40 THE FRESH-WATER AQUARIUM. 
colours, and with an outline as straight and rigid as a 
piece of bark, he surprises -you with his graceful motions 
as he hawks along the surface of the glass, propelled by 
the easy undulatory action of the caudal end of the 
spine. Towards dusk he wakes up from his day-light 
stupor, and commences his queer, but pretty gyrations ; 
and, after gliding ghost-like all round the tank, suddenly 
drops down as if dead, and rests on any leaf or stone that 
may receive him, remaining motionless, and in any attitude 
—on his head, his tail, or his side—that the power of 
gravity may give him. ‘Then, with an uneasy fidgetting, 
he flounders up again, and off he goes, as graceful as before, 
his pectoral fins spread out like samples of lace, looking 
as much like an eel with frills as it it possible to conceive. 
When ascending, his motion is so undulatory that he may 
easily be mistaken foy a smooth newt, going up fora 
bubble. wor is our interest in him lessened by his dis- 
plays of individuality of character. He is a savage on a 
small scale. When he is quietly dozing, half hidden 
among the sand and pebbles, throw in a small red worm, 
and, as soon as the water is tainted with the odour of 
this favourite food, he is awake and on the search. A 
triton seizes the worm, and shakes it as a cat woulda 
mouse, The loach hunts him down, snaps at him fiercely, 
and tears the worm from his mouth, and woe to any minor 
fish that attempts to remove it from those bearded jaws. 
He flounders from place to place, shaking the prey as he 
goes, and stirs up such a cloud from the bottom, that the 
beauty of the scene is spoiled for an hour; at the end 
of which time you will probably find him gorging the 
prog, half of which still protrudes from his mouth, while 
