.

"I ask what warrant fix'd them (like a spell
Of witchcraft, fix'd them) in the crystal cell;
To wheel, with languid motion, round and round,
Beautiful, yet in mournful durance6 bound'?
Their peace, perhaps, our slightest footstep marr'd',
Or their quick sense our sweetest music jarr'd';
And whither could they dart, if seized with fear?
No sheltering stone', no tangled root was near`.
When fire or taper ceased to cheer the room',
They wore away the night in starless gloom';
And when the sun first dawned upon the streams',
How faint their portion of its vital beams!
Thus, and unable to complain, they fared,

While not one joy of ours by them was shared."

6. The golden carp, or gold-fish, vary not only in color, but in the shape, size, and number of their fins also. In color they exhibit almost every possible shade or combination of silver, brilliant orange, and purple. Some have dorsal fins extending

more than half the length of the back; others have dorsal fins of five or six rays only; and still greater variations sometimes are seen in other fins. These changes are supposed to have been produced by domestication.

7. The European tench, which is a fish from twelve to eighteen inches in length, also belongs to the Carp family. It loves muddy waters, is exceedingly tenacious of life, and has the reputation, among fishermen, of being the physician of fishes. In Germany it is called the doctor-fish. Even the pike, the tyrant of the streams, is said never to prey upon the tench, which is supposed to exert his healing powers by rubbing against the sides of the sick or wounded. Of the pike it has been written:

"The tench he spares;

For when by wounds distress'd, or sore disease,
He courts the salutary fish for ease;
Close to his scales the kind physician glides,

And sweats the healing balsam from his sides."

8. Some of the fish of the Carp family, such as the roach, dace, and shiners, have scales of a very peculiar silvery lustre, whose brilliancy is owing to a silvery pigment on the inner surface of the scales. The French have taken advantage of the coloring matter thus afforded to imitate Oriental pearls, and have established extensive manufactories of "patent pearls," that are used for beads, necklaces, ear-drops, and other ornaments. At present these artificial pearls are confined chiefly to ornaments attached to combs, or small beads arranged with flowers for head-dresses.

9. In the Pike family, the next in order to the Carps, the most important are the common pike or pickerel, the gar-fish, the saury pike, and the common flying-fish. The fishes of this family are voracious; in form they are long and slender, and the single dorsal fin is usually far back on the body. The epithets which have been applied to the pike, such as the "freshwater shark," and the "tyrant of fresh waters," express its well-marked and most striking trait. It has formidable rows of teeth in both jaws; and not only fish, but also frogs, waterrats, and even water-hens and other fowl, often become its prey.

10. The pike is believed to be the only fresh-water fish which is undoubtedly common to the Eastern and Western continents; yet in America it is said to be confined to the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains. The gar-fish or sea-pike, and saury pike, both salt-water fish, are more slender than the common pike. The former is a very active and playful fish:

the

THE PIKE FAMILY.-1. Saury Pike, Scomber-esox saurus. 2. Common Pikę, Esox lucius. 3. Common Gar-fish, Belone vulgaris. 4. Guiana Gar-fish, Belone Guianensis. 5. Common Flying-fish, Exocilus volitans.

it swims near the surface; and its vivacity is such that it will for a long time play about a floating straw, and leap over it many times in succession.

11. A modern Italian poet thus writes of the gar-fish, and of a curious method of capturing them which was said to be employed successfully at Naples:

"Burnish'd with blue, and bright as damask steel,
Behold the belone, with pointed bill

All fringed with teeth: no greedier fish than they

E'er broke in serried lines our foaming bay.

Soon as the practiced crew this frolic throng

Behold advancing rapidly along,

Adjusting swift a tendon to the line,

They throw, then drag it glistening through the brine.

Quickly the lure the snapping fish pursue:

The gristle charms, but soon its charms they rue.
Fix'd by the teeth to that tough barbless bait,
The struggling suicides succumb10 to fate."

