258 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
tails only that they and all fishes shoot along with such incon- 
ceivable rapidity. It has been said that the eyes of fishes are 
immovable ; but these apparently turn them forward or backward 
in their sockets as occasions require. They take little notice of a 
lighted candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounce and 
seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand against the 
support whereon the bowl is hung; especially when they have 
been motionless, and are perhaps asleep. As fishes have no 
eye-lids, it is not easy to discern when they are sleeping or not, 
because their eyes are always open. 
Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl containing such 
fishes; the double refractions of the glass and water represent 
them, when moving, in a shifting and changeable variety of dimen- 
sions, shades, and colours ; while the two mediums, assisted by the 
concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them 
vastly ; not to mention that the introduction of another element 
and its inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very 
agreeable manner. 
Gold and silver fishes, though originally native of China and 
Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to our climate as to 
thrive and multiply very fast in our ponds and stews. Linnzeus 
ranks this’species of fish, under the genus of Cyfrinus, or carp, and 
calls it Cyprinus auratus. 
Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful way; for 
they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large hollow space 
within, that does not communicate with it. In this cavity they put 
a bird occasionally ; so that you may see a goldfinch or a linnet 
hopping as it were in the midst of the water, and the fishes 
swimming in a circle round it. The simple exhibition of the 
fishes is agreeable and pleasant; but in so complicated a way 
becomes whimsical and unnatural, and liable to the objection due 
to him, 
‘Qui variare cupit rem prodigialitér unam. ” 
Iam, &c. 
