278 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



VOL. 52 



seem to be quite at home, and Zolotnitsky, who had living specimens 

 sent from Singapore to Russia, thought that water with about one 

 per cent of salt was most congienial to the fishes he was cultivating. 

 Nevertheless, they seem, from the testimony of many others, to be 

 equally well accommodated in ordinary salt water. There may be a 



Fig. 58. — Skeleton of Archer-fish. (After Agassiz.) 



specific difference, however, in preference manifested for certain 

 conditions. Day, for instance, asserted that the To.votes jaciilator 

 affected the sea waters of the coast while the Toxotes chatareiis was 

 mostly to be found in estuaries and brackish or freshened water. All 

 such characteristics, however, require further evidence. 



II 



Vague accounts of fishes which secured food by shooting drops 

 of water at insects had reached Europe before, but not till 1764 was 

 there published any notice of such sufficiently precise to give an idea 

 of the character of the shooter. In that year and in 1766, Governor 

 Hommel, of Batavia, sent descriptions and illustrations of two 

 species which were published in different volumes of the Philosophi- 

 cal Transactions of the Royal Society of London.^ One of these was 



^ The observations of Governor Hommel were published in two communi- 

 cations to the Royal Society by Dr. John Albert Schlosser, viz : 



(i) An Account of a Fish from Batavia called Jaculator: In a letter to 

 Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S., from John Albert Schlosser, M. D., F. R. S., 

 in Phil. Trans., liv, 1764, pp. 89-91, pi. 9, 1765. (Cheliito only noticed.) 



(2) Some further Intelligence relating to the Jaculator Fish [etc.], in Phil. 

 Trans., lvi, 1766, pp. 186-188, pi. 8, fig. 6, 1767. (Toxotes noticed.) 



Schlosser was only the intermediary for publication. 



