THE CLIMBING FISHES. 193 
no longer flow as before into the innumerable small vessels with 
which they are interwoven, and, by rapidly drying in the air, 
they soon entirely lose the faculty of breathing. Thus those 
fishes whose gill-cover has a large aperture, die soonest in the 
The Anabas of the Dry Tanks. 
air, While those where the opening is narrow, and more parti- 
cularly those species where the gills communicate with a 
cellular labyrinth containing water, which serves to keep them 
moist, are able to live a much longer time in the atmosphere. 
Frog-Fish.—,Cheironectes.) 
It is owing to such a moistening apparatus that the climbing 
fishes (Anabas) live for days out of the water, and even creep up 
the trees at some distance from the shore, to catch the insects 
which serve them as food—a curious instance indeed of an 
animal seeking its nourishment in another element. 
