standard type of bony fish. It is rather variable in colour, usually being a grey-green with 

 dark vertical bands. At spawning time perch give up their solitary life and form shoals contain- 

 ing more females than males. The eggs are not extruded separately but are grouped in slimy 

 strands. Because of this, the females sometimes find it very difficult to get rid of them. In 

 order to cut these sticky strands, they have to rub the belly against sharp edged pieces of wood 

 or on broken stems and roots of aquatic plants. 



The muds of the old land of China are drained out of the plains by immense rivers whose 

 turbid waters flow from west to east, from the mountains towards the ocean. Great floods 

 sweep over the rice-fields, bearing villages away and drowning thousands of people. Uncon- 

 cerned at the sight of corpses carried by the current, Asiatic fishermen in their light but strongly 

 built boats, continue their work. From this kindly element, the water, the sign of which gives a 

 propitious meaning to their hieroglyphic characters, they continue to draw an ample supply 

 of food, enabling them to ignore famines and the vicissitudes of ceaseless wars. 



The Yellow River, Hwang-Ho; the Blue River, Yangtze Kiang; and the Red River, Si 

 Kiang, contain innumerable fishes in their clear or coloured waters. The most abundant of 

 these are cyprinids, particularly the famous gold-fishes (Carassius auralus) . By ingenious 

 methods the Chinese have managed to transform these fishes into strange creatures with " pop- 

 eyes " and fins extended into silky sails. There are numerous species of barbel, one of which, 

 the mahseer ( Bar bus inosal), bears huge scales, and many bitterling ( Rhode us sinensis, Ft. ocu- 

 latus). The enigmatic kia-yu (Hiipophthahnichthys molitrix) has low-set eyes enabling it to 

 see the bottom of the river. According to the naturalist Eul-ly, its nostrils only acquire external 

 openings at the end of its first year, but when this process is over it grows rapidly, to reach a 

 weight of 45 pounds. There are also gudgeon, bleak and loaches (Cobiiis), the latter being 

 called " tipsy-fish " by the Chinese. Near by the cyprinids are stickleback, perch and pike 

 similar to those of our rivers, fishes showing the faunal unity of the northern regions of the Old 

 World. The crying cat-fishes, he-ya-ya and siao-yu-yu utter harsh sounds. In the Yellow River 

 and Blue River swim enormous Chinese sturgeon ( Psephurus gladiiis) which can reach a length 

 of 20 to 23 feet. The body is rather like that of a sturgeon but the head, which is a third of the 

 total length, ends in a large pointed beak. This has sensitive parts for finding the small mud- 

 living creatures on which this giant fish feeds. More to the north in the Amur River and as far 

 as Kamchatka, salmon (Salnio mykiss) leap the waterfalls when on their way to spawn. Then 

 they return to feed in the low-salinity waters drifting from the polarregions (the Oyashio Current). 



The depths of Lake Baikal contain peculiar species not found elsewhere. They belong to 

 the family Comephoridae, which is related to the marine millers-thumbs, and they live down 

 to depths of about 550 to 820 fathoms. These pallid fishes have no pelvic fins, while the skeleton 

 is reduced in substance and is fibrous : the eyes are enormous. The comephorids slither over 

 the bottom in the black and icy depths. The females, which are viviparous, die after giving 

 birth to the young, which perpetuate these degenerate species in cold and darkness. 



During the second millenium B. C. the Sogdian and Bactrian plains of Turkestan were 

 still fertile, being watered by the great rivers Jaxartes and Oxus (Syr Darya and Amu Darya). 

 These flowed towards the Aral Sea, which had a wide connection with the Caspian. Vast pasture- 

 lands made possible the breeding of horses. But the rapid drying up and advance of desert 

 conditions led to the dispersion of the tribes of horsemen and so to the spreading of Indo-Euro- 

 pean languages over the world. The Kehatriyas invaded India and Persia, while the Kymris or 

 Cimmerians made for the west, and after centuries rode to the borders of the western world. 

 After them Scythian peoples took back their ways of fishing, as for instance the Massagetae 

 (matsya, Sanskrit for fish), who later fought against Cyrus in the disastrous military 

 operation in which he was killed. The Cimmerians in Central Asia only knew of freshwater 

 fishes and were astonished when they met with fishes in the ocean. In the lakes they had been 

 impressed by the gigantic cat-fishes or silurids and had called them " the great " (in Sanskrit, 

 valh) considering them to be the giants of the aquatic world. When the Goths arrived in 

 Scandinavia and saw whales they compared them to silurids and also called them hval. They 



78 A coral-dweller, Abudefduf. Photograph bv Giiiitir 



Senfft. 



Puffer-fishes ( Spheroides immaculatus and S. tiiehii- 

 gris). Photograph by E. Aubert de la Riie. 



