They even seem to scent ponds or lakes mysteriously,
at a distance, and will strike boldly straight across country, to sheets
of water wholly cut off from communication with the river which forms
their chief highway.
The full-grown eels are also given to journeying across country in a
more sober, sedate, and dignified manner, as becomes fish which have
fully arrived at years, or rather months, of discretion. When the ponds
in which they live dry up in summer, they make in a bee-line for the
nearest sheet of fresh water, whose direction and distance they appear
to know intuitively, through some strange instinctive geographical
faculty. On their way across country, they do not despise the succulent
rat, whom they swallow whole when caught with great gusto. To keep their
gills wet during these excursions, eels have the power of distending the
skin on each side of the neck, just below the head, so as to form a big
pouch or swelling. This pouch they fill with water, to carry a good
supply along with them, until they reach the ponds for which they are
making. It is the pouch alone that enables eels to live so long out of
water under all circumstances, and so incidentally exposes them to the
disagreeable experience of getting skinned alive, which it is to be
feared still forms the fate of most of those that fall into the clutches
of the human species.
A far more singular walking fish than any of these is the odd creature
that rejoices (unfortunately) in the very classical surname of
Periophthalmus, which is, being interpreted, Stare-about.
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