are secluded from observation for the greatest part of their time, the depth of only a few feet of water precluding the possibility of our watching them with that care and perseverance necessary for the ascertaining of facts; while the desire of retirement manifested by these in common with most animals for the carrying on of the most important and interesting offices of their economy and instinct, combined with their timidity, prompts them to dwell in holes and caverns in the banks, or beneath the shelter of stones, or among the dense beds of waving weeds, or in the ooze and mud of the bottom, where the eye of the most patient and experienced observer can but now and then obtain a momentary glance at their forms, but is absolutely interdicted from perceiving what they are doing.
If this be true of our common lacustrine and fluviatile fishes, how much more applicable is it to the thousands which are marine, and especially to those which are pelagic! Who can penetrate into the depths of ocean to trace the arrowy course of the mailed and glittering beings that shoot along like animated beams of light? Who can follow them to their rocky beds and coral caverns? The wandering mariner sees with interested curiosity the Flying-fish leap in flocks from the water, and the eager Bonito rushing after them in swift pursuit; but who can tell what the Flying-fish is doing when not pursued, or how the Bonito is engaged when the prey is not before him? How many pleasing traits of conjugal or parental attachment the waves of the fathomless sea may conceal, we know not: what ingenious devices for self-protection; what structures for the concealment of
