104 Erermnmi <i nd KciifhiJl — Fish from Central Ecuador. 



Quito present from time to time another phenomenon less alarming but 

 not less astonishing to the naturalist. The great eruptions are periodical 

 and quite rare. Cotopaxi, Tungurahua and Sangay (sometimes not for 20 

 or 30 years, — but in the intervals) vomit u]) enormous quantities of clayey 

 masses and, wonderful to state, an immeasurable quantity of tishes. It is 

 regretted that one of these volcanic floods did not occur while I tari-ied in 

 the Andes of Quito, but the eructation of fishes is a phenomenon so common 

 and so generally known by all the inhabitants of this country that there 

 can not be the slightest doubt concerning its authenticity. There are in 

 this region many well-informed persons and even those of scientific attain- 

 ments from whom I was able to procure exact information about these 

 fishes. While searching the annals of manj' small towns in the neighbor- 

 hood of Cotopaxi, I liave sometimes founil records of fishes cast out by 

 volcanoes. Upon the lands of the Marquis of Selvalegre, Cotopaxi 

 ejecteii so great a quantity that their putrefaction spread a fetid odor far 

 and wide. 



In 1691 the nearly extinct volcano of Imbaburu vomited thousands into 

 the environments of Ibara. The pestilential fevers which occurred about 

 this time were attributed to the miasmas which the fishes, heaped upon 

 the ground and exposed to the sun, exhaled. In recent times Imbaburu 

 has continued to throw out fishes. In the eruption of June 19, 1698, the 

 volcano of Caqueirazo threw out from its summit thousands of these 

 animals enveloped in clay or nuid. 



Cotopaxi and Tungarahua cast forth fishes, sometimes through the 

 crater ftt the summit, sometimes through lateral fissures, but always at an 

 elevation of 15,000 or 15,600 feet al)ove the surface of the sea. Now the 

 plains there about being nearly 7,800 feet in altitude, it may be seen that 

 these animals emerge from a point that is 7,800 feet higher than the plains 

 upon which they are thrown. Some Indians have assured me that the 

 fish vomited by the volcanoes were sometimes still living on descending 

 the length of the side of the mountain, but this fact does not seem to me 

 to be sufficiently substantiated. It is certain, however, that among the 

 thousand of dead fishes that in a few hours can be seen descending from 

 Cotopaxi with great quantities of cold and fresh water, there are but few 

 that have been so affected as to cause one to believe that they had been 

 exposed to the action of a strong heat. That fact becomes still more aston- 

 ishing when one considers the soft skin of these animals and the thick 

 steam that the volcano breathes out at the same time. It has seemed to me 

 to be a subject of very ''^reat interest for descriptive natural history to 

 correctly prove the nature of these animals. Every inhabitant agrees that 

 they are identical with those that have been found in the streams at the 

 foot of these vok^anoes and which have been called prenadilias. It is even 

 the only species of fish that has been discovered above 8,400 feet in the 

 waters of the district of Qrtito. This small fish lives in waters which have 

 a temperature of 10 degrees Centigrade, while other species of the same 

 genus live in the rivers of the j)lains, of which the water is 27 degrees. 



According to the enormous quantity of pimelodes which are vom- 

 ited from time to time from the volcanoes of the province of Quito, 



