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Ihem crumbs, thy will seize them with great readiness, 

 not to say greediness : however, bread should be given 

 sparingly, lest, turning sour, it corrupt the water. They 

 will also feed on the water-plant called lemna (duck's 

 meat), and also on small fry. 



When they want to move a little they gently protrude^ 

 themselves with their pinnae, pedorales ; but it is with 

 their strong muscular tails only that they and all fishes 

 shoot along with such inconceivable rapidity. It has 

 been said that the eyes of fishes are immoveable : but 

 these apparently turn them forward or backward in 

 their sockets as their occasions require. They take little 

 notice of a lighted candle, though applied close to their 

 heads, but flounce and seem much frightened by a 

 sudden stroke of the hand against the support whereon 

 the bowl is hung ; especially when they have been 

 motionless, and are perhaps asleep. As fishes have 

 no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when they are 

 sleeping or not, because their eyes are always open. 



Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl 

 containing such fishes : the double refractions of the 

 glass and water represent them, when moving, in a 

 ■shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, 

 and colours ; while the two mediums, assisted by the 

 ■concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort 

 them vastly ; not to mention that the introduction of 

 another element and its inhabitants into our parlours 

 •engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner. 



Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of 

 China and Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to 

 our climate as to thrive and multiply ver>' fast in our 

 ponds and stews. Linnaeus ranks this species of fish 

 under the genus of cyprinus, or carp, and calls it cgprinus 

 tauratus. 



Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful 



