[AS.] A vertebrate animal covered with scales that lives almost entirely in water, has no lungsr and breathes through gills. It lays eggs, and, having a heart with only two chambers, its blood is cold or of the temperature of the air. All the seas and rivers abound in fish. The true fishes include the teleostei, or ordinary bony fishes; the Ganoidei, as the sturgeon; the Dipnoi, or air-breathing fish, of which there are a few species ; the Selachians, or sharks and skates. Fishes are usually covered with scales

(q-v.), which overlap each other, and are moistened with a kind of slime. Many of them are of beautiful colors - gold, silver, and copper tints, and attractive shades of blue, green,red, and black. Fishes swim chiefly with the tail, and their fins {q.v.) help them to keep their upright position in the water. They are rich in nitrogenous material, chiefly albumen and fibrin. Some fishes - as salmon, herring, mackerel, and eels - also contain much oily matter, which makes them not so digestible as whiting, sole, etc. Among the fishes most useful as food for man are the cod, salmon, mackerel, pilchard, and herring.

THE GLOBE FISH.