THE CLIMBING FISHES. ig a 



no longer flow as before into the innumerable small vessels with 

 which they are interwoven, and, by rapidly drying in the air, 

 they soon entirely lose the faculty of breathing. Thus those 

 fishes whose gill-cover has a large aperture, die soonest in the 



The Anabas of the Dry Taoucs. 



air, while those where the opening is narrow, and more parti- 

 cularly those species where the gills communicate with a 

 cellular labyrinth containing water, which serves to keep them 

 moist, are able to live a much longer time in the atmosphere. 



Frog-Fish.— ^Cheironectes.) 



It is owing to such a moistening apparatus that the climbing 

 fishes (Anabas) live for days out of the water, and even creep up 

 the trees at some distance from the shore, to catch the insects 

 which serve them as food — a curious instance indeed of an 

 animal seeking its nourishment in another element- 



