ICHTHYOLOGY. 21 



detailed account of the microscopical examination of the 

 swimming bladders of some perch which had been dead 

 fifteen hours. In the blood-vessels interlacing them the 

 blood corpuscles were observed to be still in active circu- 

 lation. Probably the chief seat of life in a fish is in the 

 spinal cord. In connexion with the tenacity of life in fish 

 is their power of preserving vitality under other "un- 

 favourable "circumstances than those I have just mentioned. 

 Sir John Franklin discovered fish perfectly frozen, but 

 afterwards capable of resuscitation, a fact which has since 

 been illustrated on many occasions. This peculiarity is, I 

 believe, confined to cold-blooded animals ; for they alone 

 can preserve vitality for any lengthened period in a 

 frozen condition. It was, however, but a few days ago 

 that I read in the newspapers (and, of course, all we read 

 in the papers must be true), an account of a man in Canada 

 being frozen into a solid mass, and brought home for dead 

 some three or four days afterwards. - His coffin was made 

 ready for him, but gradually the warmth of the domestic 

 hearth thawed him, and he soon got up and went about 

 his business. Fish in India and Ceylon live in the mud 

 of the tanks, though the top becomes thoroughly baked 

 and hardens after the water has been drawn off for many 

 weeks, and the natives consequently do their angling 

 with spades. Several of our own fish will live buried in 

 mud for a considerable time, and probably some of them 

 hybernate in this way for a longer or shorter period; but 

 this is another point which requires further investigation. 

 But whatever be the principle or seat of life in fish, and 

 whatever be their tenacity of life, certain it is that at last 

 they go the way of all flesh, and like " golden lads and 

 girls " and " chimney-sweepers come to dust," or some- 



