A N A B A S. 



respondence between structure and habit, which 

 forms so beautiful a part of natural history, was but 

 little understood or attended to ; and, as was the case 

 in many other matters, instances of the most perfect 

 design and adaptation, were described as prodigies, 

 or departures from the ordinary course of nature. 

 The monsters with which the fertile imaginations of 

 the ancients peopled all countries which were imper- 

 fectly known, had all probably some foundation in 

 nature ; and were it possible to trace them to these, 

 it would be both amusing and instructive amusing 

 to see upon what slight foundations fancy can build 

 its structures, and instructive in preventing us from 

 falling into similar errors upon subjects with which 

 we are but imperfectly acquainted. 



.Fishes of this family are adapted to those climates 

 where the seasons are divided into rainy and dry, 

 much of the surface flooded, or covered with pools of 

 water during the first, but parched up during the 

 second. During the rains and floods there is, of 

 course, abundance of fishes' food in the waters ; and 

 it is a law of nature, that where there is abundance of 

 food, there will be a corresponding abundance of 

 consumers. Those creatures on which the fishes 

 feed, are of much more rapid growth than the fishes. 

 Many of them are in the egg state during the drought, 

 in which state they can, without injury, bear a very 

 great degree of dry heat ; and others of them are 

 deep in the earth. The state of these last, during 

 the arid season, is not well known ; but it is pro- 

 bable that they remain inactive, just as snails and 

 slugs do with us when the weather is dry. At all 

 events, the water is peopled almost as soon as it 

 falls to the ground, and the fishes soon come to the 

 feast. 



This rapid stocking of the waters upon what was 

 only a few days previously a parched desert without 

 any living creature, no doubt led to the vulgar beliel 

 of the spontaneous generation of the myriads of small 

 animals, and the raining of fishes from the sky, though 

 there may be instances in which the latter are taken 

 up by water-spouts, in like manner as dust and leaves 

 are taken up by whirlwinds upon land. 



The doctrine of spontaneous, or equivocal genera- 

 tion, though subversive of the very foundations oi 

 rational philosophy, appears to be one which flits 

 onward before the progress of knowledge, and at- 

 taches to one subject as soon as another is freed from 

 its influence. It is easy to see the reason ; we con- 

 found the relation of coexistence with that of succes- 

 sion, and thus call the one of two accompanying 

 phenomena the cause of the other ; and if we fine 

 this still done in matters of which our knowledge is 

 imperfect, we must not expect that more ignorant 

 ages could be more philosophic than ours. We see 

 the larger steps of the process, but the little ones are 

 concealed, and so we treat them as if they were non- 

 existent. It is not long since the belief of the actua 

 production of animalcul* by infusion was pretty ge- 

 neral ; and now that more careful observation has 

 disproved it, at least in many of the species, the 

 restless spirit of speculation has taken up a sort o 

 theory of the spontaneous vitality of the elementary 

 monade of matter. [See ANIMALCULA.] If this dis- 

 position to make things their own causes (and that is 

 the direct and immediate effect of the doctrine) is 

 kept in its own place, there is no harm. Its place is 

 the unknown ; and though it may be somewhat sinu 

 ous and screw-like, it is " the screw of the augre," by 



vhich that instrument is drawn forward, and enabled 

 o open a passage for the direct and straightforward 

 ight. 



When the creatures multiply so fast, as they do in 

 he seasonal waters of the tropical countries, there is 

 always a disposition to attribute them to the weather, 

 or the othej palpable and striking circumstances 

 under which they occur. We have all heard of 

 'blight winds" and "insect-breezes," as the actual 

 jarents of the? pests of our vegetation ; and we find 

 he birds that keep them down, endowed with much 

 more wonderful powers than the fishes under consi- 

 deration. When the season requires it, the bird flies 

 uideless to Africa; and as the season again comes 

 round it returns true to its time. 



The portions of the earth which require fishes 

 capable of locomotion upon land are peculiar India, 

 tropical America, and some other places. As much 

 of the flood water there passes off by evaporation, 

 the fishes cannot follow the flood so easily as in more 

 temperate countries ; but they make their way from 

 pool to pool ; so that not more of them are stranded 

 and perish by drought than in the floods of our own 

 rivers upon the meadows. 



Of the genus Anabas, there is only one known 

 species, Anabas testudineus,i\\c climbing perch (Perca 

 scandens) of the older naturalists, which is represented 

 on the preceding page. 



The leading characters are, the appendages to 

 the pharynx much produced and complicated ; the 

 body round ; the head large and obtuse ; the mouth 

 small; the body covered with large strong scales; 

 the gill-lid and margin of the gill-opening strongly 

 toothed, and the gill-flap without any tooth, and 

 consisting of five rays. The dorsal and anal fins 

 consist of many spinous rays. They are found in 

 all those places of India which are adapted to their 

 habits. 



Their colours are, dull green on the upper part, 

 fading into paler on the sides, and yellowish below. 

 The dorsal fin consists of seventeen spinous rays; the 

 anal of eight ; the pectorals, which are obtuse, of 

 twelve each ; and the caudal of six, with one spinous 

 ray in each. The time of breeding and most of the 

 habits are very imperfectly known ; as indeed are the 

 habits of most of the animals which are affected by 

 the monsoons, or other changes of wet and dry in 

 tropical climates. The seasonal waters no sooner 

 come than they are fully inhabited with living crea- 

 tures, from the most minute water insect to the largest 

 wading bird. Many of them are migratory, retiring 

 to the shores and estuaries of the rivers, as is the 

 case with the adjutants [see ADJUTANT] ; and others 

 flitting from country to country, as the cranes ; but 

 there are many which have not the means of migra- 

 tion, and indeed have no place to which they can go. 

 A creature fitted for living in the shallow fresh water 

 which stagnates in every hollow during the rains, 

 could not live in the sea, or in the running waters, 

 even if it had the means of getting there. The 

 annual animals, or those which, like the insects, pass 

 through a dormant or chrysalis state before they arrive 

 at their perfect form, are no doubt in that state, or in 

 the egg (in which most of the smaller animals can be 

 preserved for years under even great variations of 

 temperature), proof against the ordinary seasonal 

 changes of any part of the world. Mollusca and 

 reptiles too, and other species which live for several 

 years, and do not undergo changes, have their periods 



