each of these eggs, becoming a full-grown fish, should in its turn, deposit its millions yearly, it may easily be calculated that, in no very long course of time, the waters of the sea would be absolutely filled and choked up with fish. What other consequence could follow, than that they must die the painful death of starvation; besides, perhaps, deluging the land with the out-crowded waters. But by the provision that one species constitute the food of another, these calamities are presented; and each race enjoying its little time of existence, then gives way to a succeeding one, and so a perpetual change goes on, new beings continually coming into life, and receiving their share of the pleasures of existence and the bounties of the Creator—besides, also, performing the service of affording sustenance to man.[1]
Thus, then, the necessity for the existence of some carnivorous animals, that is to say, of such as feed not upon vegetable but upon animal matter, is plain. But it is to be asked, does the mere quality of carnivorousness necessarily imply an evil, cruel, or malicious disposition in the animal? It certainly does not: and this is a very important distinction: all or most fierce and cruel animals are indeed carnivorous, but all carnivorous animals are not therefore fierce. The whale, for instance, as is well known, is a very gentle and
- ↑ See Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise, chap. xiii—Pye Smith's Geology amd Scripture, Supplementary Note, A.
times greater in bulk than the whole earth;—that a single codfish will produce at a birth, if they [the eggs] escape depredation, a number equal to that of the inhabitants of England. The flounder is said to produce above a million at a time; and a mackerel not less than 500,000."—Book of Nature Laid Open, by the Rev. W. Button, A.M.
