Chapt. hi. Mahseer a bottom-feeder. 29 



surface of the water is little in comparison with that 

 taken under it, and at the very hottom. The fish, beetles, 

 crickets, shrimps, are all found well under water; the 

 crabs, worms, molluscs quite at the bottom; and from the 

 proportionate quantity found in them, the crabs, molluscs, 

 and fish, seem to be their favourite" food. 



This is what Paley would call "internal evidence." 

 But we have also external evidence to the same effect, 

 deducible from the formation of the outside of the mouth. 

 The four fine feelers hanging down, two on each side of 

 the mouth, which give him the scientific name of barbus, 

 or bearded, (from the Latin barba, a beard) are indica- 

 tions of a bottom feeder. 



What the thick lips are for I cannot say, but I hazard 

 the surmise that it is not impossible they are to enable 

 the fish to detach from the rocks the water-snails on which 

 they so largely feed. 



The upper lip is capable of being extended* beyond 

 the lower lip, and brought down to the same level, so as 

 to form a cup on the bottom of the stream-, and cover any 

 small body, such for instance as the aforesaid molluscs 

 detached from their hold by the upper lip, and being 

 washed rolling down the bottom of the stream. The mol- 

 luscs being thus detached and covered, are readily drawn 

 up into the mouth by suction, the process by which a fish 

 always gets his food into his mouth: for how else could 

 he do it rapidly and easily in water? Let any one try to 



* This is more markedly the case with the two brown Mahseers 

 than with the silvery blue one. 



