BEST'S

ART OF ANGLING.

CHAP. I.

A Description of Fishes, according to Natural History, with the best methods of Breeding, Feeding, &c.

MANY assert that fishes have not that part called the meatus auditorius, and are quite deaf. Others are quite of a contrary opinion. However by the first proposition of the second book of Newton's Principia, it is proved that water is a non-conductor of sound; if so, why should animals be provided with organs of hearing, when they live in a medium where sounds cannot be heard?

Fishes in natural history are animals that live in the water, as their proper place of abode. Naturalists observe a world of wisdom and design in the structure of fishes, and their conformation to the element they reside in.

Their bodies are cloathed and guarded in the best manner, with scales or shells, suitable to their respective circumstances, the dangers they are exposed to, and the motion and business they are to perform.

The centre of gravity is placed in the fittest part of the body for swimming, and their shape most commodious for making way through the water, and most agreeable to geometrical rules.

They have several parts peculiar to themselves; as fins, to balance and keep them upright; an air bladder, or swim, to enable them to rise or sink to any height or depth of water, at pleasure; gills, or branchia, whereby they respire, as land 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.

In most fish, beside the great fin tail, we find two pair of fins upon the sides, two single fins on the back, and one upon the belly, or rather between the belly and the tail. The balancing use of these organs is proved in this manner: Of the large headed fishes, if you cut off the pectotal fins, i. e. the pair which lie close behind the gills, the head falls prone to the bottom if the right pectoral fin only be cut off, the fish leans to that side; if the ventral fin on the same side be cut away, then it loses its equilibrium entirely if the dorsal and ventral fins be cut off, the fish reels to the right and left. When the fish dies, that is, when the fins cease to play, the belly turns upwards. The use of the same parts for motion is seen from the following observation upon them when put in action. The pectoral and more particularly the ventral fins, serve to raise and depress the fish: when the fish desires to have a retrograde motion, a stroke forward

with the pectoral fin effectually produces it: if the fish desires to turn either way, a single blow with the tail the opposite way sends it round at once if the tail strike both ways, the motion produced by the double lash is progressive, and enables the fish to dart forwards with an astonishing velocity. The result is not only in some cases, the most rapid, but in all cases the most gentle, pliant, easy, animal motion, with which we are acquainted. However, when the tail is cut off, the fish loses all motion, and gives itself up where the water impels it.

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 or 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 are also an amphibious kind, which live indifferently on land or water: as the castor, otter, &c.

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

The cetaceous kind, called also belluna 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 sort are produced from large eggs, like birds; which are also excluded the womb like those of birds.

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

Willoughby thinks it would be yet more pro

per 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 kind, 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. &c. the subdivisions of each whereof, he gives in his chapter of cartilaginous fishes in general.

The oviparous kind 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 to the horizon.

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

Such as swim with their backs erect, are either long and smooth, and without scales, as the eel kind, 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; which latter kind he subdivides into two kinds: 1. Such as have no prickly fins on their bucks, but soft and flexible ones. 2. 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, loch, or gudgeon kind.

Fishes with but one soft back fin, are of three sorts. The first kind have one long continued fin, from head to tail, as the hipparus of Rondeletius, &c.

The second have their fin 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 which have prickly fins on their backs, are of two kinds. 1. Such as have two prickly fins on their backs; and in these the interior radii of their fins are always prickly. 2. 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, or Grayling, or Umber. 17. Salmo, the Salmon. 18. Trutta fluviatilis duum generum,