30 Fish taking food by suction. Chapt. hi. 



catch a grain of falling rice or other light substance in 

 his hand in a hath. If he moves his hand quickly, the 

 motion will be communicated through the water to the 

 object, which will consequently evade his grasp. How else 

 could a trout take down a water-bred fly that sits jaunti- 

 ly on the water ready to rise again if alarmed. I have 

 seen Mahseer sucking in their food in countless crowds 

 at places where they were habitually fed by the worship- 

 pers and priests at a native temple, and have heard their 

 loud sob-like noise as they sucked in air as well as water 

 in their hurry to secure the grains in the scramble. Dr. 

 Frank Buckland has written something about certain tame 

 codfish doing much the same. Anybody who has watched 

 gold fish in a globe will have seen them constantly suck- 

 ing in water, drinking it as people used to think in the 

 dark ages, really breathing it, that is sucking it in, and 

 passing it through their gills, which are their lungs for 

 the purpose of getting out of the water the oxygen con- 

 tained in it. By the very same process a fish sucks in a 

 mouthful of water, and with it the fly sitting on it, and 

 down goes the fly, down the little Maelstrom thus created. 

 In the same way probably does the Mahseer suck up the 

 detached molluscs, his peculiar formation of mouth enabl- 

 ing him to do it from the bottom where another fish could 

 not. 



To test their power of sucking up, I have fed them at a 

 place where they were accustomed to be fed, and tempted 

 them nearer and nearer, till they were well within observ- 

 ation, and having then thrown in a good handful of rice, so 



