ICHTHYOLOGY. 7 



Professor James Kennie lias a chapter, illustrated with 

 diagrams, on the " Strength of Fish/' in bis Alphabet 

 of Scientific Angling. A screw propeller of a modern iron- 

 clad is but a toy compared with the caudal fin of some 

 fish, say of the barbel. The Fecundity offish, their habits 

 of Spawning, and the laws which influence them, are 

 again almost inexhaustible topics of interest. 



For their wondrous construction, and adaptation to their 

 conditions of existence, fish, as I have already intimated, 

 are in my opinion the most interesting creatures in the 

 animal world, and by no means tbe least beautiful. For 

 beauty of symmetry and colouring several of our British 

 fresh-water fish are conspicuous, while we are not troubled 

 by those strange and hideous monstrosities found in other 

 waters. Nor, again, can we boast many " queer" fish, such 

 as the "flour fish" of China, with its black eyes; or the 

 strange variety of carps which have been produced by " cul- 

 ture'" in the "Flowery Land," in the shape of gold fish with 

 tails manifold, and other abnormal developments ; or the 

 " crying fish" of that same wonderful country, and the 

 " swimming cow," or " tree-climbing perch " (Anabas 

 Scandens — why have naturalists given this fish two names, 

 one from the Greek the other from the Latin, both meaning 

 the same thing — "a getting up stairs" ?), or the curious 

 fish of Guiana, " with four eyes, two on each side, one pair 

 of which it keeps above and the other below the water as 

 it swims;" or Siamese-twin fish, a specimen of which is 

 recorded to have been caught in Canadian waters in 1 833 ; 

 but we have the " Croaking Trout" of the Carraclwddy 

 pools in Wales, which certainly do utter something like a 

 " croak " when taken, a peculiarity accounted for by some 

 as the effects of their bewitchment by the monks of Strata 



