FISE OUT OF WATER. 339 



condition, or even observed a really adult male or female specimen of 

 perfect development. All the eels ever found in fresh water are imma- 

 ture and undeveloped creatures. But eels do certainly spawn some- 

 where or other in the deep sea, and every year, in the course of the 

 summer, flocks of young ones, known as elvers, ascend the rivers in 

 enormous quantities, like a vast army under numberless leaders. At 

 each tributary or affluent, be it river, brook, stream, or ditch, a propor- 

 tionate detachment of the main body is given off to explore the vari- 

 ous branches, while the central force wriggles its way up the chief 

 channel, regardless of obstacles, with undiminished vigor. When the 

 young elvers come to a weir, a wall, a flood-gate, or a lasher, they 

 simply squirm their way up the perpendicular barrier with indescrib- 

 able wrigglings, as if they were wholly unacquainted, physically as 

 well as mentally, with Newton's magnificent discovery of gravitation. 

 Nothing stops them ; they go wherever water is to be found ; and, 

 though millions perish hopelessly in the attempt, millions more survive 

 in the end to attain their goal in the upper reaches. They even seem 

 to scent ponds or lakes mysteriously, at a distance, and will strike 

 boldly straight across-country, to sheets of water wholly cut off from 

 communication with the river which forms their chief highway. 



The full-grown eels are also given to journeying across-country in 

 a more sober, sedate, and dignified manner, as becomes fish which have 

 fully arrived at years, or rather months, of discretion. "When the 

 ponds in which they live dry up in summer, they make in a bee-line 

 for the nearest sheet of fresh water, whose direction and distance they 

 appear to know intuitively, through some strange instinctive geo- 

 graphical faculty. On their way across-country they do not despise 

 the succulent rat, whom they swallow whole, when caught, with great 

 gusto. To keep their gills wet during these excursions, eels have the 

 power of distending the skin on each side of the neck, just below the 

 head, so as to form a big pouch or swelling. This pouch they fill with 

 water, to carry a good supply along with them until they reach the 

 ponds for which they are making. It is the pouch alone that enables 

 eels to live so long out of water under all circumstances, and so inci- 

 dentally exposes them to the disagreeable experience of getting skinned 

 alive, which, it is to be feared, still forms the fate of most of those 

 that fall into the clutches of the human species. 



A far more singular walking fish than any of these is the odd 

 creature that rejoices (unfortunately) in the very classical surname of 

 Periophthalmus, which is, being interpreted. Stare-about. (If he had 

 a recognized English name of his own, I would gladly give it ; but, as 

 he hasn't, and as it is clearly necessary to call him something, I fear 

 we must stick to the somewhat alarming scientific nomenclature.) 

 Periophthalmus, then, is an odd fish of the tropical Pacific shores, with 

 a pair of very distinct fore-legs (theoretically described as modified 

 pectoral fins), and with two goggle-eyes, which he can protrude at 



