276 THE GYMNOTUS. 



shocks of the gymnotus have upon other individuals of 

 its own species, though it would only be in accordance 

 with the general law of nature, that it should use them 

 against its own kind as well as against others. Even 

 the exhaustion which it is said to experience after 

 giving repeated shocks, is not very well explained. 

 There is not much muscular effort, to induce the lassi- 

 tude and exhaustion that take place, and the electric 

 affection is so unlike any other animal exertion with 

 which we are acquainted, that we do not very clearly 

 see what should be the effect of it. The effect upon 

 the muscles, or rather, perhaps, upon the nervous 

 energy of other animals, is very great. Humboldt 

 mentions one place where the direction of a road had 

 to be changed, in consequence of the number of bag- 

 gage mules that, while fording a river, had been killed 

 by the shocks of the gymnoti. But formidable as the 

 gymnotus is, it is not like the greater number of de- 

 stroying animals, useless when dead. The electric 

 organs are, indeed, disagreeable, or at any rate insipid ; 

 but the muscular parts are very good and wholesome, 

 and much relished by the Indians. 



The other electric fishes seem to be much more 

 simple in the construction, and inferior in the power of 

 their organs, to those that have been described ; but 

 still the organization, so far as it has been examined, 

 has some resemblance. At all events, there are suffi- 

 cient data for considering this electric action as one of 

 the natural means, both of attack and defence, with 

 which animals are furnished ; and we have occupied 

 the more space with it, on account of the very few, even 

 of the inhabitants of the water, in which it is found. 



