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it were well to think beforehand of the form of government to be given to Italy, whether monarchical or republican, whether single or federal: how the public voice is to be expressed, when the great masses of the people have no political information, &c. But before he contributes to the discussion of these important topics, he requires two conditions: first, that the journal shall not place itself in hostility towards the French government, whose hospitality and protection the writers enjoy; as it does not become foreigners to interfere in the internal dissensions of a country which affords them an asylum. The natives have rights which they may use or abuse, foreigners enjoy only a favour, on condition that they should conform to the order established; no one desires their aid, they are only asked to keep themselves peaceful. This caveat was called for by some violent articles in the first number, against Louis-Philippe's government, and against MM. Guizot, Dupin, Cousin, &c.; secondly, that La Giovine Italia shall not shock the religious feelings of nations. "You desire a religion, and yet you reject all those that exist. You wish to impress on the people the want of a faith; it is like telling a man that he is hungry, instead of supplying him with food to satisfy his hunger." And he continues to say, that being sincerely attached to the doctrines of the reformed church, as professed at Geneva, he sees in the Christian doctrines all that reason can wish or discover for the moral improvement and welfare of man. And he has no hopes of happiness for Italy, until its religion be likewise purified. "The time for this, however, is not yet come, and till then, I should not like to see religious men shocked in their faith, in their dearest hopes."-Giovine Italia, vol. ii. pp. 207-213. We respect M. Sismondi for the expression of these sentiments, and were all republicans—were indeed many of those who profess to be republicans-like him, we ourselves might perhaps become converts to republicanism. We do not object so much to forms as to the manner of carrying them into execution.

ART. VI.-1. Histoire Naturelle des Poissons, par M. Le Baron Cuvier et par M. Valenciennes, Professeur de Zoologie au Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. 4to et 8vo. Tom. I.-IX. Paris, 1828-33.

2. Selecta Genera et Species Piscium quos in Itinere per Brasiliam annis MDCCCXVII.-MDCCCXx. jussu et auspiciis Maximiliani Josephi I. Bavaria Reg. Aug. peracto collegit et pingendos curavit Dr. J. B. de Spix; digessit, descripsit et observationibus Anatomicis illustravit Dr. L. Agassiz; præfatus est et edidit Dr. F. C. Ph. de Martius. Fol. Tom. II. Monachii, 1829-30.

3. Prodromus Ichthyologia Scandinavica; auctore S. Nilsson. 8vo. Lundæ, 1832.

4. Commentatio de Esoce Lucio neurologice descripto et cum reliquis Vertebratis Animalibus comparato: in certamine literario civium Academiarum Belgicarum præmio ornata; auctore Carolo Marino Giltay. 4to. Lugduni Batavorum, 1832, 5. Natural History of the Fishes of Massachusetts, by Jerome V. C. Smith, M.D. Boston, 1833.

ALL knowledge originates either more or less directly in the desire to better our own condition and add to our own conveniences. The metaphysician searches into the hidden mysteries of the heart, and traces out the secret operations of the mind, that from these he may be able to deduce the principles of an enlightened morality, and evince that virtue is man's truest interest, by showing that it leads most directly to a happy life. The physician investigates the nature of our corporeal frame, examines its remotest structure, observes its minutest operations, and learns to know how fearfully and wonderfully we are made, that, when disease has interfered with and disarranged the machine, he may be able to remove the offending cause, once more to set the functions in the train for action, and restore to all the parts that perfect harmony on which our health, and with it our every comfort, depends. The mechanical philosopher studies the laws of inert matter, and labours to bring its several properties—whether existing in the mighty mass or the almost inappreciable particle, in the ponderous axle or the scarcely gravitating vapour-into subservience to his management and direction, that he may thus alleviate human toil, and add to the extent of human power. The astronomer, too, reads the face of the heavens, and prolongs his midnight watch, that, taught by his experience and guided by his observations, the sailor may in safety maintain our intercourse with foreign climes, and from their stores bring fresh additions to

our comforts or our luxuries:-neither is the natural historian an exception to the general rule, nor has his science alone had a different origin from that already assigned-our necessities and our desires. The animals which supplied barbarian tribes with foods and afforded them objects of chase-whether in the air, on the earth, or sunk in the briny wave-were soon distinguished and recognised by marks easy and familiar; this distinction of one species from another, rude and empirical though it may have been, was yet the first and most necessary step in zoological science, and man commenced to be a naturalist when he shot his arrow at the edible fowl, and suffered the carrion bird to wing past its way unheeded, or drew his nets to shore and then sorted his fish, reserving for his own use such as experience had taught him were the best, and leaving the remainder a spoil, perhaps, for his canine attendant-perhaps a prey for the "basking cormorant."

Such was, in all probability, the humble commencement of ichthyological science, which from such slender beginnings has had so mighty an increase, and to which such proud monuments are now erected as the splendid works of Cuvier and Valen ciennes-Spix, Martius and Agassiz:-on these chiefly we pro pose to found our present article.

