THE EOMANCE OF NATUKAL HISTORY. 



at the top of the loftiest peak of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains in North America, the height of which is 

 13,568 feet. Dr. Hooker, in the Himalaya range, 

 found insects plentiful at 17,000 feet; butterflies 

 of the genera Colins, HipparcMa, Melitsea, and 

 Polyommntus, besides beetles, and great flies. 

 Humboldt saw butterflies among perpetual snow 

 at yet loftier elevations in the Andes of Peru, but 

 conjectured that they had been carried thither in- 

 voluntarily by ascending currents of air. And the 

 same great philosopher, when ascending Chim- 

 borazo, in June, 1802, with Bonpland and Mont- 

 ufar, found winged flies {Diptera) buzzing around 

 him at the height of 18,225 feet; while a little 

 below this elevation Bonpland saw yellow butter- 

 flies flying over the ground. 



I shall close this category with two examples of 

 animal life in unwonted situations, less scientifi- 

 cally curious it may be than those already ad- 

 duced, but more amusing. That fishes should fly 

 in the air is strange enough, but we should 

 scarcely expect that they would verify their ge- 

 neric name* by going to bed out of water. Yet 

 Kotzebue was favoured with such an unexpected 

 bedfellow : — 



"The nights being warm," observes the voyager, 

 "we always sleep on deck, to recover ourselves 

 from the heat of the day, a circumstance which 

 occasioned me one night a very unexpected visit. 

 I was awakened by the eonstant motion of a very 

 cold animal at my side, which, when it writhed 

 in my hand, I first took to be a lizard. This, I 

 thought, might perhaps have been brought on 

 board at Chili, with the wood. But, on examin- 



* Exocoetus, the name of the flying-fish, from «£i», out, and 

 /coirau), to sleep. The Greeks fancied that the fish left the 

 water to sleep. 



88 



