The Cbondropterygii, or sharks, rays, and skates, are found along the whole seaboard following at I seasons the shoals of small fi.sh or sardines. They are eaten; their fins are largely exported to China, and oil is extracted from their livers.
Rays and skates exist in enormous numbers in the Indian Seas, where they attain to a great size. They are supposed to be gregarious. ' Saw-fishes are taken, and are eaten.
The little Ambassis and closely allied Apogon are valuable from their numbers.
The Pristopotnas attain to upwards of two feet. Some species are very numerous, and are eaten fresh and salted.
Species of Synagris are extensively eaten ; and species of Equula and Gerres furnish an immense amount of food, both fresh and salted, but, like the beautiful Lethritim and the ilat-formed Teu thididm, they are little esteemed.
The Gobies of the sea are not large, but are very abundant.
The spineless Anacanthini, or flat fishes, are not esteemed as food.
The mullets (Mugilidw) in the Indian Seas are about 24 species, frequenting the estuaries and entering the tidal rivers, and are esteemed as food, except in Kanara, where , their snake-like beads prevent the people using them. They are exten sively sun-dried and salted, and their salted roes are considered great delicacies.
The pretty little sand-smelts (Atherina) are sun-dried and exported. They have a burnished silvery band, and are taken in enormous numbers.
The Indian whiting (Sillago acuta) arrives on the Indian coasts in large numbers, and are esteemed as a light and wholesome food.
The half-beak (llenairamphus) is very common, especially in the cold season, and is largely eaten.
The abundant herring family furnish largely food to man and to predaceous fishes. The oil sardine comes in vast numbers, but irregularly; sometimes after several seasons • and the same maybe said of the anchovies and 'the many others of the herring family.
Maury remarks that the places which are most favoured with good fish markets are the shores of North America, the E. coast of China, with the W. coasts of Europe and South America aud all of these are washed by cold waters, and their markets abound with the most excellent fish. The fisheries
of Newfoundland and New England, over which nations have wrangled for centuries, are in the cold water from Davis' Strait. The fisheries of Japan and Eastern China, which almost, if not quite, rival these, are situated also in the cold water. Neither India nor the east coasts of Africa and south of America, where the vrarm waters are, have been famed for their fish, though 6000 to 8000 fishing vessels of all sizes, „American, British, Dutch, and French, are engaged in the New England and Newfoundland fisheries. The sperm whale is eagerly pursued in the Indian and Southern Ocean, and in the Pacific. An immense number of log-books have been discussed at the National Observatory, with the view of detecting the parts of the ocean on which whales are to be found at the different seasons of the year. Charts showing the results have been published, and they form a part of the series of Maury's Wind and Current Charts. Of all the industrial pursuits of the sea, the whale fishery is the most valuable. The sperm wbale is a warm-water mammal. The right whale delights in cold water. The fishery of the sperm whale is largely followed in tho Pacific, and in all the South Sea ocean between Africa and America, but wholly by fishers from Europo and America.
The pearl fisheries alone, in tho Persian Gulf, employ a great collection of ships; and tho pearl fisheries of China and Ceylon aro also valuable.
Ceylon about 10,000 canoes and boats are similarly employed. In tho cast and south of Asia, tho people engaged in fishing by stake-nets, bag-nets, and hooks, in boats and in ships, are very nutnerou.s wad much of tho food of their nations ought t'o be obtained from the seas and rivers; but the salt monopoly of British India places obstacles in the traflio of salted fish, and the wholesale destruction of fish in their migration to their breeding strearnlets, with tho minute size of the meshes of the nets used at all season.s, treble tho selling prices of fish in the Indian markets. The usual price, there, of fish, is about the same as that of mutton.