Evermann and Kendall Fish from Central Ecuador. 105 



one would not dare to doubt that the country contains some great subter 

 ranean lakes which conceal these fishes, because the specimens that live 

 in the small rivers around about are very few in number. A part of these 

 rivers ought to communicate with these subterranean cavities, and it is 

 very probable that the first pimelodes which have populated these caverns 

 have remounted there against the 'current. In the province of Quito the 

 subterranean roaring which accompanies the quaking of the ground, the 

 masses of rocks which one would expect to cave in from the arched roof 

 upon which he walks, the immense quantity of water which emerges from 

 the ground in the thinnest portions ; then the volcanic explosions and a 

 number of other phenomena show that the entire ground of this plateau is 

 undermined. But, if it is easy to conceive that the vast subterranean bas 

 ins are filled with water and that they can nourish fishes, it is less easy to 

 explain how these animals are aspirated through the volcanoes, elevated 

 to 7,800 feet and vomited, sometimes through the craters and again by 

 means of openings in the sides. Would it be possible to suppose that the 

 pimelodes live in the subterranean basins at the same height at which they 

 are seen emerging ? How can their origin' be conceived in a position so 

 extraordinary, in the side of a cone so often heated, and perhaps in part 

 produced through the volcanic fire? What can be the method by which 

 they are cast out with the form not disfigured, which would be expected, 

 by these volcanoes, the highest and most active in the world, causing from 

 time to time convulsive movements, during which the release of heat ap 

 pears less considerable than one would expect it to be. The tremblings of 

 the ground do not always accompany these phenomena. Perhaps in the 

 different caverns that occur in the interior of a volcano the air is from time 

 to time condensed, and that it is this condensed air which aids to raise the 

 water and fishes; perhaps they emerge from a concavity removed from 

 those that give out the volcanic fire; perhaps, finally, the clayey masses in 

 which these animals are enveloped protect them from- the action of an ex 

 treme heat. 



