Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

This fish takes its name from its head, not only in our own, but in other languages: we call it chub, according to Skinner, from the old English, cop, a head; the French, teftard; the Italians, capitone.

It does not grow to a large fize; we have known some that weighed above five pounds, but Salvianus speaks of others that were eight or nine pounds in weight. The body is oblong, rather round, and of a pretty equal thickness the greatest part of the way: the scales are large.

The irides filvery; the cheeks of the same colour: the head and back of a deep dusky green; the fides filvery, but in the summer yellow: the belly white: the pectoral fins of a pale yellow: the ventral and anal fins red: the tail a little forked, of a brownish hue, but tinged with blue at the

end.

§35. The BLEAK.

fins pellucid: the scales fall off very eafily: the tail much forked.

The WHITE BAIT.

During the month of July there appear in the Thames, near Blackwall and Greenwich, innumerable multitudes of small fish, which are known to the Londoners by the name of White Bait. They are esteemed very delicious when fried with fine flour, and occafion, during the season, a vast refort of the lower order of epicures to the taverns contiguous to the places they are taken at.

There are various conjectures about this species, but all terminate in a fuppofition that they are the fry of fome fish, but few agree to which kind they owe their origin. Some attribute it to the shad, others to the sprat, the smelt, and the bleak. That they neither belong to the shad, nor the sprat, is evident from the number of branchioste

The taking of these, Aufonius lets us gous rays, which in those are eight, in know, was the sport of children,

ALBURNOS prædam puerilibus hamis.

They are very common in many of our rivers, and keep together in large shoals. These fish feem at certain seasons to be in great agonies; they tumble about near the furface of the water, and are incapable of swimming far from the place, but in about two hours recover, and disappear. Fish thus affected the Thames fishermen call mad bleaks. They seem to be troubled with a species of gordius or hair-worm, of the same kind with those which Ariftotle says that the ballerus and tillo are infested with, which torments them so that they rise to the furface of the water and then die.

Artificial pearls are made with the scales of this fish, and we think of the dace. They are beat into a fine powder, then diluted with water, and introduced into a thin glass bubble, which is afterwards filled with wax. The French were the inventors of this art. Doctor Lifter + tells us, that when he was at Paris, a certain artist used in one winter thirty hampers full of fish in this manufacture.

The bleak seldom exceeds five or fix inches in length: their body is slender, greatly compressed sideways, not unlike that of the sprat.

The eyes are large: the irides of a pale yellow: the under jaw the longest: the lateral line crooked: the gills filvery: the back green: the fides and belly filvery: the

Hist. an. lib. viii. c. 20. + Journey to Paris, 142.

this only three. That they are not the young of smelts is as clear, because they want the pinna adipofa, or rayless fin; and that they are not the offspring of the bleak is extremely probable, fince we never heard of the white bait being found in any other river, notwithstanding the bleak is very common in several of the Britishr streams: but as the white bait bears a greater similarity to this fish than to any other we have mentioned, we give it a place here as an appendage to the bleak, rather than form a distinct article of a fish which it is impossible to class with certainty.

It is evident that it is of the carp or cyprinus genus: it has only three branchiostegous rays, and only one dorfal fin; and in respect to the form of the body, is compressed like that of the bleak.

Its usual length is two inches: the under jaw is the longest: the irides filvery, the pupil black: the dorsal fin is placed nearer to the head than to the tail, and confifts of about fourteen rays: the fide line is ftrait: the tail forked, the tips black.

The head, fides, and belly, are filvery; the back tinged with green.

[blocks in formation]

The lateral line is of a golden colour: the back flat, and of a deep olive: the fides and belly vary greatly in different fish; in a few are of a rich crimson, in others bluish, in others white. The tail is forked, and marked near the base with a dusky spot.

§37. The GOLD FISH.

These fish are now quite naturalized in this country, and breed as freely in the open waters as the common caгр.

They were first introduced into England about the year 1691, but were not generally known till 1728, when a great number were brought over, and presented first to Sir Mathew Dekker, and by him circulated round the neighbourhood of London, from whence they have been distributed to moft parts of the country.

