THE HOUSEKEEPER'S GUIDE TO THE FISH MARKET, &c. &c. THE author of this little book hopes it is supererogation to suggest an apology for its production, or to argue the importance of his subject. Every civilized community should, he thinks, be aware of the natural resources which surround it,-offering to the mercantile, the trading, the industrious, and even the wealthier classes much of the means of their support. He here brings under the notice of the Merchant, the character, and circumstances of our fisheries,-produces to the Fishmonger, statements affecting his immediate interests, -offers to the Man of Science, certain facts, and views calculated to promote the study of fishes,-bears to the Community at large such 'practical information as intimately concerns Domestic Economy,-and approaches the Fisherman of all estates and denominations with a few items referring to his avocations. If further pleas for the production of this work are required of him, besides those above named, he points to the importance of gathering together the scattered items of the statistical conditions of this community, to the undeniable need which exists for local records respecting Icthyology, whereby science may be advanced, to the demand the interests of public health make for an index which shall guide the purchase of a food variable in quality from excellence to noxiousness, in nearly all species, according to "season," to the probably neglected sources of profit and economical arrangement, and lastly to the glaring necessity the whole condition of the Fisheries exhibits, for the appointment of legal restraints on certain practices, and of suited officers to watch the application and results of these. Mr. Couch's "Cornish Fauna" and Mr. Yarrell's "British Fishes" have furnished the means of introducing many species into the General List, and many particular facts, elsewhere, which the Author has had no knowledge of save through those publications; Mr. Burt's "Review of the Commerce of Plymouth" (1816) has furnished him with certain data in the Statistical department; excepting these resources, the work is a compilation from memoranda set down in a Diary, as facts presented themselves to his notice. The tribe of fishes, greatly secluded as they are from human view, are in a very different position as respects a recorded history of their numbers, habits, characters, &c. from other classes of creatures. No instrument has yet been devised by which our vision can penetrate the recesses of their element, and, the means we possess for withdrawing them from their abodes are particularly scanty. Observers of Nature situated like myself, under the control of restraining circumstances, cannot possibly possess themselves of very extensive information regarding the Icthyology of a neighbourhood like this, presenting at once a marine and a fluviatile department: a daily pursuit of the subject by the most active measures, would alone, after the lapse of years, enable a Naturalist to acquire a fund of facts fit to be boasted of. A great number of circumstances in the history of the tribe conspire, also, to restrict our knowledge of it, the whole class being replete with irregularity of conduct. The construction of a calendar for the months will not apply |