"_And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much.... He spake also of beasts, and of fowls, and of creeping things, and of fishes._"--I KINGS iv. 29-33. "_The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas._"--PSALM viii. 8. We have already seen that it was on the FIFTH DAY that the two great oceans--the world of air above, and the world of water below--were peopled with inhabitants; that "God saw that it was good," and that all these happy living things began their life blessed by Him who gave it. I wonder whether it will surprise you to hear that in some respects the inhabitants of these two worlds are alike. Perhaps if you think of a fish and a bird--say a herring and a sparrow--you will say two creatures could hardly be less like each other; the bird has soft warm feathers, and the fish has scales, overlapping each other as the slates on the roof of a house do, thus making a perfectly waterproof coat for its whole body; the bird has legs and wings, and the fish has neither; the bird can chirp and sing, while fishes generally make no noise. But if you could look inside the feathers and the scales, you would see that there is a likeness in the bony structure of these creatures, otherwise so unlike. Both are vertebrate animals, though the backbone of a fish is in some respects unlike that of a bird, still the _plan_ is the same, and it has been truly said that "among the many wonders of nature there is nothing more wonderful than this--the adaptability of the one Vertebrate type to the infinite variety of life to which it serves an as organ and a home." But when you said that the herring had neither legs nor wings, you forgot to notice the fins, by means of which it moves from place to place in its watery home; as the bird, on its strong wings, makes its way through the fields of air. Birds too, lay eggs, and so do most fishes, some of them even making nests; so there are points in which they resemble each other, are there not? But while we know a good deal about the ways and habits of birds, very little is known of the life of a fish; for it is much more difficult to watch its way of living, and what is known about animals has been learned by watching them patiently. Sometimes when you are in a boat sailing over very calm, clear water, you may look down and see the fishes darting here and there, and you may even think that if the boat would but stop you could catch one in your hand; but the only way in which you can really watch fishes sufficiently to see their mode of life, is by studying the habits of those which have been caught and put into glass tanks in an aquarium, where they live and move about just as birds do in their cages; only the fishes' tank must contain water as well as air.