without some apparent means of profitable employment, especially to such as apply themselves to fishing, which, from the beginning of the year to the latter end, continueth upon some part or other of our coasts; and these, in such infinite shoals and multitudes of fishes, are offered to the takers. Sir John Boroughs.

This harvest (says Mr. Barrow) is ripe for gathering at all seasons, without payment of rent and taxes, tillage, manure, &c. &c. it is inexhaustible, owing to the extraordinary fecundity of fish of the most valuable kinds.

THE FECUNDITY OF FISH.

Although the ova are in most instances proportionably smaller than in any other class of animals, the ovaria in many fish are larger than the body. Thus the herring produces from 20,000 to 37,000; the carp, upwards of 200,000; the tench, 380,000; the flounder, a million. Med. Ang. in Wales.

There are many additions to this table, and different weights to each fish; but the first line is sufficient to show the amazing produce of a single fish. Editor.

According to Leuwenhoeck, a single sturgeon's roe amounted to the amazing number of one hundred and fifty thousand million of eggs, and the roe of a crab to four millions and ninety-six thousand, also a middling-size cod to nine million and three hundred and eighty-four thousand.

VARIETY OF FISH BROUGHT TO MARKET AT HAVERFORD-WEST IN ONE DAY.

HATCHING SPAWN OF FISH.

The Chinese have a method of hatching the spawn of fish, and thus protecting it from those accidents which ordinarily occur to so large a portion of it. The fishermen collect, with care, on the margin and surface of the waters, all those gelatinous masses which contain the spawn of fish. After they have found a sufficient quantity, they fill with it the shell of a fresh hen's egg, which they have previously emptied, stop up the holes, and put it under a sitting fowl. At the expiration of a certain number of days, they break the shell in water warmed by the sun. The young fry are presently hatched, and are kept in pure fresh water till they are large enough to be thrown into a pond with the old fish. The sale

of spawn, for this purpose, forms an important branch of trade in China. Vide in this book fish in China. Lit. Gems.

In China, in the month of May, a great number of ships are employed by the country people in the sale of fish spawn, which they sell to merchants by measure, and send it into the country to stock ponds, &c. &c.

Grosier, Desc. de la Chine, vol. i.

Dr. Bradley, professor of botany in the University of Cambridge, in his "Treatise on Husbandry," speaks of having hatched the spawn of fish in earthen pans filled with water, having a coat of earth at the bottom; adding fresh river water every other day, with wheat flour, grated bread for roach, dace, bleak, &c. besides pike, eel, and flounders, in other pans.

Gent. Mag. lxxiii. 1108.

Blumenbach, in his "Manual of Natural History," mentions the reproductive power, and independent vitality, with reference to the amphibia. The extraordinary strength of the reproductive power in several amphibia, and the astonishing facility with which the process is carried on, depend, if I mistake not, on the great magnitude of their nerves, and the diminitive proportion of their brain, &c. &c.

The following may serve as one of the many instances of Providence in the main producing system, and is every where maintained. Even insects people inland ponds and streams with fish, and are often carried by themselves to great distances. The great river beetle, which lives habitually on the eggs of fishes, climbs sometimes in the evening, on the reeds, high enough for its flight, and then takes wing. One was caught whilst flying, and being put into water, it emitted the eggs by which it was gorged, some, in part digested, and some not at all; these eggs produced fish of various sorts.-Bullet. Univ. 1829, p. 145; Gill's Tech. Rep. 1828, p. 333.

SOME OF THE USES TO WHICH FISH ARE APPLIED. -FISH MADE INTO BREAD AND BISCUIT.

At the city of Escier they dry their fish in the sun, and, by its extreme heat, reduce them to powder, like meal, and knead them into loaves, or mix them into a liquid form like frumenty; and in consequence of the scarcity of grain, the natives make a kind of biscuit of the substance of the larger fish (suppose tunny), in the following manner; first, they chop it up into very small particles, and moisten the preparation with a liquor rendered thick and adhesive by a mixture of flour, which gives to the whole the consistence of paste. This they form into a kind of bread,