Miscellaneous. 275 



air the bubbles which he emits beneath his frothy roof after having 

 englobed them (in order to prevent their being absorbed) with the 

 mueosity furnished by his buccal membrane. The mucous secretion 

 does not seem to be formed in such abundance in the Gourami ; 

 hence my male found himself under the necessity of preparing his 

 materials beforehand, then collecting those which appeared to him 

 to fulfil the desired conditions, and carrying them to his nest. For 

 this purpose he kept at the surface of the water, turning his back to 

 the nest, and, drawing in the outer air, expelled it by degrees in 

 front of him in the form of gaseous bubbles. The badly prepared 

 bubbles burst, and there only remained those the envelope of which 

 possessed the suitable consistency ; these he then collected and 

 carried into his nest. 



At times the buccal secretion seemed to slacken, and the male 

 could no longer elaborate his globules. He then descended to the 

 bottom of the water to seek for some Confervse, which he sucked 

 and chewed for a few moments as if to excite and reawaken the ac- 

 tivity of the mucous membrane. 



The nest being completed, the male watched it with patient care, 

 and whenever the female apppoached it he displayed his brilUant 

 colours. At a given moment his body, by several simulated ap- 

 proaches, having acquired sufficient flexibility, he caught the female, 

 and caused her to perform a first spawning ; others speedily followed, 

 and were renewed nearly forty times in three hours. 



A Macropodus or a Colisa would not have been embarrassed about 

 collecting the eggs and arranging them in the nest. My Gourami 

 did not appear to understand taking them in his mouth ; and in order 

 to raise them to the surface he made use of a most curious stratagem. 

 He rose to take in an abundant provision of air ; then, descending, 

 he placed himself well below the eggs, and suddenly, by a violent 

 contraction of the muscles of the interior of the mouth and pharynx, 

 he compelled the air collected there to escape by the gill- apertures. 

 This air, infinitely divided by the branchial lamellae and fringes, was, 

 so to speak, pulverized ; and the violence of the expulsion was such that 

 it escaped in the form of two jets of a regular gaseous powder, which 

 enveloped the eggs and conveyed them to the surface. 



Nothing could be more curious to witness than this manoeuvre of 

 the male Gourami. He disappeared completely in the midst of a 

 regular fog of air ; and when the latter broke up he reappeared, 

 bearing attached to the rugosities of his scales and fin-rays bubbles 

 of air resembling thousands of little pearls. 



The number of eggs produced during this spawning may be esti- 

 mated at two or three thousand, out of which I only obtained six 

 hundred hatchings, most of the eggs not having imdergone the action 

 of the fecundating principles. 



The first period of incubation lasts three days ; and then com- 

 mences a series of modifications analogous to those which I have 

 already noticed in other species. The tadpole swims with its belly 

 in the air, and has the form of a ball terminated by a little tail"; 

 but after another period of three days (that is to say, six days afte r 



