The prevailing attributes and domestic economy of fishes may be
described as exactly the reverse of those of birds. These gay and airy
creatures possess the power of surveying distinctly, at a glance, an
immeasurable extent of horizon; their acute perception of sound
appreciates all intonations, and their glad voices are exquisitely
skilled in their production. Though their bills are hard, and their
bodies closely covered by down and feathers, they are by no means
deficient in the sense of touch. They enjoy all the delights of conjugal
and parental affection, and perform their incumbent duties with
devotedness and courage. They cherish and defend their offspring, and
will sometimes even die in their defence; and of all the wonderful
labors of instinctive art, none is so beautiful as the formation of
their mossy dwellings. With what deep and continuous affection does the
female brood over her cherished treasures!—how unwearied is the gallant
male in his tender assiduities, and with what melodious love does he
outpour that rich and varied song by which he seeks to soothe her
sedentary task!
“Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods!”
But close at hand, on that umbrageous bough, sits the fond partner of
his joys and sorrows, so that it is in no spirit of selfish solitary
musing that he ever murmurs, by woodland stream and shadow-haunted
brook, “a music sweeter than their own.” The slender winged and glossy
plumaged swallow, which skims the verdure of the new-mown meadow, or
dimples the surface of the breezeless lake—the ponderous but
giant-pinioned eagle, winging his way from distant isles, o’er waters
glittering with redundant life—the proud, far-sighted falcon, which,
launching from some hoar cliff or lightning-scathed peak,
“Doth dally with the wind, and scorn the sun,”—
the wild and fearful lapwing, with graceful crest and dark dilated eye,
are each and all enslaved for many a long-enduring season by this love
of offspring, and toil in its support from dewy morning until latest
eve.
But it is far otherwise with our voiceless dwellers in the deep, who
exhibit but few attachments, are conversant with no interchanging
language, and cherish no warm affections. Constructing no dwellings,
they merely shelter themselves from danger among the cavernous rocks of
the ocean, in the silent depths of lakes, or beneath the murky shade of
the overhanging banks of rivers; and the cravings of hunger alone seem
to exercise a frequent or influential action over their monotonous
movements. We must not, however, conceive that the life of fishes is not
one of enjoyment, for we know that the Great Creator “careth for all his
creatures;” and it ought perhaps rather to be said that we cannot
appreciate the nature of their feelings, than that they are in any way
fore-doomed to a negation of pleasure. Assuredly, however, the hand of
nature has been most prodigal in bestowing on their external aspect
every variety of adornment. Their special forms are infinite, their
proportions often most elegant, their colors lively and diversified—and
nothing seems wanting, either in their shape or structure, to excite the
unfeigned admiration of mankind. Indeed, it almost appears as if this
prodigality of beauty was intended solely for such an end. The
brightness of metallic splendor, the sparkling brilliancy of precious
gems, the milder effulgence of the hues of flowers, all combine to
signalize fishes as among the most beautiful objects of creation. When
newly withdrawn from their native element, or still gliding submerged
amid its liquid coolness, their colors, fixed or iridescent, are seen
mingling in spots, or bands, or broader flashes—always elegant and
symmetrical, sometimes richly contrasted, sometimes gradually softened
into each other, and in all cases harmonizing with a chaste fulness of
effect which Titian and Rubens might envy, but could never equal. For
what reason, then, it has been asked, has all this adornment been
bestowed on creatures which can scarcely perceive each other amid the
dim perpetual twilight of the deep? Shakspeare has already said that
there are “more things in _heaven_ and _earth_ than are dreamt of in our
philosophy;” and we fear it is no answer to the foregoing question to
add, that the same observation applies with even greater truth to the
“_waters beneath the earth_.”