In China the most beautiful kinds are taken in a small lake in the province of Che-Kyang. Every person of fashion keeps them for amusement, either in porcelaine vessels, or in the small basons that decorate the courts of the Chinese houses. The beauty of their colours, and their lively motions, give great entertainment, especially to the ladies, whose pleasures, by

reason of the cruel policy of that country, are extremely limited.

In form of the body they bear a great resemblance to a carp. They have been known in this island to arrive at the length of eight inches; in their native place they are faid * to grow to the fize of our largest, herring.

The noftrils are tubular, and form fort of appendages above the nose: the dorfal fin and the tail vary greatly in shape: the tail is naturally bifid, but in many is trifid, and in fome even quadrifid: the anal fins are the strongest characters of this species, being placed not behind one another like those of other fish, but opposite each other like the ventral fins.

The colours vary greatly; some are marked with a fine blue, with brown, with bright filver; but the general predominant colour is gold, of a most amazing splendor; but their colours and form need not be dwelt on, fince those who want oppor. tunity of feeing the living fish, may survey them expressed in the most animated manner, in the works of our ingenious and honest friend Mr. George Edwards.

*Du Halde, 316.

Pennant.

[ocr errors]

:

[ocr errors]

:

New CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE of Remarkable Events, Discoveries, and Inventions:

:

Also, the Era, the Country, and Writings of Learned Men.

The whole comprehending in one View, the Analysis or Outlines of General History from the Creation to the present Time.

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

Before Chrift.

4004

4003

T

HE creation of the world, and Adam and Eve.
The birth of Cain, the first who was born of a woman,

3017 Enoch, for his piety, is translated into Heaven.
2348 The old world is destroyed by a deluge which continued 377 days.
2247 The tower of Babel is built about this time by Noah's posterity, upon which God
miraculously confounds their language, and thus disperses them into different

nations.

About the fame time Noah is, with great probability, supposed to have parted from his rebellious offspring, and to have led a colony of fome of the more tractable into the East, and there either he or one of his successors to have founded the ancient Chinese monarchy.

3S4

2234 The

[ocr errors]

2234 The celeftial observations are begun at Babylon, the city which first gave birth to

learning and the sciences.

2188 Misraim, the son of Ham, founds the kingdom of Egypt, which lafted 1663 years,

down to the conquest of Cambyfes, in 525 before Chrift.

2059 Ninus, the son of Belus, founds the kingdom of Affyria, which lasted above 1000 years, and out of its ruins were formed the Affyrians of Babylon, those of Nineveh, and the kingdom of the Medes.

1921 The covenant of God made with Abram, when he leaves Haran to go into Canaan,

which begins the 430 years of fojourning.

1897 The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed for their wickedness, by fire

from Heaven.

1856 The kingdom of Argos, in Greece, begins under Inachus. 1822 Memnon, the Egyptian, invents the letters,

1715 Prometheus first struck fire from flints.

1635 Joseph dies in Egypt, which concludes the book of Genesis, containing a period of

2369 years.

1574 Aaron born in Egypt: 1490, appointed by God first high-priest of the Ifraelites. 1571 Mofes, brother to Aaron, born in Egypt, and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, who

educates him in all the learning of the Egyptians.

1556 Cecrops brings a colony of Saites from Egypt into Attica, and begins the kingdom of Athens, in Greece. 1546 Scamander comes from Crete into Phrygia, and begins the kingdom of Troy. 1493 Cadmus carried the Phœnician letters into Greece, and built the citadel of Thebes. 1491 Mofes performs a number of miracles in Egypt, and departs from that kingdom, together with 600,000 Ifraelites, besides children; which completed the 430 years of fojourning. They miraculoufly pass through the Red Sea, and come to the defert of Sinai, where Mofes receives from God, and delivers to the people, the Ten Commandments, and the other laws, and sets up the tabernacle, and in it the ark of the covenant.

1485 The first ship that appeared in Greece was brought from Egypt by Danaus, who arrived at Rhodes, and brought with him his fifty daughters.

1453 The firft Olympic games celebrated at Olympia, in Greece.

1452 The Pentateuch, or five first books of Mofes, are written in the land of Moab,

where he died the year following, aged 110.

