Fish

The fish hooks are chopped with a stone out of a particular shell, and afterwards rubbed until they become smooth. They are very much curved, and not barbed. Considering the quickness with which they are finished, the excellence of the work, if it be inspected, is admirable.

— Watkin Tench (1758? – 1833), A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, first published in 1793, 191.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in
— Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862), Walden, 1854.

There was a young fellow named Fisher,
Who was fishing for fish in a fissure;
            Then a cod with a grin
            Pulled the fisherman in …
Now they’re fishing the fissure for Fisher.
— Anon.

In the turbulent turgid St Lawrence,
Fell a luscious young damsel named Florence,
            Where poor famished fish
            Made this beautiful dish
An object of utter abhorrence.
— anon in W. S. Baring-Gould, The Lure of the Limerick, 172.

You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced,
Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea,
Gulping salt-water everlastingly,
Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced.
— (James Henry) Leigh Hunt (1784 – 1859), To a fish.

I did not perceive that they did worship any thing. These poor Creatures have a sort of Weapon to defend their Ware, or fight with their Enemies, if they have any that will interfere with their poor Fishery. They did at first endeavour with their Weapons to frighten us … Some of them had wooden Swords, others had a sort of Lance. The Sword is a piece of Wood shaped somewhat like a Cutlass. The Lance is a long strait Pole sharp at one end, and hardened afterwards by heat. I saw no Iron, nor any other sort of Metal; therefore it is probable they use Stone-Hatchets, as some Indians in America do …

— William Dampier (1652 – 1715), A New Voyage Round the World.

If we view a Porpess on the outside, there is nothing more than a Fish, but if we look within, there is nothing less.
— Edward Tyson (1651 – 1708), The Anatomy of a Porpess (1680).

Life has come to be regarded by the majority of biologists as forming one vast genealogical tree, the roots of which are buried deep down in the lowest fossiliferous strata, and the tops of whose branches, constituting the life that now exists on the globe, are alone seen above the surface.
— John Gibson, ‘Fossil fishes of Scotland’ in Science Gleanings in Many Fields (1884).

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