FRESH-WATER FISHES OF SUM, OR THAILAND 



491 



In Thailand, Toxotes is often sought by anglers, who use a light 

 rod and line, armed with a small hook baited with a shrimp or insect. 

 Favorite resorts for the fishes — and hence for anglers — are the inlets 

 and outlets of canals, near locks. A person in a small boat, casting 

 his hook well away from the boat and doing nothing to frighten the 

 fishes, may often catch many at one place. The food value is high. 



The species jaculatrix, which has received more notice and been 

 under closer observation than other species and may be regarded as 

 tj'pifying all the archerfishes in habits, is one of the most extraordinary 

 and celebrated of Oriental fishes. From an account published by the 

 present writer (Smith, 1936b) on observations made in Thailand, 

 the following excerjDts are taken and some additions thereto are made. 



Figure 100. — Upper jaw of Toxotes jaculatrix (Pallas). Drawn by Miss Jane Roller. 



In the eighteenth century and earlier, vague accounts reached 

 Europe regarding an Oriental fish that obtained its food, consisting of 

 insects, by knocking them down with drops of water propelled from 

 its mouth. These accounts, unsupported by reliable evidence, doubt- 

 less met with a mixed reception on the part of zoologists and the gen- 

 eral public ; and it may be imagined that the scientific world of that 

 day was eager to obtain authentic information concerning a creature 

 whose behavior was so different from that of any other known fish. 



The first definite printed reference to the fish in a European lan- 

 guage seems to have been published in the year 1765, in the Philosophi- 

 cal Transactions of the Royal Society of London. At a meeting of 

 the society held on March 15, 1764, a communication was read from 

 John Albert Schlosser, M. D., F. R. S., of Amsterdam (1765), an- 

 nouncing the presentation to the society of a specimen of the fish which, 

 to quote him, "I believe, hath never been observed by any writer on 

 natural history." The communication carried a description of the 

 peculiar habits of the fish on the authority of a Mr. Hommel, gover- 

 nor of a hospital in Batavia, who was also the collector of the speci- 