12. The flying-fish, of which there are several species, are easily distinguished by the excessive size of their pectoral fins, which are sufficiently large to support them in the air for a few moments. But these fish do not in reality fly; it is only after a rapid course of swimming that they can leap. into the air: then they do not flap their fins, and they never raise themselves above the height to which they first spring.

Their most usual height of flight above the surface of the water is only two or three feet; but the larger species sometimes spring fifteen or twenty feet, and it is not unfrequent for whole shoals of them to fall on board of ships that navigate the seas of warm climates.

13. The flying-fish are usually regarded with much interest by the mariner in tropical seas, as they are sometimes the only objects that for hours, and even days, break in upon the monotony of the scene. Their sudden darting upon the sight, and as sudden departure, like flashes of momentary light, are thus described by the poet Montgomery:

"Yet while I look'd,

A joyous creature vaulted through the air-
The aspiring fish that fain would be a bird,
On long, light wings, that flung a diamond-shower
Of dew-drops round its evanescent 12 form,
Sprang into light, and instantly descended."

14. In its own element the flying-fish is perpetually harassed by the dorados, tunny, bonito, and other fishes of prey. If it endeavors to avoid them by having recourse to the air, it either meets its fate from the gulls or the albatross which are constantly on the alert to seize it, or it is forced down again into the mouths of other enemies who keep pace below with its aerial excursion. Yet the flying-fishes themselves

THE CAT-FISH FAMILY.-1. Brown Cat-fish, Pimelodus pullus. 2. Common Cat-fish, or Horned Pout, Pimclodus catus.

The Cat-fish family embraces the numerous fresh-water fish which are known in this country by the common names of cat-fish, horned pouts, and bull-heads. They mostly inhabit muddy streams and lakes, are destitute of scales, sluggish in their movements, and, like the famous fishing-frog or angler, to which they bear some resemblance, depend more upon stratagem than swiftness to seize their prey. The different species vary in length from three or four inches to four feet; and some are said to have been caught in the Ohio and Mississippi rivers measuring eight feet in length.

feed on smaller fish, and these latter on those still below them; and thus, in one continued round of rapacity, the inhabitants of the deep prey upon each other.

1 ۀR-NIV'-O-ROUS, feeding on flesh.
2. ÎN'-GOT, an unwrought bar of gold.
3 HU'-MOR, fancy; caprice.

4 TI'-NY or TIN'-Y, very small; little.
5 PAN'-O-PLY, defensive armor.
6 DUR'-ANCE, imprisonment.

7 PIG'-MENT, & paint.

8 BEL-O-NE, Latin name for this fish.

9 SER-RIED (ser'-rid), close; crowded. 10 SUC-CUMB', yield; submit to.

11 MO-NOT-O-NY, uniformity; want of variety.

12 EV-A-NES'-CENT, fleeting; quickly pass. ing away.

LESSON VII.-TO THE FLYING-FISH.

1. WHEN I have seen thy snow-white wing
From the blue wave at evening spring',
And show those scales of silvery white,
So gayly to the eye of light',

As if thy frame were formed to rise,
And live amid the glorious skies',
Oh, it has made me proudly feel
How like thy wing's impatient zeal
Is the pure soul', that rests not, pent
Within this world's gross element',
But takes the wing that God has given',
And rises into light and heaven'! •
2. But when I see that wing so bright
Grow languid with a moment's flight,
Attempt the paths of air in vain,
And sink into the wave again',
Alas! the flattering pride is o'er';
Like thee', a while', the soul' may soar',
But erring man must blush to think,
Like thee', again', the soul' may sink'!.

3. O Virtue'! when thy clime I seek',
Let not my spirit's flight be weak';
Let me not, like this feeble thing,
With brine still dropping from its wing,'
Just sparkle in the solar glow,

And plunge again to depths below' ;

But, when I leave the grosser throng

With whom my soul hath dwelt so long',

Let me, in that aspiring day,

Cast every lingering stain away',

And, panting for thy purer air',

Fly up' at once', and fix' me there'!-MOORE.