366 PARADISE -FISH OF CHINA. 



Inglis and Mr. Foord, of Melbom-ne, three preserved 

 specimens of this fish, which I am about to have set uj) 

 as additions to my fish museum at South Kensington. 



The Murray cod is also called the " growler;" he is 

 able to make a curious noise in the water (see an account 

 of the oesophageal teeth under the head of Maigre, 

 p. 136). 



PARADISE-FISH. 



On July 8, 1869, Mr. Simon, French Consul at 

 Ningpo, arrived in Paris, bringing with him some fish 

 hitherto unknown to naturalists. These were little 

 fish which he had brought over alive from a brook in 

 the neighbourhood of the rice-fields of Canton. They 

 are small fish. The scales present all the colours of 

 the rainbow, with vertical bands of yellow, red, and 

 blue, and lines of changing colours running from head 

 to tail ; the form graceful and softly rounded ; the 

 caudal fin long-forked and fan-shaped ; the dorsal and 

 anal fins very long. On July 21st they began to spawn, 

 and Mons. Carbonnier, who had charge of them, dis- 

 covered, to his astonishment, that the male began to 

 swallow the eggs. Previously to swallowing the eggs 

 the male had ejected bubbles, which did not burst on 

 the surface of the water. The male deposited the eggs 

 from out of his mouth and underneath the shelter of 

 these bubbles, which formed a kind of nest. The parent 

 fish both kept watch in the neighbourhood of the eggs. 

 After a while the young fish were hatched out. Their 

 mouths being so small it was difficult to procure food for 

 them. M. Carbonnier solved the question by cutting up 

 aquatic plants, and breeding monads and other animal- 

 culoe which thej^oung fish found suitable to their wants. 

 Monads are minute crustaceans called Cyclo/is. Here, 



