100 LOCOMOTION OF FISHES. 



height of the actual leap which they can take has, 

 however, been much exaggerated ; for unless there 

 be parts in the fall where the fish can attain a tem- 

 porary resting-place, and gain another spring, they 

 cannot surmount a cataract of any great height : in 

 some places, these temporary resting-places are 

 taken advantage of to take the fish by various 

 contrivances. And it is on record, as an appendage 

 to one of the princely monasteries of old, that a 

 pot was placed in such a position near the fall, and 

 supplied with fuel, as sometimes to receive the fish 

 which missed their leap, and which, falling into 

 the vessel, caused a bell to be rung, and themselves 

 intimated, that they might soon be placed on the 

 dinner-table. 



Another fish, almost equally celebrated as a 

 voltigeur, is the sturgeon ( Acipenser sturio)* 

 which, in its migrations up the American rivers, 

 is often observed to leap to the height of several 

 yards perpendicularly from the surface of the water, 

 falling back again with so much violence, as some- 

 times to sink the small canoes of the Indians ; who, 

 accordingly, stationing themselves in larger boats, 

 frequently employ this means of capturing it. 



Next to the tail or caudal fin, the pectoral fins 

 in fishes are of most importance in their locomotion. 

 These comprise, in a rudimentary form, the same 

 parts as are met with in the arm, fore-arm, wrist, 

 and hand of man, and the ventral fins, in a still 

 more rudimentary form, many of those which are 

 found in the inferior extremity ; and as the former 