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Ichthyophagous nations are generally slow to advance in civili zation. The nature of their food-requiring no cultivation calling only for occasional exertion, placing them, by a successful take, in sudden opulence, or leaving them, in case of unpropitious skies, constantly liable to famine-is little favourable to the esta blishment of social intercourse, legal restrictions, or settled habits of industry. Examples are numerous even in the present day; the Esquimaux, the Greenlanders, the Kamtchatkadales, the inhabit ants of the Maldive rocks, of several islands in the South Pacific, and of some of the Australian shores, are familiarly known to subsist in a great measure or altogether upon fish, and, though placed under such far different circumstances of climate and locality, to be equally sunk in barbarity and ignorance." It would appear as though this evident tendency had not escaped the notice of the Egyptian hierarchy, and that thence they used so much exertion to prohibit, or rather limit their people in the use of this kind of sustenance. They therefore themselves strictly abstained from it, and went so far as to declare some fish sacred; many different species are depicted on their monuments which have come down to our days, and some have even been preserved as mummies. Perhaps we may here trace a second step in the progress of our science. For the purpose of delineating them, some attention must have been paid to their external appearance, the number and disposition of their fins, the character of the rays

in each, and the nature of their scaly covering, while in preparing them for preservation some notice would naturally be taken of their internal structure and organisation. But the popular acquaintance with them was much more eagerly cultivated. The extensive river which flowed through the land presented too rich a supply of delicious food to be altogether relinquished; the people compounded between their religion and their taste-they worshipped the fish their priests had pointed out as sacred, and they ate the rest.

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The Jews, with an indifferent sea-coast, with but one moderate river, and a couple of freshwater lakes, had little temptation to this kind of nutriment. Their Dead Sea was too strongly impregnated with saline and bituminous particles to produce many inhabitants, and the fish they did require were chiefly supplied them by Phoenician merchants." There dwelt men of Tyre also therein, which brought fish and all manner of ware, and sold on the Sabbath unto the children of Judah and in Jerusalem."* Yet a certain degree of acquaintance with them is evinced by the Mosaic regulations respecting their use, and the inhibition against certain kinds is at least a singular coincidence with the Egyptian enactment to which we have alluded, while the circumstance of its being founded on the characters of the fins and scales may go in support of the inference we have already drawn, as to the probable attention which these parts had received.

But Greece, with her thousand bays and creeks and inlets—— Greece, with her seagirt isles and naval population-how could she be otherwise than piscatorial? Along all her shores fish were taken and saved; they became the source of a most lucrative commerce; establishments, originally erected for the purpose of preserving and salting them, grew by degrees into flourishing cities; Synope and Byzantium, amongst others, claim this origin; and the latter, from the profusion which it always supplied and the consequent greatness of its traffic, obtained the appellation of the Golden Horn-an appellation which to the present day it retains. Of course the subjects of so much profitable speculation received a proportionate share of attention; works were written, either on the fish themselves, or on the mode of taking them, on their use as articles of food, and on the precautions thereby required; of these, none have come down to our days, we know of them only by the references and quotations made by other writers, such as Athenæus; but that the knowledge of species was both general and precise is indisputably proved by the

*Nehemiah, xiii. 16.

fact, that more than 400 distinct names for different kinds of fish are known to exist in the Grecian tongue :

"Cette abondance des mots," observes Buffon, "cette richesse d'expressions nettes et précises ne supposent-elles pas la même abondance d'idées et de connaissances ?-Ne voit-on pas que ces gens, qui avoient nommé beaucoup plus de choses que nous, en connoissaient par conséquent beaucoup plus?"

Of all these riches Aristotle was, we believe, the first to make a really scientific use, as he certainly is the first whose works on the subject have come down to us. The details which he gives respecting the structure of fish are as remarkable for truth and accuracy as the other labours of this wonderful man, while his acquaintance with their habits reached to such a degree of minuteness, that some of his observations remain to the present day alike unconfirmed and unrefuted, while others, which had long been ridiculed as paradoxical* or absurd, have received the fullest proof from the latest researches of continental zoologists.

"As for the species," says Cuvier, "Aristotle knew and named a hundred and seventeen; and with respect to their modes of living, their migrations, their attachments and their hatreds, the stratagems which they employ, their loves, their periods of milting, of laying, and their fecundity, the modes of taking them, and the season at which their flesh is best, he enters into details which it is difficult at this day either to contradict or confirm, so far are the moderns from having observed fishes with the same care as this great naturalist appears to have done, either by himself or through his correspondents. To be capable of forming an opinion on this subject, one should live many years in the isles of the Archipelago, and make his dwelling in the tents of the fishers."

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Of course Aristotle did not personally engage in the greater number of these researches; "many thousand men," says Pliny, were placed at his disposal by Alexander, to be employed in fishing, hunting, and making observations and experiments of every description ;" but his was the master-spirit that directed and digested all-from him emanated every suggestion, and to him was reported every fact; these he received, recorded and compared; passed through his great mind, they assumed order and importance-from individual facts they grew into general laws; and if the human mind was to have lain in thraldom for some hundreds of years, we know not that it could have been submitted to a more comprehensive or a mightier genius.

The school which he had established continued for some time

*On a même constaté dans ces derniers temps une de ses assertions les plus paradoxales; celle que le channa se féconde lui-même, et que tous les individus de l'espèce produisent des œufs."-Cuv. et Valenc. i. 17.

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