Fishes Traveling by Land

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Dr. Hancock, in the "Zoological Journal," gives a description of a fish called the " flat head hassar," that travels to pools of water when that in which it has resided dries up. Bose also describes another variety, which is found in South Carolina, and, if our memory serves us well, in Texas, which, like the "flat head," leaves the drying pools in search of others. These fishes, filled with water, travel by night, one with a lizard-like motion, and the other by leaps. The South Carolina and Texas varieties arc furnished with a membrane over the mouth, by which they are enabled to carry with them a supply of water, to keep their gills moist during their travel. Guided by some pecnliar sense, they always travel in a straight line to the nearest water. This they do without the aid of memory, for it has been found that if a tub filled with water is sunk in the ground near one of the pools which they inhabit, they will, when the pool dries up, move directly toward the tub. Surely this is a wonderful and merciful provision for the preservation of these kind of Lj fish j for, inhabiting as they do, only stagnant tj, pools, and that too, in countries subject to long *V and periodical droughts, their races would, Mb, but for this provision, become extinct.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 13 Issue 48This article was published with the title “Fishes Traveling by Land” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 13 No. 48 (), p. 377
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican08071858-377a

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