OF SELBORNE. 247 



drop from them. That they are best 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 

 themselves with their pinnce 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 immoveable : 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 sup- 

 port 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 it's 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. 

 Linnceus 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 



