228 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 fectorales ; 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 ap- 

 parently 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 con- 

 taining 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 very fast in our 

 ponds and stews. Linnaeus ranks this species of fish 

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

 auratus. 



Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful 

 way ; for they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large 

 hollow space within, that does not communicate with it. 

 In this cavity they put a bird occasionally ; so that you 

 may see a goldfinch or a linnet hopping as it were in the 

 midst of the water, and the fishes swimming in a circle 

 round it. The simple exhibition of the fishes is agreeable 

 and pleasant ; but in so complicated a way becomes 



