nel from the Persian Gulf;* it goes as far south as New Holland and the Australian seas; but it is said never to have been found in the Mediterranean, and appears to have been unknown to Aristotle. Pliny mentions it as a river fish, preferred to all marine ones by the inhabitants of Gaul. It traverses the whole length of the largest rivers. It reaches Bohemia by the Elbe, Switzerland by the Rhine, and the Cordilleras of America by the mighty Maragnon, or river of the Amazons, whose course is nearly 3000 miles. In temperate climates, the salmon quit the seas early in spring, when the waves are driven by a strong wind against the river currents. It enters the rivers of France, in the beginning of the autumn-in September; and in Kamtschatka and North. America still later. 66 They rush into rivers that are freest from ice, or where they are carried by the highest tide, favored by the wind; they prefer those streams that are most shaded. They leave the sea in numerous bands, formed with great regularity. The largest individual, which is generally a female, takes the lead, and is followed by others of the same sex, two and two, each pair being at the distance of from three to six feet from the preceding one; next come the old, and after them the young males, in the same order. "The noise they make in their transit, heard from a distance, sounds like a far-off storm. In the heat of the sun, and in tempests, they keep near the bottom; at other times, they swim a little below the surface. In fair weather, they move slowly, sporting as they go, at the surface, and wandering again and again from their direct route; but, when alarmed, they dart forward, with such rapidity, that the eye can scarcely follow them. They employ only three months in ascending to the sources of the Maragnon, the current of which is remarkably rapid,-which is at the rate of nearly forty miles a day; in a smooth stream, or lake, their progress * It is somewhat surprising to see this ridiculous fable gravely mentioned, even as a report, by so judicious a naturalist as Mr. Kirby.H. D. I. 21 VII. Their tail is a very would increase in a fourfold ratio. powerful organ, and its muscles have wonderful energy; by placing it in their mouth, they make of it a very elastic spring; for, letting it go with violence, they raise themselves in the air to the height of from twelve to fifteen feet, and so clear the cataract which impedes their course; if they fail in their first attempt, they continue their efforts till they have accomplished it. The female is said to hollow out a long and deep excavation in the gravelly bed of the river, to receive her spawn, and, when deposited, to cover it up; but this admits of some doubt. "Among the migrations of fishes, I must not neglect those, which take place in consequence of the water in the ponds or pools that they inhabit being dried up. Some of these are very extraordinary, and prove, that when the Creator gave being to these animals, he foresaw the circumstances in which they would be placed, and mercifully provided them with the means of escape from dangers to which they would be necessarily exposed. "In very dry summers, the fishes, that inhabit the above situations, are reduced often to the last extremities, and endeavor to relieve themselves, by plunging, first their heads, and afterwards their whole bodies, in the mud, to a considerable depth. * * * "But others, when reduced to this extremity, desert their native pool, and travel in search of another, that is better supplied with water. This has long been known of eels, which wind, by night, through the grass, in search of water, when so circumstanced. Dr. Hancock, in the Zoological Journal, gives an account of a species of fish, called, by the Indians, the flat-head hassar, and belonging to a genust of the family of the Siluridans, which is instructed by its Creator, when the pools in which they * If it be true that the salmon which frequents the waters of the Maragnon can clear a cataract of fifteen feet in height, in the manner stated by Mr. Kirby, it must be a much more powerful and active fish than the species found in the British rivers.-H. D. + Doras. commonly reside, in very dry seasons, lose their water, to take the resolution of marching by land, in search of others in which the water is not evaporated. These fish, which grow to the length of a foot, travel in large droves with this view; they move by night, and their motion is said to be like that of the two-footed lizard.