124 ABSENCE OF ATTRACTION. 



pressing wet sticks of sealing-wax against the organs of the 

 fish, while the same animal gave me the most violent 

 strokes, when excited bv means of a metallic rod. M. Bon- 

 pland received shocks, when carrying a gymnotus on two 

 cords of the fibres of the palm-tree, which appeared to us 

 extremely dry. A strong discharge makes its way tli rough 

 very imperfect conductors. Perhaps also the obstacle which 

 the conductor presents renders the discharge more painful. 

 I touched the gymnotus with a wet pot of brown clay, 

 without effect ; yet I received violent shocks when 1 carried 

 the gymnotus in the same pot, because the contact was 

 greater. 



When two persons, insulated or otherwise, hold each 

 other's hands, and only one of these persons touches the 

 fish with the hand, either naked or armed with metal, the 

 shock is most commonly felt by both at once. However, it 

 sometimes happens that, in the most severe shocks, the 

 person who comes into immediate contact with the fish 

 alone feels them. "When the gymnotus is exhausted, or in 

 a very reduced state of excitability, and will no longer emit 

 strokes on being irritated with one hand, the shocks are 

 felt in a very vivid manner, on forming the chain, and em- 

 ploying both hands. Even then, however, the electric shock 

 takes place only at the will of the animal. Two persons, 

 one of whom holds the tail, and the other the head, cannot, 

 by joining hands and forming a chain, force the gymnotus to 

 dart his stroke. 



Though employing the most delicate electrometers ic 

 various ways, insulating them on a plate of glass, and receiv- 

 ing very strong shocks which passed through the electro- 

 meter, I could never discover any phenomenon of attraction 

 or repulsion. The same observation was made by M. Fahl- 

 berg at Stockholm. That philosopher, however, has seen 

 an electric spark, as Walsh and Irigenhousz had ^ before 

 him, in London, by placing the gymnotus in the air, and 

 interrupting the conducting chain by two gold leaves pasted 

 upon glass, and a line distant from each other. No person, 

 on the contrary, has ever perceived a spark issue from the 

 body of the fish itself. We irritated it for a long time 

 during the night, at Calabozo, in perfect darkness, without 

 observing any luminous appearance. Having placed four 



