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SINGULAR AUDACITY OF A FISH. 



In most classes of animals, even in those of the most timid 

 disposition, instances of remarkable courage have occasion- 

 ally been observed and recorded. It is rarely, however, that 

 fish of diminutive size have been found bold enough to re- 

 pel the attacks of man, much less to become the aggressor, 

 as in the following instance, related by the highly talented 

 naturalists who accompanied Captain Freycinet in his late 

 voyage round the world. 



(( It happened one day, while we were wading in calm 

 water among the coral reefs at the Island of Guam, in search 

 of molluscous animals, that we were assailed by a small che- 

 todon, butting against us with the end of its snout, as if to 

 defend the approach to the rock under which it lodged, with 

 many others of the same kind. We stretched out our hands 

 towards it, against which it precipitated itself in the same 

 manner. In order to drive it away we struck it several times, 

 which made it retreat, but without alarming it, for it returned 

 again to the charge. At last it disappeared suddenly in a 

 hole formed by the corals. 



6i This species was scarcely larger than one's hand ; its 

 colours, though brown, were however agreeable. We call 

 the species bellicosiis." — Quoy fy Gaimard, Zoologie du 

 Voyage, p. 383. 



ANIMALS AND BIRDS ON THE PLAINS OF CAMDEBOO. 



Travelling over the Karoo plains of Camdeboo, Barrow 

 thus describes the various animals and birds he met with. 

 He says : 



Naked on the surface appeared to be game of every sort 

 even very plentiful, particularly spring-boks and the larger 

 kinds of antelopes. Upon those parched plains are also 

 found several species of a small quadruped which burrows in 

 the ground, and which is known to the colonists under the 

 general name of meer-cat. They are mostly of that genus of 

 animals to which zoologists have given the name of Viverra. 

 An eagle, making a stoop at one of these, close where we 

 were passing, missed his prey ; and both fell a sacrifice, one 

 to the gun, the other to the dogs. Both the bird and the 

 quadruped appeared to us to be undescribed species. Of the 

 eagle, the head, neck, back and abdomen, were of a pale fer- 

 ruginous brown ; wings and tail steel-blue, the latter faintly 

 barred with small bands from the root to the middle ; the 



