46 The Natural History of the Mahseer. CHAP. in. 



their gills, which are their lungs, for the purpose of getting out of the 

 water the oxygen contained in it. By the very same process a fish 

 sucks in a mouthful of water, and with it the fly sitting on it, and down 

 goes the fly, down the little Maelstrom thus created. In the same way 

 probably does the Mahseer suck up the detached molluscs, his peculiar 

 formation of mouth enabling him to do it from the bottom where 

 another fish could not. 



To test their power of sucking up, I have fed them at a place where 

 they were accustomed to be fed, and tempted them nearer and nearer, 

 till they were well within observation, and having then thrown in a good 

 handful of rice, so that much of it must sink to the bottom before they 

 could get it, I watched them taking it off the sandy bottom. They 

 sucked it up with great rapidity, so that it wanted close observation, but 

 I watched them very carefully for some time, and distinctly saw the 

 upper lip thrust out from its socket, and brought down over the rice, 

 and then there was a clear act of suction for each grain, though the 

 grains were taken up one after another nearly as fast as a fowl picks up 

 corn. The fish the while were not swimming level in the water, but 

 with their tails just enough inclined upwards to allow the pectoral fins 

 to work without touching the bottom. The pectoral fins were so near 

 the bottom that the motion contributed to the water by each vibration 

 stirred up the fine sand, but they did not touch the bottom. By the 

 suction from the mouth, however, I could not perceive that any sand at 

 all was disturbed. They picked up the single grains of rice cleanly and 

 cleverly, and quickly. 



The Mahseer, then, is an accomplished bottom feeder. But as he is 

 so not by means of a mouth formed for feeding off the bottom only, 

 but by means of an upper lip which he can extrude or not at will, we 

 see that the mouth shows adaptability for feeding at various depths at 

 pleasure. 



The means by which the large crabs, shells, and other hard sub- 

 stances are reduced to a mass of small pieces by the Mahseer is 

 doubtless the formidable set of teeth in the throat. Every carp has 

 teeth in its throat, placed so far down that they are not visible in the 

 mouth ; but the teeth of the Mahseer's throat are unusually formidable, 

 and the bones out of which they grow are beautifully formed with a 

 great surface at the back for the muscles to play upon, and that not 

 directly, but with the advantage of a good leverage. If any blas'e 



