358 



FISHES. 



[Chap. X. 



those at home, subsist upon insects, but as they inhabit 

 a region where the equable temperature admits of the 

 pursuit of their prey at all seasons of the year, unlike 

 those of Europe, they never hybernate. A similar ob- 

 servation applies to bats, which are dormant during a 

 northern winter when insects are rare, but never become 

 torpid in any part of the tropics. The bear, in like 

 manner, is nowhere deprived of its activity except when 

 the rigour of severe frost cuts off its access to its accus- 

 tomed food. On the other hand, the tortoise, which in 

 Venezuela immerses itself in indurated mud during the 

 hot months shows no tendency to torpor in Ceylon, 

 where its food is permanent; and yet it is subject to hy- 

 bernation when carried to the colder regions of Europe. 



To the fish in the detached tanks and pools when the 

 heat, by exhausting the water, deprives them at once of 

 motion and sustenance, the practical effect must be the 

 same as when the frost of a northern winter encases 

 them in ice. Nor is it difficult to believe that they can 

 successfully undergo the one crisis when we know beyond 

 question that they may survive the other. 1 



Hot-water Fishes. — Another incident is striking in 

 connection with the fresh-water fishes of Ceylon. I have 

 described elsewhere the hot springs of Kannea 2 , in the 



1 Yarreix, vol. i. p. 364, quotes 

 the authority of Dr. J. Hunter in 

 his Animal (Economy, that fish, 

 "after being frozen still retain so 

 much of life as when thawed to 

 resume their vital actions ;" and 

 in the same volume (Introd. vol. i. 

 p. xvii.) he relates from Jesse's 

 Gleanings in Natural History, the 

 story of a gold fish (Cyprinus 

 auratus), which, together with the 

 water in a marble basin, was frozen 



into one solid lump of ice, yet, on 

 the water being thawed, the fish 

 became as lively as usual. Dr. 

 Richardson, in the third vol. of 

 his Fauna Borealis Americana, 

 says the grey sucking carp, found 

 in the fur countries of North 

 America, may be frozen and thawed 

 again without being killed in the 

 process. 



2 See Sir J. Emerson Tennent's 

 Ceylon, &c, vol. ii. p. 496. 



