ANIMAL NOTABLES 173 



fish. When the skin is cast off, vivid little spots of red 

 appear on the body, so that some people have said that 

 the fish is a small trout. This is not the case (although 

 they are now used as bait for trout) ; the kakawai was 

 well known to the natives ages before trout were intro- 

 duced from England ; well known, although the name by 

 some chance has been missed in making the Maori dic- 

 tionaries, just as naturalists have missed noticing the 



fish. 



EDWARD TEEGEAE. 



January 12, 1901. 



NOTE. I assume without, I fear, possessing the neces- 

 sary special knowledge that this fish belonged to the 

 Dipnoi or lung-breathing fishes, though not the famous 

 Periophthalmus. It is, at any rate, a stout example of the 

 insurgence of life on the one hand, and its plasticity on 

 the other. How indomitable is life, filling nearly every 

 corner of the world, overcoming all difficulties, adapting 

 itself to all conditions, smoothing away the harshest 

 frowns of adverse circumstance, a flaming spirit worthy 

 of our reverence in reflecting upon it and joy in beholding 

 it ! It is like faith that removes mountains, and charity 

 that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all 

 things, endureth all things. Fishes have colonized the 

 " abyssal " depths of the sea a plantless world, where 

 reigns eternal darkness, eternal winter, and eternal 

 silence. A little bivalve bores into rocks ; a perch can 

 climb trees ; the cactus stores its own water in the 

 arid desert ; some dipterous insects can live in hot 

 springs ; a spider which drowns in water lives under the 

 Mediterranean, builds a dome-shaped nest, and fills it 

 with air brought from the surface ; a fox flies ; eels cross 

 meadows. No wonder that the beauty we enjoy in all 

 these things, and indeed in all nature, outside the 

 parasites, has been interpreted as our satisfaction in a 

 vicarious victory of mind over matter. 



