374 OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS 



be divided by a fine trellis of varnished iron wire, into as many 

 divisions as there are Malapterurus to be kept, for these animals 

 carry on violent battles, in which they chase each other, bite one 

 another and will not let go their hold, and thus naturally wear 

 themselves out. They also attack other fish furiously and kill them 

 with electric shocks (see the following- section). Whether they dis- 

 charge electric shocks in their battles with each other, I do not 

 know. 



It fortunately proved yery easy to feed the fish. As, in the 

 specimen in spirits of wine which reached Edinburgh, the in- 

 testine contained remains of fresh water Crustacea, an effort was 

 made both there and here to procure similar kinds (gammarus, 

 asellus, daphnia, etc.) for them. But as this was difficult, earth- 

 worms were tried in Edinburgh as food, and as this was successful, 

 worms were given to the fish here also, so long as there were any to 

 be had, in the autumn. One of them took the worms out of the 

 pincers, swallowed them down without giving them a shock, with 

 a quick sucking motion, and rose to the surface as if asking 

 for more, so that one might consider it as, to a certain extent, 

 tame. When later in the year we fell short of worms, the idea 

 occurred to Graff, the keeper, to give the fish strips of beef like 

 worms, and they not only devoured them eagerly, but this food 

 also evidently agreed with them very well ; perhaps even better 

 than worms, which generally swarm with parasites, and which 

 therefore were discontinued also in summer for later consignments 

 of fish. 



Exact information is wanting as to how the Malapterurus ac- 

 complished the journey from Africa to Scotland. They were 

 brought here from Scotland or England, each one singly with some 

 water-plants in a gold-fish bowl with a cover of basket-work, which 

 fitted so exactly that the cover seemed as if plaited over the bowl. 

 It was hung up by the handle of the cover in the cabin or the railway 

 carriage. The water-plants answered the purpose of lessening the 

 shaking of the water and protecting the fish from knocks. 



3. Natural History. Habits of the Malapterurus. 

 With the aid of the rich material of the Berlin collections, Herr 

 Peters, who had observed the living Malapterurus in South-east 

 Africa, answered in the negative the question, whether that from 



1 Monatsberichte, etc., 1868, p. 121 ; Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mozam- 

 bique, etc., Zoologie IV, Flussfiache. Berlin, 1868, 4. p. 41. 



