70 BULLETIN 18 8, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



have been examined from Peninsular Thailand (mouth of the Pata- 

 lung River in the inner lake of the Tale Sap), Menam Chao Phya at 

 Bangkok and vicinity, Bung Borapet, and old bed of the Mekong at 

 Chiengrai, Northern Thailand. 



It reaches a length of nearly a meter, but examples as large as 70 cm. 

 are uncommon and the usual run is from 25 to 40 cm. 



The fish has been described as "degraded rather than primitive"; 

 and although well known and of wide distribution on the Asiatic con- 

 tinent (China to Burma) and in the Japanese, Chinese, and Dutch 

 islands, it has not received from zoologists the attention that its inter- 

 esting anatomy and habits would seem to warrant. 



A paper on the circulation and respiration in this fish, with a gen- 

 eral account on its biology and anatomy, was published by Volz (1906) , 

 with some notes on the fish in Thailand, as follows : 



What I know about the life habits of this fish does not rest on my own observa- 

 tions. I refer therefore to the place In my diary pertaining to Fluta, and written 

 down there is what I could learn from Siamese and Siamese Malays : These fishes 

 are readily eaten by Chinese and Siamese. They Inhabit the canals connected 

 with the Menam and the brooks and swamps, and penetrate from here into the 

 inundated ricefields. At the beginning of the dry season they withdraw with the 

 retreating water to the deepest places in the fields, where the moisture remains 

 the longest, and dig themselves into the earth. How they do this, how long they 

 work, and so on, I could not learn. The Europeans knew nothing about it, and I 

 could not speak long enough with the natives. The fishes are caught in the follow- 

 ing manner : In the I'ainy season they take the hook, but in the dry season the 

 natives search for them in the fields. Where a number of these fishes are expected 

 to be in the ground, probing? are made with the help of a long 2-pronged iron fork 

 by sticking it into the ground from time to time. If one finds a place where there 

 are fishes, he digs a hole, often 1-1.5 m. deep, and hauls up with the aid of a net. 

 These animals are supposed to be able to live in these holes for months and first 

 begin to come out again with the beginning of the rainy season. The fishes are 

 also supposed to migrate. While they lie in the baskets they produce a noise that 

 appears to come out of the mouth and is not very loud. [Translation.] 



The best observations on the eggs and young of Fluta have been 

 made in Thailand by Luang Anantamasya Pithaks, of the Siamese 

 Bureau of Fisheries. The fish abounds in Bung Borapet, the large 

 lake, originally a swamp, which has been set aside as a |ish preserve and 

 nursery and has been the scene of many studies and experiments on the 

 local fishes. It has long been known to the fishermen of the Bung 

 Borapet region that this eel spawns in the lake, the spawning period 

 extending from July onward. The eggs are laid in shallow water near 

 a bank and are contained in a bubble nest such as is made by various 

 anabantid fishes, but whether both parents take part in blowing the 

 bubbles has not been determined, although the fishermen believe that 

 only the female performs this function. The rafts of eggs are not held 

 in place by aquatic vegetation but float freely in the open water, and 

 the color of the bubble mass undergoes change from time to time during 



