50 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



would very soon have reached it, had they not been secured 

 by the Malays who accompanied our correspondent, and who 

 looked upon the migration as an ordinary occurrence at this 

 season of the year. Upwards of twenty were thus taken 

 during a walk of about half a mile, and no doubt many more 

 could have been obtained had the Malays been allowed a 

 little delay. The ground these fish were traversing was 

 nearly level, and only scantily clothed with grass and creeping 

 salolaceous plants, which offered very slight obstruction to 

 their progress. This singular habit will account for the 

 rapidity with which the paddy fields in Province Wellesley 

 become stocked with fish when they are flooded by the rains. 

 The lagoons from which they come contain water throughout 

 the year, while those toward which they are going are mere 

 hollows, filled by the late rains.' " 



Although digestion in fish is rapid, they are capable of 

 living longer without food than land vertebrates, and appa- 

 rently suffer little from an abstinence of many days. Fish of 

 quick growth digest food rapidly. It is said that a Pike will 

 digest a fish of one-fourth its length in forty minutes. If this 

 be so, it sufficiently accounts for the circumstance of this and 

 other predatory species being found so often without food in 

 their stomachs, and little or nothing in their intestines. 



It is yet a mystery, how Shad fatten and increase in flavor 

 after their appearance in fresh water ; no food ever having 

 been detected in their stomachs after leaving salt water. The 

 same emptiness of stomach is also common to the Salmon 

 when taken in fresh water : this peculiarity appears to prevail 

 with anadromous fish. 



The several species of the genus Goregonus (Whitefish) 

 of our northern lakes, are also said to be found generally 

 with empty stomachs. There is a theory adopted by many, 

 that such fish as the last mentioned, as well as the Shad, live 



