GENERAL REMARKS ON PISH. 49 



surface of the ground produces a stock of Carp; thus keeping 

 up an alternation of crops — fish and vegetables. 



The ability of a fish to retain its vitality out of water, 

 depends in a great degree on keeping the delicate tissue of its 

 gills wet. For this reason, a few of them have a peculiar 

 construction in the head, in which water is retained after 

 leaving a river or lake ; the gills being kept wet by percola- 

 tion from this reservoir. Such fish sometimes have also the 

 power of using the lower fins as feet or legs, and are enabled, 

 by these two singular gifts of nature, to pass over land from 

 one body of water to another. Incredible as it may appear, 

 it is even said, that in India, there is a species of fish that by 

 an extraordinary use of its fins can climb trees. A friend, 

 who is curious on such subjects, has handed me the following 

 account of those that travel over land ; it was clipped from 

 one of our daily papers. 



" Sir Emmerson Tennant's account of fishes walking across 

 the country, has excited much astonishment and no little 

 incredulity in England. The following passage from the 

 Penang Gazette, is singularly corroborative of that gentleman's 

 statement : — 



" 'A correspondent in Province Wellesley informs us that 

 while passing along during a shower of rain, the wide sandy 

 plain which bounds the sea-coast in the neighborhood of 

 Panaga, he witnessed a singular overland migration of Ikan 

 Puyu (a fish much resembling the Tench in size, form, and 

 color), from a chain of fresh- water lagoons lying immediately 

 within the sea-beach, toward the second chain of lagoons, about 

 a hundred yards distant inland. The fish were in groups of 

 from three to seven, and were pursuing their way in a direct 

 line towards a second chain of lagoons, at the rate of nearly a 

 mile an hour. "When disturbed they turned round and endea- 

 vored to make their way back to the lagoon they had left, and 

 4 



