XCVIII.] 



OF SELBORNE. 



263 



pleased with such jejune diet may easily be confuted, since if 

 you toss them crumbs they will seize them with great readiness, 

 not to say greediness ; however, bread should be given sparingly, 

 lest, turning sour, it corrupt the water. They will also feed 

 on the water-plant called lemna (duck's meat), and also on 

 small fry. 



When they want to move a little they gently protrude them- 

 selves with their pinnae pectorales ; but it is with their strong 

 muscular tails only that they and all fishes shoot along with 

 such inconceivable rapidity. It has been said that the eyes of 

 fishes are immovable ; but these apparently turn them forward 

 or' backward in their sockets as their occasions require. They 

 take little notice of a lighted candle, though applied close to 

 their heads, but flounce and seem much frightened by a sudden 

 stroke of the hand against the support whereon the bowl is hung ; 

 especially when they have been motionless, and are perhaps 

 asleep. As fishes have no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when 

 they are sleeping or not, because their eyes are always open. 

 Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl containing such 

 fishes : the double refractions of the glass and water represent 

 them, when moving, in a shifting and changeable variety of 

 dimensions, shades, and colours ; while the two mediums, assisted 

 by the concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort 

 them vastly ; not to mention that the introduction of another 

 element and its inhabitants into our parlours engages the 

 fancy in a very agreeable manner. 



Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of China and 

 Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to our climate as to 

 thrive and multiply very fast in our ponds and stews. Linnaeus 

 ranks this species of fish under the genus of cyprinus, or carp, 

 and calls it Cyprinus auratus. 



Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful way ; 

 for they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large hollow 

 space within, that does not communicate with it. In this cavity 

 they put a bird occasionally ; so that you may see a goldfinch or 

 a linnet hopping as it were in the midst of the water, and the 

 fishes swimming in a circle round it. The simple exhibition of 

 the fishes is agreeable and pleasant ; but in so complicated a 



