MUD-SKIPPERS 375 



their guardians become very uneasy. So long as 

 there are a pair of them there is not so much 

 trouble, but, when one only is in charge, it often 

 has very hard work before it can get its flock 

 gathered together again. The little fish, owing to 

 their small size, can turn round much more quickly 

 and in much smaller spaces than their agitated 

 attendant, whose anxiety becomes so evident as to 

 be quite touching. The ungainly haste with which 

 it hurries from place to place, here trying to check 

 the progress of one part of the shoal, and there 

 endeavouring to hurry up the loiterers, makes one 

 quite unhappy until it has safely attained its end. 

 The behaviour of the large fish is certainly very 

 suggestive of parental anxiety and supervision, but 

 it may be that its motive is of a purely selfish and 

 commensal origin, and that the apparent affection 

 is merely owing to a desire to keep the fry together 

 because they are useful in disturbing and driving 

 out prey from inconvenient shallows and tangled 

 growths of weeds. 



In gardens actually abutting on the river, the 

 banks and ghats of the latter, and the margins 

 of closely adjoining* ponds are often haunted by 

 throngs of common mud-skippers, Periopthalmi (Plate 

 XXII. ). They are most entertaining creatures, and 

 much time may be happily spent in the study of their 

 quaint ways. Their re-appearance on the banks of the 

 river in autumn is one of the regular signs that the 



