Rivers at the foot of the Boutan Mountains. 277 



It inhabits jheels and slow running streams near the hills, 

 living principally in the banks, into which it penetrates 

 from one foot to six. The * tubes' leading from the water 

 into the banks, are generally a few inches below the surface 

 of the water,* and are consequently filled with water, and 

 terminate in a basin where the fish remains. The usual 

 mode of catching them is by introducing the hand into these 

 recesses under the water, two fish are generally found to- 

 gether, and they lie coiled up horizontally like a wheel. 

 It is not believed that they bore their own holes, but that 

 they occupy the abandoned locations of land crabs. When 

 in the water-pools or streams, they always remain close to 

 the margin, and constantly move out and into their holes. 

 " They never leave the water, nor can they move on grass 

 more than any other fish." 



Under an impression, perhaps, that no fish are formed 

 to live out of water, Dr. Campbell may have thought it 

 necessary to obtain the foregoing information, in order to 

 reconcile with his own views, what appeared to him to be 

 an exception to a general law of nature. But there are eight 

 genera of the same family of fishes to which the bur a Chang 

 belongs, all specially formed for an amphibious mode of life. 

 They constitute what Cuvier calls, the family of Labrynthi- 

 form Pharangeals, from the circumstance of their pharangeal 

 bones being formed into a kind of honeycomb, for the reten- 

 tion of a supply of water to enable them to live in dry places. 



The following is the account of the family in question, as 

 given by the Baron Cuvier in the Histoire Naturelles des 

 Poissons : — 



" The family of which we are about to afford a history, is 

 remarkable for a peculiar structure, which consists of a 

 division into leaflets of a portion of the pharangeal bones. 



* This we should suppose would depend on the season and state of the river, 

 as hill streams rise and fall so continually, that they never can he said to have 

 any fixed level. 