1451 The Ifraelites, after sojourning in the wilderness forty years, are led under Joshua into the land of Canaan, where they fix themselves, after having fubdued the natives; and the period of the fabbatical year commences.

1406 Iron is found in Greece from the accidental burning of the woods.

1198 The rape of Helen by Paris, which, in 1193, gave rise to the Trojan war, and fiege of Troy by the Greeks, which continued ten years, when that city was taken and burnt.

1048 David is sole king of Ifrael.

1004 The Temple is folemnly dedicated by Solomon.

896 Elijah, the prophet, is tranflated to Heaven.

894 Money first made of gold and silver at Argos.

869 The city of Carthage, in Africa, founded by queen Dido.

814 The kingdom of Macedon begins.

753 Æra of the building of Rome in Italy by Romulus, first king of the Romans. 720 Samaria taken, after three years siege, and the kingdom of Ifrael finished, by Sal

manasar, king of Affyria, who carries the ten tribes into captivity.

The first eclipse of the moon on record.

658 Byzantium (now Conftantinople) built by a colony of Athenians.

604 By order of Necho, king of Egypt, some Phoenicians failed from the Red Sea

round Africa, and returned by the Mediterranean.

600 Thales, of Miletus, travels into Egypt, consults the priests of Memphis, acquires the knowledge of geometry, astronomy, and philosophy; returns to Greece, calculates eclipses, gives general notions of the universe, and maintains that one Supreme Intelligence regulates all its motions.

600 Maps,

600 Maps, globes, and the signs of the Zodiac, invented by Anaximander, the scholar

of Thales.

597 Jehoiakin, king of Judah, is carried away captive, by Nebuchadnezzar, to Ba

bylon.

587 The city of Jerufalem taken, after a fiege of 18 months.

562 The first comedy at Athens acted upon a moveable scaffold.

559 Cyrus the first king of Perfia.

538 The kingdom of Babylon finished; that city being taken by Cyrus, who, in 536,

issues an edict for the return of the Jews.

534 The first tragedy was acted at Athens, on a waggon, by Thespis.

526 Learning is greatly encouraged at Athens, and a public library first founded.

515 The fecond Temple at Jerufalem is finished under Darius.

509 Tarquin, the seventh and last king of the Romans, is expelled, and Rome is go. verned by two confuls, and other republican magistrates, till the battle of Pharfalia, being a space of 461 years.

504 Sardis taken and burnt by the Athenians, which gave occasion to the Persian inva

fion of Greece.

486 Æschylus, the Greek poet, first gains the prize of tragedy.

481 Xerxes the Great, king of Perfia, begins his expedition against Greece.

458 Ezra is fent from Babylon to Jerufalem, with the captive Jews, and the vessels of gold and filver, &c. being seventy weeks of years, or 490 years before the crucifixion of our Saviour.

454 The Romans send to Athens for Solon's laws.

451 The Decemvirs created at Rome, and the laws of the twelve tables compiled and

ratified.

430 The hiftory of the Old Testament finishes about this time.

Malachi, the last of the prophets.

400 Socrates, the founder of moral philofophy among the Greeks, believes the immortality of the foul, and a state of rewards and punishments, for which, and other fublime doctrines, he is put to death by the Athenians, who soon after repent, and erect to his memory a statue of brass.

331 Alexander the Great, king of Macedon, conquers Darius king of Persia, and other nations of Afia. 323, Dies at Babylon, and his empire is divided by his generals into four kingdoms.

285 Dionyfius, of Alexandria, began his astronomical æra on Monday, June 26, being the first who found the exact folar year to confist of 365 days, 5 hours, and 49

minutes.

284 Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, employs seventy-two interpreters to tranflate the Old Testament into the Greek language, which is called the Septuagint.

269 The first coining of filver at Rome.

264 The first Punic war begins, and continues 23 years. The chronology of the Arun

delian marbles compofed.

260 The Romans first concern themselves in naval affairs, and defeat the Carthaginians at fea.

237 Hamilcar, the Carthaginian, causes his fon Hannibal, at nine years old, to swear

eternal enmity to the Romans.

