Feeding by Suction. 45 



Of all this category the easiest food for the fisherman to present in a 

 natural form is a small fish or imitation fish. 



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 hanging 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 hand 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 fly 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 air as well as water in their 

 hurry to secure the grains in the scramble. Dr. 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 



