GYMNOTUS, OR ELECTRIC EEL. 601 



with, from distance to distance, assemblages of fishes com- 

 pletely distinct from each other. 



Still more curious, perhaps, is the intensity with which 

 life is manifested in these waters. All the rivers in Europe, 

 from the Tao^us to the Volo^a, do not nourish a hundred and 

 fifty species of fresh- water fishes ; and yet in a little lake near 

 Manaos, called Lago Hyanuary, the surface of which hardly 

 covers four or five hundred square yards, more than two hun- 

 dred distinct species were discovered, the greater part of which 

 have not been observed elsewhere. 



GYMNOTUS, OR ELECTRIC EEL. 



In the forest pools, as well as in the marshy ponds and 

 slow-flowing rivers of the Llanos, numbers of huge serpent- 

 like heads may be seen bobbing above the surface ; or a huge, 

 thick-bodied, yellow, snake-like creature may be caught sight 

 of gliding through the water. It is the gymnotus electricus, 

 or electric eel, — one of the many curious inhabitants of this 

 region, — from two to five, and even eight feet in length. 

 Though really a fish, it resembles the eel, but is stouter in its 

 proportions. It is nearly equal in thickness throughout. It 

 has a rude, depressed, and obtuse head, and a compressed tail. 

 So great is the electric power it possesses, that when m full 

 vigour it is able to kill the largest animal, when it can un- 

 load its electric organs in a favourable direction. All other 

 fish, knowing by instinct the deadly eflfects of its stroke, fly 

 from the formidable gymnotus. When fish are struck, or any 

 animals which enter the pools inhabited by gymnoti — to drink, 

 or cool their bodies, heated by the burning sun of the Llanos — 

 they become stupified, and thus easily fall a prey to the elec- 

 trical tyrant. 