218 The second Punic war begins, and continues 17 years. Hannibal passes the Alps, and defeats the Romans in several battles; but, being amused by his women, does not improve his victories by the storming of Rome.

190 The first Roman army enters Asia, and from the spoils of Antiochus brings the

Afiatic luxury first to Rome.

168 Perfeus defeated by the Romans, which ends the Macedonian kingdom.

167 The first library erected at Rome, of books brought from Macedonia. 163 The government of Judea under the Maccabees begins, and continues 126 years. 146 Carthage, the rival to Rome, is razed to the ground by the Romans.

135 The history of the Apocrypha ends.

52 Julius Cæfar makes his first expedition into Britain.

i

47 The battle of Pharfalia between Cæfar and Pompey, in which the latter is de

feated.

The Alexandrian library, confisting of 400,000 valuable books, burnt by accident. 45 The war of Africa, in which Cato kills himself.

The folar year introduced by Cæfar.

44 Cæfar, the greatest of the Roman conquerors, after having fought fifty pitched battles, and flain 1,192,000 men, and overturned the liberties of his country, is killed in the fenate-house.

35 The battle of Actium fought, in which Mark Antony and Cleopatra are totally defeated by Octavius, nephew to Julius Cæfar.

30 Alexandria, in Egypt, is taken by Octavius, upon which Antony and Cleopatra put themselves to death, and Egypt is reduced to a Roman province.

27 Octavius, by a decree of the fenate, obtains the title of Augustus Cæfar, and an abfolute exemption from the laws, and is properly the first Roman emperor.

8 Rome at this time is fifty miles in circumference, and contains 463,000 men fit to

A. C.

12

27

33

bear arms.

The temple of Janus is shut by Augustus, as an emblem of universal peace, and
JESUS CHRIST is born on Monday, December 25.

disputes with the doctors in the Temple;

is baptized in the Wilderness by John;

-- is crucified on Friday, April 3, at 3 o'clock P. M.

His Refurrection on Sunday, April 5: his Afcenfion, Thursday, May 14

36 St. Paul converted.

39 St. Matthew writes his Gospel.

Pontius Pilate kills himself.

40 The name of Christians first given at Antioch to the followers of Chrift.

43 Claudius Cæfar's expedition into Britain.

44 St. Mark writes his Gospel.

49 London is founded by the Romans; 368, surrounded by ditto with a wall, some

parts of which are still obfervable.

51 Caractacus, the British king, is carried in chains to Rome.

52 The council of the Apostles at Jerufalem.

55 St. Luke writes his Gospel.

59 The emperor Nero puts his mother and brothers to death.

perfecutes the Druids in Britain.

61 Boadicea, the British queen, defeats the Romans; but is conquered soon after by

Suetonius, governor of Britain.

62 St. Paul is fent in bonds to Rome-writes his Epistles between 51 and 66.

63 The Acts of the Apostles written.

Chriftianity is supposed to be introduced into Britain by St. Paul, or some of his difciples, about this time.

64 Rome set on fire, and burned for fix days; upon which began (under Nero) the

first perfecution against the Christians.

67 St. Peter and St. Paul put to death.

To Whilft the factious Jews are destroying one another with mutual fury, Titus, the Roman general, takes Jerusalem, which is razed to the ground, and the plough made to pass over it.

83 The philosophers expelled Rome by Domitian.

85 Julius Agricola, governor of South Britain, to protect the civilized Britons from the incurfions of the Caledonians, builds a line of forts between the rivers Forth and Clyde; defeats the Caledonians under Galgacus on the Grampian hills; and first fails round Britain, which he discovers to be an island.

96 St. John the Evangelift wrote his Revelation-his Gospel in 97.

121 The Caledonians reconquer from the Romans all the fouthern parts of Scotland; upon which the emperor Adrian builds a wall between Newcastle and Carlifle; but this also proving ineffectual, Pollius Urbicus, the Roman general, about the year 144, repairs Agricola's forts, which he joins by a wall four yards thick.

135 The second Jewish war ends, when they were all banished Judæa.

139 Justin

« ZurückWeiter »