A WEB-SPINNING FISH. 185 



them their daily bread in the form of tadpoles, little 

 fishes, frogs, and aquatic insects, but a bed on which, 

 while other birds are roosting high in air on the trees, 

 they rest, floating lightly as a cork, their legs drawn 

 up to the edges of their wings and their heads and 

 necks comfortably buried in their plumage between 

 their back and shoulders, and quietly sleep. 



A WEB-SPINNING FISH 



AND HER NEST. 



Among nest-making fishes the oddest-looking, 

 without exception, is the antennarius. A celebrated 

 naturahst says of it : 



" It is one of those strange wild forms that some- 

 times occur in ISTature, and which are so entirely op- 

 posed to all preconceived ideas, that they appear rather 

 to be the composition of human ingenuity than beings 

 actually existing. The traveler who first discovered 

 this remarkable fish would certainly have been disbe- 

 lieved if he had contented himself with making a 

 drawing of it, and had not satisfied the rigid scrutiny 

 of scientific men by bringing home a preserved speci- 

 men." 



Not only do these fish differ from all members of 

 their family of other species, but they vary so ex- 

 tremely among themselves that hardly two specimens 

 are found sufficiently alike in form and color to en- 

 14 



