52 CLASS XIV. 



other hand, have great capacity of motion. The principal muscles, 

 which widen the cavity of the mouth and move the gill-covers, are 

 attached to the inner and outer surface of the arch of the palate 

 and to the bones which connect the lower jaw with the cranium. 



The restorative power of tishes is limited to the reproduction of 

 the parts of tins which have been removed. Many fishes may 

 attain a great age ; carps and pikes have been recorded to have 

 lived more than a century. In general they seek their food, 

 especially marine fishes, by night, and then are most easily 

 captured; perhaps they sleep in the day-time. Many fishes pro- 

 bably are torpid during winter. 



Of the instinct of fishes little is known. The principal inclination 

 of the fish is the hunting for food, and most of them feed on living 

 prey. For stupifying it some have the power of giving electric 

 shocks. The most remarkable example of art-instinct in the over- 

 powering of prey, is afforded by an East Indian fresh-water fish 

 {Toxotes jaculdtor), which squirts drops of Avater upon insects on 

 water-plants in its neighbourhood, to cause them to fall into the 

 water. The instinct which is directed to the preservation of the 

 species, propagation, offers less that is remarkable in this class than 

 in that of insects and birds, although some species are known that 

 prepare a kind of nest under the water for their offspring^ 



Many fishes change their abode at certain seasons of the year. 

 Thus, for example, some fishes in spring or summer ascend the 

 mouths of rivers to cast their spawn, as the shad ( Clujjea alosa) ; 

 salmons ascend even far inland against the stream of rivers. Some 

 would seem to undertake expeditions annually in countless shoals, 

 as the herrings, which, according to Gilpin, describe in the 

 northern ocean a circuit returning into itself, so that in January 

 and February they appear off Georgia and Carolina, in April off 

 New York, and there in the rivers and bays deposit their spawn, 

 then return to the sea and move towards Netvfoundland. Afterwards 



^ To these beloogs the (^vkU of Aristoteles, a marine fish, that makes a nest of 

 leaves {algce). Hist. Anini. i. vili. cap. 30 (according to Cuvier a Gohius), Hist. nat. 

 des Poiss. XII. p. 7, the Boras HancocTctl, Cuv. andVAL., according to the observatiojis 

 of Hancock; to these, finally, also different species of fresh-water sticklebacks belong, 

 Gasterostcus, where the males build the nests, according to the observations of CosTE, 

 lately published. Coiiipare Diet, universal cVHist. nat. VIII. 1847, pp. 650, 651, 

 Poissons, PI. -20. 



