290 POPULAR HISTOIIY OF TIIK AQUAUIUJI. 



that, nickering amid the mass of light, appeared, with every 

 tug given by the fishermen, to shift, dissipate, and form 

 again j and there streamed from it into the surrounding 

 gloom myriads of green rays, an instant seen and then lost, 

 — the retreating fish that had avoided the meshes, but had 

 lingered, till disturbed, beside their entangled companions. 

 It contained a considerable body of Herrings. As we 

 jaised them over the gunwale, they felt warm to the hand ; 

 for, in the middle of a large shoal, even the temperature of 

 the water is raised, a fact well known to every Herring 

 fisherman ; and, in shaking them out of the meshes, the ear 

 became sensible of a shrill, chirping sound like that of a 

 mouse, but much fainter, a ceaseless cheep, cheep, cheep, 

 occasioned apparently (for no true fish is furnished with 

 organs of sound) by a sudden escape from the air-bladder/' 



Lepidosiren annectans. — (Plate XVI.) 



The ' Illustrated London News ' lately containing an ac- 

 count of this remarkable animal as now living in a tank 

 at the Crystal Palace, it became necessary for the writer of 

 an ^Aquarium ' to visit that establishment, as well as to con- 

 sult the description in the ' Linnsean Transactions,' by Pro- 

 fessor Owen. The visit was made on a gloomy day, and it 



