290 GOLD AND SILVER FISHES. 



onions were quite coated over for six days after. 

 These armies were then, no doubt, in a state of 

 emigration, and shifting their quarters ; and might 

 have come, as far as we know, from the great hop 

 plantations of Kent or Sussex, the wind being all 

 that day in the easterly quarter. They were ob- 

 served, at the same time, in great clouds, about 

 Farnham, and all along the lane from Farnham to 

 Alton 1 . 



LIV. 



WHEN I happen to visit a family where gold 

 and silver fishes are kept in a glass bowl, I am 

 always pleased with the occurrence, because it 

 offers me an opportunity of observing the actions 

 and propensities of those beings, with whom we 

 can be little acquainted in their natural state. 

 Not long since I spent a fortnight at the house of 

 a friend where there was such a vivary, to which 

 I paid no small attention, taking every occasion 

 to remark what passed within its narrow limits. 

 It was here that I first observed the manner in 

 which fishes die. As soon as the creature sickens, 

 the head sinks lower and lower, and it stands, as 

 it were, on its head; till, getting weaker, and 

 losing all poise, the tail turns over, and at last 

 it floats on the surface of the water with its 

 belly uppermost. The reason why fishes, when 

 dead, swim in that manner is very obvious; 

 because, when the body is no longer balanced by 

 the fins of the belly, the broad muscular back pre- 

 ponderates by its own gravity, and turns the belly 



1 For various methods by which several insects shift their 

 quarters, see DERHAM'S Physico- Theology. 



