Fish and Their Fabulous Neighbors 



[181 



A FISH OUT OF WATER 



One of the most remarkable oddities of the fish world is the climbing perch, which 

 can survive for several days out of water. Equipped with pectoral fins that are 

 sturdy enough to act as legs, the climbing perch "walks" on land and has even 

 been known to climb low tree trunks. 



SEA HORSES NATURE'S ECCENTRICS 



The sea horse, despite its name, is a fish, and strictly a 

 swimming fish at that; but its method of swimming is amusingly 

 different. Children delight in seeing a group of them in a public 

 aquarium, moving through the water with an appearance of great 

 dignity head upright, fins at the back. Any onlooker is bound 

 to be convulsed with laughter when the sea horse rolls its eyes; 

 for a sea horse can look straight ahead with one eye and backward 

 with the other at the same time. 



But these features by no means exhaust the eccentricities of 

 this odd little fish. (It averages about three inches in length.) The 

 eggs of the sea horse are incubated in a pouch that belongs to the 

 male not the female. The mother sea horse transfers her eggs to 

 the pouch as soon as they are produced; and there they stay until 

 they hatch. 



