350 FISHES. [Cuar. X. 
Tranquebar, have contributed their authority to the fact 
of this fish ascending trees on the coast of Coromandel, 
an exploit from which it acquired its epithet of Perca 
scandens. Da.porr, who was a lieutenant in the Danish 
East India Company’s service, communicated to Sir 
Joseph Banks, that in the year 1791 he had taken this 
fish from a moist cavity in the stem of a Palmyra palm, 
that grew near a lake. He saw it when already five 
feet above the ground struggling to ascend still higher ; 
—“ suspending itself by its gill-covers, and bending its 
tail to the left, it fixed its anal fin in the cavity of the 
bark, and sought by expanding its body to urge its way 
upwards, and its march was only arrested by the hand 
with which he seized it.” ! 
There is considerable obscurity about the story of this 
ascent, although corroborated by M. Jonny. Its motive 
for climbing is not apparent, since water being close at 
hand it could not have gone for sake of the moisture 
contained in the fissures of the palm; nor could it be in 
search of food, as it lives not on fruit but on aquatic 
insects? The descent, too, is a question of difficulty. 
1 Transactions Linn. Soc. vol. 
jii. p. 63. It is remarkable, how- 
ever, that this discovery of Dal- 
dorf, which excited so great an 
interest in 1791, had been antici- 
pated by an hoe voyager a 
thousand years before. Abou-zeyd, 
the compiler of the remarkable 
MS. known since Renaudot’s trans- 
lation by the title of the Travels of 
the Two Mahometans, states that 
Suleyman, one of his informants, 
who visited India at the close of 
the ninth century, was told there 
of a fish which, issuing from the 
waters, ascended the coco-nut palms 
to drink their sap, and returned to 
the sea. ‘On parle d’un poisson 
de mer qui, sortant de l’eau, monte 
sur la cocotier et boit le sue de la 
plante; ensuite il retourne 4 la 
mer.” See Remavp, Iélations 
des Voyages faits par les Arabes et 
Persans dans le neuviéme siécle, 
tom. i. p. 21, tom. ii. p. 93. 
? Kirby says that it is “in pur- 
suit of certain crustaceans that 
form its food” (Bridgewater Trea- 
tise, vol i. p. 144); but I am not 
aware of any crustaceans in the 
island which ascend the palmyra or 
feed upon its fruit. The Birgus 
latro, which inhabits Mauritius, 
and is said to climb the coco-nut 
