and only put in two small pikes, this pair of tyrants in seven years devoured the whole.”—­Id., ib., w.  Tench.  “Singular, tench; plural, tenches.”—­Brightland’s Gram., p. 78.  “The polar bear preys upon seals, fish, and the carcasses of whales.”—­Balbi’s Geog., p. 172. “Trouts and salmons swim against the stream.”—­BACON:  Ward’s Gram., p. 130.

   “’Tis true no turbots dignify my boards,
    But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords.”—­Pope.

OBS. 38.—­Prom the foregoing examples it would seem, if fish or fishes are often spoken of without a regular distinction of the grammatical numbers, it is not because the words are not susceptible of the inflection, but because there is some difference of meaning between the mere name of the sort and the distinct modification in regard to number.  There are also other nouns in which a like difference may be observed.  Some names of building materials, as brick, stone, plank, joist, though not destitute of regular plurals, as bricks, stones, planks, joists, and not unadapted to ideas distinctly singular, as a brick, a stone, a plank, a joist, are nevertheless sometimes used in a plural sense without the s, and sometimes in a sense which seems hardly to embrace the idea of either number; as, “Let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.”—­Gen., xi, 3.  “And they had brick for stone.”—­Ib. “The tale of bricks.”—­Exod., v, 8 and 18.  “Make brick.”—­Ib., v, 16.  “From your bricks.”—­Ib., v, 19.  “Upon altars of brick.”—­Isaiah. lxv, 3.  “The bricks are fallen down.”—­Ib., ix, 10.  The same variety of usage occurs in respect to a few other words, and sometimes perhaps without good reason; as, “Vast numbers of sea fowl frequent the rocky cliffs.”—­Balbi’s Geog., p. 231.  “Bullocks, sheep, and fowls.”—­Ib., p. 439. “Cannon is used alike in both numbers.”—­Everest’s Gram., p. 48. “Cannon and shot may be used in the singular or plural sense.”—­O.  B. Peirce’s Gram., p. 37.  “The column in the Place Vendome is one hundred and thirty-four feet high, and is made of the brass of the cannons taken from the Austrians and Prussians.”—­Balbi’s Geog., p. 249.  “As his cannons roar.”—­Dryden’s Poems, p. 81.  “Twenty shot of his greatest cannon.”—­CLARENDON:  Joh.  Dict. “Twenty shots” would here, I think, be more proper, though the word is not made plural when it means little balls of lead.  “And cannons conquer armies.”—­Hudibras, Part III, Canto iii, l. 249.

   “Healths to both kings, attended with the roar
    Of cannons echoed from th’ affrighted shore.”—­Waller, p. 7.

OBS. 39.—­Of foreign nouns, many retain their original plural; a few are defective; and some are redundant, because the English form is also in use.  Our writers have laid many languages under contribution, and thus furnished an abundance of irregular words, necessary to be explained, but never to be acknowledged as English till they conform to our own rules.