THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2059, 10 August 1893, Page 48

THE NATURALIST.

Fishes That Do Hot Move. A great many of our well-known fishes do not move from Christmas to Easter, and often for a much longer period. The present writer paid a visit in the winter to one of the largest fish " hatcheries " in England. In some of the tanks were carp and in others were eels. One large eel was in the form of the letter S, and poised midway in the water ; when I visited the " hatchery " again early in March, the eel had not changed its place or its form, and the curator assured me that it had not moved all that time. The carp lay close to the bottom of the tank and did not move either. They like to go into deep, reedy lakes or ponds, get close to the bottom, and remain there till the ice above their heads has melted. Unless they are disturbed, I doubt if some of these hibernating fishes move so much as a fin during the winter. A frog will remain for four months, looking apparently into the heavens with wideopened eyes, without once moving them or any other portion of his body. At the came institution they related to me a curious occurrence bearing on the hibernation of fishes. In the conservatory in the upper part of the building they had several glass jars in which were goldfish, which are a species of carp. One morning the caretaker found a jar broken and the water frozen through and through, the fish, of course, being as rigid as ice. The lump was taken away and thrown into the dustbin, wbere it remained several weeks. One March day the sun was unusually strong, and it split the cylinder of ice, but what was the astonishment of the enrator to see the tail of a fish wriggling out of a part of the broken block. The actual freezing had not killed the fisb, which was removed to another tank, where it swims about as if nothing had befallen it.