260 AMERICAN FISH CULTURE. 



entailed on the historian of that discovery, and which en- 

 gendered a proverbial expression in the island. The pros- 

 pect of propagating the gourami appearing hopeless, one 

 after another was caught and served up on the table of the 

 governor when a distinguished guest was to be entertained, 

 and thus was the last disposed of in 1846. Although 

 equally full details have not been published concerning 

 those introduced into Guadeloupe and Cayenne, no greater 

 success appears to have rewarded the attempts to propa- 

 gate the species. As to the latter, it has recently been 

 stated that the fish known as connani is the same as the 

 gourami, and occurs abundantly in the rivers of Guiana, 

 but the connani is evidently an entirely different fish, and 

 even a member of a very distinct family. 



Repeated attempts have been made in recent years to 

 introduce the gourami into France, Algiers, and Egypt, 

 but the fishes have either died on their way to their re- 

 spective destinations, or have survived for but a short time 

 their introduction into the new waters ; a sudden diminu- 

 tion of the temperature has proved disastrous in its results 

 to them, and the greatest care and precaution are necessary 

 to protect them from the changes of the weather. The 

 last attempt to introduce the gourami into France which 

 has come to the knowledge of the compiler was made in 

 the spring of 1865. Nineteen young fishes, in a glass 

 vase, were consigned to the steamer running between 

 Mauritius and Suez, which left the former place on the 

 20th of March. All survived the perils of the voyage as 

 far as Alexandria; but on the route from that place to 

 Marseilles, where a comparatively low and unequal tem- 

 perature prevailed, eight of them died. Of the eleven that 

 arrived in safety, one other died the following night ; but 

 the fate of the rest has not been recorded in the French 

 periodicals yet received at Washington. 



