io NATURK STUDY. 
electrical fishes were passing, and an electric eel had 
stepped out of line and given me a slight handshake. For¬ 
tunately for me, the fish was a small one, for had it been 
like some others in the 
procession—three or four 
feet long—I should have 
been thrown down by the 
shock. The electric eel 
is larger and stronger than 
any other electrical fish. 
I wished for the presence 
of our wizard, Edison, for 
here were all sorts of elec¬ 
trical fish. There was the 
cramp-fish, with its round 
flattened body of reddish 
brown color with eye-like 
spots of dark blue in the center. It carries an apparatus 
shaped like a half-moon placed on each side of the mouth 
of the respiratory organs, which produces violent electric 
shocks to any one so careless as to touch it. 
“Next on the program came various kinds of flying 
fish, with fins nearly the 
length of their bodies, 
acting as parachutes rath¬ 
er than wings. They 
swam in shoals, from 12 
to 100 in number, and oft- 
ten left the water togeth¬ 
er, darting through the 
air in the same direction, 
usually going but two or 
three feet above the sur¬ 
face, returning into the 
water at a distance of 200 yards from where they rose, but 
