a lingering personal retail interest within us that
asks to be satisfied.

To sum up. My uncommercial travelling has
not yet brought me to the conclusion that we
are close to perfection in these matters. And
just as I do not believe that the end of the
world will ever be near at hand, so long as any
of the very tiresome and arrogant people who
constantly predict that catastrophe are left in it,
so, I shall have small faith in the Hotel Millennium,
while any of the uncomfortable superstitions
I have glanced at, remain in existence.

ODD FISH.

MUTE as a fish, is not a true proverb all
the world over, and fish out of water is not all
the world over the same image of gasping
helplessness. The perch we know to be a hardy
fish; he swims near the surface, leaps into the
air for flies, and can be carried without hurt in
damp grass from pond to pond. But how shall
the European notion of a hardy perch cover the
marvellous performance of some of the perches
of the East! Aristotle's pupil, Theophrastus,
after treating of a fish called Exocaetus, that was
in the habit of coming ashore to sleep, proceeded
to tell of the small fishes that leave rivers of
India to wander like frogs on the land, and of
others found near Babylon, which, when the
streams fail, leave their dry beds and travel off
in search of food, " moving themselves along by
means of their fins and their tails."

Yarrell relates that eels kept in a garden,
when the time came at which they should go to
the sea to spawn, left their pond, and were
invariably found moving eastward, in the direction
of the sea. Anglers observe also that fish
newly caught, when placed out of sight of
water, always struggle towards it in their efforts
to escape. In Kirby's Bridgewater Treatise we
read of a migratory fish, called Swampine,
numerous in the fresh waters of Carolina, and in
ponds liable to become dry in summer. When
caught and placed on the ground, the Swampines
always directed themselves towards the
nearest water, though they could not see it.
The Doras of Guiana have been caught upon
their pilgrimage over dry land in search of
water in such numerous companies that negroes
have filled baskets with them. Pallegoix tells
of three kinds of fish which traverse the damp
grass in Siam; and Sir John Bowring says that
in ascending and descending the river Meinam
to Bankok, he was amused with the sight of
fishes which, leaving the river, glided over the
wet banks, and disappeared amongst the trees of
the jungle.

The fishes who possess this power, generally
have the pharyngeal bones which are at the back
of the mouth about the gullet, disposed in a
labyrinth of plates and cells, whereby moisture
is retained for a long time, to exude slowly and
keep the gills damp. The fullest account oi
the walking fish, as well as of the singing fish,
to which we shall pay some attention presently,
is given by Sir Emerson Tennent, in his work
on Ceylon. Upon that excellent work, there-
fore, we draw again for information.

The most famous walker among fishes of
Ceylon is a perch, closely related to the climbing
perch of the zoologists, called by the
Singhalese, Kavaya. It is about half a foot long,
with a round, scaly head, and strongly-toothed
edges to its gill-covers. Helped by the moist
labyrinth in its gullet-bones, this little fellow
boldly leaves his pool, choosing to travel by
night, or in the early morning while the grass is
damp with dew; but sometimes he is to be met
with, in case of urgent necessity, travelling even
along a hot and dusty gravel road under the
mid-day sun.

In all these travelling fishes, the bony column
of the spine is said to be " remarkably large.
They are not, in Ceylon, perch alone. They
were chub that Mr. Morris, government agent
of Trincomalie, saw, on the falling of a heavy
shower, after the dry season, struggle up through
the grass in the rills formed by the trickling of
the rain. There was hardly water enough to
cover them, nevertheless they made rapid
progress up the slope of a knoll that was surmounted
by a tank. A pelican had lost no time
in taking up her position by the pool, into
which fish were swarming, and two bushels of
them were collected by the followers of Mr.
Morris. The same gentleman tells how, when
the tanks shrink into little pools, the fish are to
be seen crowding by thousands in the gruelly
blue mud, and how, when the drying up advances,
and the surface fish are left uncovered, they
crawl away in search of water. " In one place,"
he says, " I saw hundreds diverging in every
direction from the tank they had just abandoned,
to a distance of fifty or sixty yards, and still
travelling onwards. In going this distance,
however, they must have used muscular exertion
sufficient to have taken them half a mile on level
ground, for at these places all the cattle and
wild animals of the neighbourhood had latterly
come to drink, so that the surface was everywhere
indented with footmarks, in addition to
the cracks in the surrounding baked mud, into
which the fish tumbled in their progress. In
these holes, which were deep, and the sides
perpendicular, they remained to die, and were
carried off by kites and crows." They are these
fishes, or others very like them, who descend
into the wet mud of drying pools, and, when it
is hard-baked, lie torpid until the rains bring a
return of water: a strange habit, which we have
already described in speaking generally of the
animal life of Ceylon. Whether the walking
fishes of Ceylon deserve also the name of climbing
perch, is doubtful. Beyond the up-hill work
to which we have referred, there is no evidence
of their possession of a climbing power, except
in the fact that at a Singhalese fishing station
the staked enclosures for the stoppage of fish
were found to be covered with netting, and the
purpose of this being asked, it was answered
"that some of the fish climbed up the sticks
and got over."