2. “Let the waters bring forth moving
creatures after their kind.” God caused to be born the
firstlings of each species to serve as seeds for nature. Their
multitudinous numbers are kept up in subsequent succession, when it is
necessary for them to grow and multiply. Of another kind is the
species of testacea, as muscles, scallops, sea snails, conches, and the
infinite variety of oysters. Another kind is that of the
crustacea, as crabs and lobsters; another of fish without shells, with
soft and tender flesh, like polypi and cuttle fish. And amidst
these last what an innumerable variety! There are weevers,
lampreys and eels, produced in the mud of rivers and ponds, which more
resemble venomous reptiles than fish in their nature. Of another
kind is the species of the ovipara; of another, that of the
vivipara. Among the latter are sword-fish, cod, in one word, all
cartilaginous fish, and even the greater part of the cetacea, as
dolphins, seals, which, it is said, if they see their little ones,
still quite young,
frightened, take them back into their belly to protect
them. Narrated by
Ælian (Anim i. 16) of the “glaucus,” a fish
apparently unknown.