30 The Natural History of the Maimer. Chaft. hi. 



It will also be observed that the food taken on the surface of 

 the water is little in comparison with that taken under it, and at 

 the very bottom, The fish, beetles, crickets, shrimps, are all found 

 well under water; the crabs, worms, molluscs quite at the bottom ; 

 and from the proportionate quantity found in them, the crabs, 

 molluscs, and fish, seem to be their favourite food. 



This is what Paley would call " internal evidence." But we 

 have also external evidence to the same effect, deducible from the 

 formation of the outside of the mouth. The four fine feelers hang- 

 ing down, two on each side of the mouth, which give him the 

 scientific name of barbus or bearded (from the Latin barba, a 

 beard), are indications of a bottom feeder. 



What the thick lips are for I cannot say, but I hazard the 

 surmise that it is not impossible they are to enable the fish to 

 detach from the rocks the water-snails on which they SO largely feed. 



The upper lip is capable of being extended beyond the lower lip, 

 and brought down to the same level, so as to form a cup on the 

 bottom of the stream, and cover any small body, such, for instance, 

 as the aforesaid molluscs detached from their hold by the upper lip, 

 and being washed rolling down the bottom of the stream. The 

 molluscs being thus detached and covered, are readily drawn up 

 into the mouth by suction, the process by which a fish always gets 

 its food into his mouth: for how else could it do it rapidly and 

 easily in water ? Let any one try to catch a grain of falling rice or 

 other light substance in his band in a bath. If he moves his hand 

 quickly, the motion will be communicated through the water to the 

 object, which will consequently evade his grasp. How else could 

 a trout take down a water-bred By that sits jauntily on the water 

 ready to rise again if alarmed. I have seen Mahseer sucking in 

 their food in countless crowds at places where they were habitually 

 fed by the worshippers and priests at a native temple, and have 

 heard their loud sob-like noise as they sucked in ail as well as 

 water in their hurry to secure the grains in the scramble. l>r. 

 Frank Buckland has written something about certain tame codfish 



doing much the, same. Anybody who has watched gold fish in a 

 globe will have seen them constantly sucking in water, drinking it 

 as people used to think in the dark ages, really breathing it, that is 

 sucking it in, and passing it through their gills, which are their 

 lungs for the purpose of netting out of the water the oxygen con- 



