70 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATUKE. 



inous shoals, countless like the sand on the sea-shore and 

 the stars in heaven. They seek places that abound in 

 stones and marine plants, where to spawn, and like other 

 animals they frequent the localities, to which they have 

 become accustomed, at a regular time, so that they may 

 be expected as surely as the sun rises and sets. 



Other fishes have strange peculiarities connected with 

 their travels. Thus, we are told that the mackerels spend 

 their winter in, what would appear to others, a most un- 

 comfortable position. In the Arctic as well as in the 

 Mediterranean, as soon as winter comes, they deliberately 

 plunge their head, and the anterior part of their body, into 

 deep mud, keeping their tails erected, standing straight up. 

 This position they do not change until spring, when they 

 emerge, in incredible numbers, from their hiding-places, 

 and go southward for the purpose of depositing their eggs 

 in more genial waters. Still they are so firmly w r edded 

 to this element that they die the instant they are taken 

 out of the water, and then shine with phosphorescent 

 light. 



The eel is the strangest of travelling fishes ; he even 

 performs journeys on land. In hot, dry summers, when 

 ponds and pools are exhausted, he boldly leaves his 

 home, and winding through thick grass, makes his way, 

 by night, to the nearest water. He is a great gour- 

 mand, moreover, and loves young tender peas so dearly 

 that he will leave the river itself and climb up steep 

 banks to satisfy his desire and, alas ! to fall into the 

 snares of wicked men. Other fishes travel in large crowds 

 all night long, and a perch in Tranquebar not only 



