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of the fish with their fingers, at an inch distance, 

 and press it simultaneously, sometimes one, 

 sometimes the other will receive the shock. In 

 the same manner, when one insulated person 

 holds the tail of a vigorous gymnotus, and another 

 pinches the gills, or pectoral fin, it is often the 

 first only by whom the shock is received. It did 

 not appear to us, that these differences could 

 be attributed to the dryness or dampness of our 

 hands, or to their unequal conducting power. 

 The gymnotus seemed to direct it's strokes 

 sometimes from the whole surface of it's body, 

 sometimes from one point only. This effect in- 

 dicates less a partial discharge of the organ 

 composed of an innumerable quantity of leaves ; 

 than the faculty which the animal possesses^ 

 perhaps by the instantaneous secretion of a 

 fluid spread through the cellular membrane, of 

 establishing the communication between it's 

 organs and the skin only, in a very limited 

 space. 



Nothing proves more strongly the faculty, 

 which the gymnotus possesses, of darting and 

 directing it's stroke according to it's will, than 

 the observations made at Philadelphia, and re- . 

 cently at Stockholm*, on gymnoti rendered 



* By Messrs. Williamson and Fablberg. The following 

 account is given by the latter gentleman in an interesting 

 note, published in the Fetensk. Acad, nya Handl., quart. 2, ; 



