228 The Natural History 



sparingly, lest, turning sour, it corrupt the water. They 

 will also feed on the water-plant called k7nna (duck's 

 meat), and also on small fry. 



When they want to move a little they gently protrude 

 themselves with their pmnce. pcctoraUs ; but it is with 

 their strong muscular tails only that they and all fishes 

 shoot along with such inconceivable rapidity. It has 

 been said that the eyes of fishes are immoveable : but 

 these apparently turn them forward or backward in 

 their sockets as their occasions require. They take little 

 notice of a lighted candle, though applied close to their 

 heads, but flounce and seem much frightened by a 

 sudden stroke of the hand against the support whereon 

 the bowl is hung; especially when they have been 

 motionless, and are perhaps asleep. As fishes have 

 no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when they are 

 sleeping or not, because their eyes are always open. 



Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl 

 containing such fishes : the double refractions of the 

 glass and water represent them, when moving, in a 

 shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, 

 and colours; while the two mediums, assisted by the 

 concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort 

 them vastly; not to mention that the introduction of 

 another element and its inhabitants into our parlours 

 engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner. 



Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of 

 China and Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to 

 our climate as to thrive and multiply very fast in our 

 ponds and stews. Linnaeus ranks this species of fish 

 under the genus of cyprinus^ or carp, and calls it cyprinus 

 auratus. 



Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful 

 way; for they cause a glass bowl to be' blown with a 

 large hollow space within, that does not communicate 

 with it. In this cavity they put a bird occasionally ; so 

 that you may see a goldfinch or a linnet hopping as it 

 were in the midst of the water, and the fishes swimming 

 in a circle round it. The simple exhibition of the fishes 

 is agreeable and pleasant ; but in so complicated a way 



