On the Ganges, the fish called the climbing
perch is remarkable for its tenacity of life. The
Gauges boatmen have been known to keep him
for five or six days in an earthen pot without
water, and, when taking him out for use, they
find him as lively and fresh as when caught. Two
Danish naturalists, living at Tranquebar, testify
that they have seen this fish ascend trees on the
coast of Coromandel. Daldorf, who was
lieutenant in the Danish East India Company's
service, informed Sir Joseph Banks that 'in the
year seventeen hundred and ninety-one he had
taken the fish from a moist hollow in the stem
of a Palmyra palm that grew near to a lake. He
saw him when already five feet from the ground
struggling to get still higher; hanging by his
toothed gill-covers, bending his tail to the left,
fixing his tail fin in the clefts of the bark, and
then, by stretching out the body, urging his way
up. Why he went up the tree, when there was
a whole lake of water at its base, he had no voice
to tell, and no man has wit to discover. Nevertheless,
even a thousand years ago, the compiler
of The Travels of Two Mahomedans, says that
he was told by Suleyman, who visited India in
the ninth century, of a fish which leaving the
water climbed cocoa-nut palms to drink their sap,
and then returned into the sea.

Of the singing fish, to whose performances we
now give ear, Sir Emerson says that on visiting
Batticaloa, in September, 1848, he made some
inquiries about musical sounds, said to be heard
issuing from the bottom of the lake at several
places, both above and below the ferry opposite
the old Dutch fort, and supposed by the natives
to come from a fish. The story was confirmed,
and one of the spots whence the sounds proceeded
was pointed out between the pier and a certain
rock which intersects the channel. They were
said to be heard at night, and most distinctly
when the moon was nearest the full; and they
were said to resemble the faint, sweet notes of
an Æolian harp. Here was a romantic creature!
Fishermen were sent for, who said that their
fathers before them had known of the music
that came from that spot. It only came during
the dry season, and ceased when the lake was
swollen by the freshes after the rain. They
believed the voice to proceed from a shell, known
by a Taniel name that means the " crying shell,"
and being sent in search of such a shell, returned
with living specimens of different shells, chiefly
Littorina lævis and Cerithium palustre.

In the evening, when the moon had risen, Sir
Emerson took a boat and accompanied the fishermen
to the spot pointed out. They rowed about
two hundred yards north-east of the jetty by the
fort gate; there was not a breath of wind nor a
ripple, except that caused by the dip of their
oars; and on coming to the point mentioned,
our countryman distinctly heard the sounds in
question. They came up from the water like the
gentle thrills of a musical chord, or faint vibrations
of a wine-glass when its rim is rubbed by a
wet finger. It was not one sustained note, but
a multitude of tiny sounds, each clear and
distinct in itself, the sweetest treble mingling
with the lowest bass. On applying the ear to
the woodwork of the boat, the volume of vibration
was increased. The sounds varied considerably
at different points on the surface of the
lake, as if the animals from which they proceeded
were more numerous in particular spots; and
occasionally the boat rowed out of hearing of
them altogether, but on returning to the old
place the old sounds were again heard. There
could be no doubt, therefore, that the concert
of fishes was assembled at a fixed spot under
water.

THE DEMON OF HOMBURG.

IN England, the chief gamblers by profession
are considered highly respectable people; the
country is proud of them, and they sit amongst
our lawgivers. The Stock Exchange is their
gambling-house. Nevertheless, we should think
it highly improper if the English Government
established open gambling-houses for its own
advantage. Some of the continental govern-
ments, while they prohibit hazard play, not only
have their state lotteries carried on under the
direct management of governmental officers, but
also sanction and protect true gambling dens.
In German watering-places, these establishments
are licensed by the states, to whom they pay a
heavy tax. Yet they are all in countries where
a game of hazard is prohibited by the laws. The
chief of these places are Baden-Baden, Ems,
Homburg, Kissingen, Koethen, Pyrmont,
Wiesbaden, Wilhelmsbad, &c. The governments of
these places are so perfectly conscious of the
ruin caused by such establishments, that their
own subjects are not permitted to make use of
them. In Homburg, the law even forbids the
inhabitants to live intimately with gamblers and
visitors! Trespassers are fined from thirty to
one hundred and fifty florins. Thus the gambling
dens fairly replace the old robbers' haunts
of which the ruins ornament the borders of the
Rhine. The German lords, whose ancestors
once lived in such frowning castles, have not lost
their taste for plundering unwary travellers;
only, instead of committing robberies themselves
by open force, they sell to professional sharpers
the sole right of plunder, thus degrading
themselves to become accomplices of greedy rogues.
As an excuse for the licensing of gambling-tables,
they say that their watering-places could not
exist without them; but many Austrian spas
are quite as prosperous as any of the places we
have named, though not disgraced by any
gambling.

The English are great travellers; and perhaps
more than other people glad to bet; they are
considered very good prey by these thieves,
although of late Americans and Russians have
been honoured equally as willing victims. How
are they dealt with  — in Bad Homburg, for
example, which is now the foulest plague-spot
in all Germany?

The Landgraviat of Hesse-Homburg, with
about six thousand inhabitants, is at the foot of