* A strong serrated arm constitutes the first ray of its pectoral fin. Using this as a kind of foot, it should seem, they push themselves forward, by means of their elastic tail, moving nearly as fast as a man will leisurely walk. The strong plates which envelope their body, probably facilitate their progress, in the same manner as those under the body of serpents, which, in some degree, perform the office of feet. It is affirmed, by the Indians, that they are furnished with an internal supply of water, sufficient for their journey." Mr. Kirby mentions some other tribes of migrating fishes; and, among these, one found in Tranquebar, by Daldorff, which not only creeps upon the shore, but even climbs the fan-palm, in pursuit of certain crustaceans which form its food. Its structure is admirably adapted to this extraordinary instinct. The lobes of its gillcovers are so divided and armed, as to be employed together or separately, as hands, for the suspension of the animal, till, by unsheathing its dorsal and anal fins,which at other times it folds up into the cavity of its body,—and, fixing them in the bark, it prepares to take another step. How curious are these contrivances, and how varied the resources of the Author of Nature! The instances now mentioned, however, are, in reality, no more worthy of attention than the instincts of those animals with which we are most familiar. We are only more surprised and impressed with them, on account of their peculiarity. The hand of a wonder-working God is every where. * Bipes. Kirby's Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. pp. 116-122. NINTH WEEK-THURSDAY. MIGRATION OF EELS. THE following observations of Sir Humphrey Davy, in his Salmonia,' on the migration of eels, are too curious to be omitted. "There are two migrations of eels, one from, and the other to, the sea: the first, in spring and summer; the second, in autumn, or early in winter :—the first, of very small eels, which are sometimes not more than two, or two and a half inches long; the second, of large eels, which sometimes are three or four feet long, and weigh from ten to fifteen, or even twenty pounds. There is great reason to believe, that all eels found in fresh water are the results of the first migration.* They appear, in millions, in April and May, and sometimes continue to rise as late even as July and the beginning of August. I remember this was the case in Ireland, in 1823. It had been a cold backward summer; and when I was at Ballyshannon, about the end of July, the mouth of the river, which had been in flood all this month, under the fall, was blackened by millions of little eels, about as long as the finger, which were constantly urging their way up the moist rocks by the side of the fall. Thousands died; but their bodies remaining moist, served as a ladder for * Mr. Mudie, in his volume on the Sea,' observes, that the brackish water at the mouth of rivers is warmer, by two or three degrees, than the water either in the sea itself, or in the river, a circumstance which he accounts for, by the chemical action of the saline substances in the sea on the fresh water. He supposes that eels and other kinds of fish, resort to estuaries, on account of the warmth; and he adds, that, “in the case of the eel, this heat brings forward the spawn till it is ready to be deposited in the manner in which it is done by the generality of oviparous fishes:" and he considers this to be proved by the fact, "that the young eels are observed ascending the rivers in great numbers, during the following season, while no young eel is, at the same time, found either descending the stream, or crossing the river."Mudie's Sea, p. 68. ---- others to make their way; and I saw them ascending even perpendicular stones, making their road through wet moss, or adhering to some eels that had died in the attempt. Such is the energy of these little animals, that they continue to find their way, in immense numbers, to Loch Erne. The same thing happened at the Fall of Bann, and Loch Neagh is thus peopled with them. Even the mighty Fall of Schaffhausen, does not prevent them from making their way to the Lake of Constance, where I have seen many very large eels. "There are eels in the Lake of Neufchatel, which communicates by a stream with the Rhine; but there are none in the Leman Lake, because the Rhone makes a subterraneous fall below Geneva; and though small eels can pass by moss, or mount rocks, they cannot penetrate limestone, or move against a rapid descending current of water, passing, as it were, through a pipe. Again, no eels mount the Danube from the Black Sea; and there are none found in the great extent of lakes, swamps, and rivers, communicating with the Danube, though some of these lakes and morasses are wonderfully fitted for them; and though they are found abundantly in the same countries, in lakes and rivers connected with the ocean and the Mediterranean; yet, when brought into confined water in the Danube, they fatten and thrive there. "As to the instinct which leads young eels to seek fresh water, it is difficult to reason: probably they prefer warmth; and, swimming at the surface, in the early summer, find the lighter water warmer, and likewise containing more insects, and so pursue the courses of fresh water, as the waters from the land, at this season, become warmer than those of the sea. Mr. Couch says, (Lin. Trans., part 14, p. 70,) that the little eels, according to his observation, are produced within reach of the tide, and climb round falls to reach fresh water from the sea. I have sometimes seen them, in spring, swimming in immense shoals in the Atlantic, in Mount Bay, making their way to the mouths of small brooks and rivers. When the cold water from the autumnal floods begins to |