

THE OTTAWA NATURALIST. & 



Vol. XX. 



OTTAWA, MARCH, 1907. 



No. 12 



SOME CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT FISHES. 



(Based on an address delivered before the " Unity Club.") 

 By Andrew Halkett. 



The subject of this article is : certain strange facts concern- 

 ing- the habits and structure oi' fishes. A goodly sized volume 

 might be devoted to this subject to do it justice ; therefore a few 

 singular facts only are given here, under distinctive headings. 



Fishes That Can Live for a Prolonged Time Out of Water. 



The November, 1901, issue of the Ottawa Naturalist con- 

 tained a short article of mine, entitled: "An African Dipnoid 

 Fish " treating of a group of fishes distinguished from all others 

 by " the double character of the respiratory organisation: these 

 remarkable fishes breathing not only under water by gills, but at 

 times when the waters dry up, atmospheric air by rudi- 

 mentary lungs " ; and a succinct account of this dipnoid group is 

 contained in that article. 



Bat the lung-breathers are not the only kind of fishes which 

 can live for a longer or shorter time out of water. There are 

 others whose gills are provided with accessary organs for retain- 

 ing water, so that those fishes are supplied with oxygen during 

 their sojourn on land. A well-known instance of this is the 

 Climbing Perch of India, a fish which leaves the water and walks 

 by the aid of its spines over land. It even climbs trees : a fact 

 alluded to by Herbert Spencer in his " Principles of Biology," and 

 Daldorf in a memoir communicated long ago to the Linnean 



