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The term Ichthyology, I find is derived from two Greek words, Ichthus, a Fish, and Logos, a discourse or science, and taken together mean the "Science of Fishes." Treating of their classification, their different kinds or varieties, their growth, age, habits, manner of life, etc., etc., making it a very extensive and interesting study. Exhibiting a far greater number and variety of animal life than are to be found on land. Embracing by far from the most stupendous down to the most minute of the living, wonderful works of God; from the gigantic whale, sometimes 120 feet long, a blow from whose tail is sufficient to crush the mighty ship, and from whose fat as many as 2500 barrels of oil have been extracted, down to the infinitesimal Infusoria, a Fish so small, that Quackett, the great master of microscopy, found 225,000 in a single drop of water; so small that two millions of their bodies did not weigh over a thousandth part of a gain.
Think of a population twice as great as that of Virginia, in a teaspoonful of your supposed pure water; of double the population of the whole United States, taken at one drink of a thirsty man or woman, and yet such things, scientists tell us, are facts.
What a wonderful science is Ichthyology, which comprises such vast magnitude of God's creation for the home of the Fishes. Holding vastly more inhabitants than earth and air combined.
Interesting however as the science may be considered in a scientific light, very few have the opportunity to investigate it and its wonderful revealations, and still fewer have any inclination. Where one man may not care a straw about the Fish's manner of life, five thousand will have a lively interest in the manner of his death, and how being dead he may minister to the life and enjoyment of the student. This is the practical outcome of the subject.
