RANDOM READING

Thames Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 14791, 24 April 1914, Page 7

RANDOM READING

SINGING FISH,

, (Prom time to time travellers *n Iwxious parts of the world have told hits of strange music rising: from the ."water around the boat in which they jffct, and this strange music has been .attributed to fishes. The sounds resemble the muffled tones of an organ, the sweetest piping treble blended with the lowest bass, or else one long note like the distant rolling of a drum. ■Two or three variations of this fish have been found, some round Ceylon, in the sea water, others near Borneo in fresh water, and others again near Bombay, and the Bay of Naples. The drummer fish of North America is best known, perhaps. It grows to the length of about four or five feet, and travels about in shoals. ■ The sound is said to be made by an airbladder and the action of the upper and lower teeth, with which three moveable plates in the gullet are armed; but it is not known whether they produce this sound when feeding or only at certain seasons of the year. There is a little fish, too, in the seas round Burma which, when irritated, inflates itself to a ridiculous size and croaks like a frog. Its mouth is like that of a turtle, and it can nip very severely with its mandibles. . Another singing fish, more rare tlian the other two varieties mentioned, is that heard round the Bocas Islands, Trinidad, near Bombay, or occasionally in the Bay of Naples, This fish lives in unfrequented shallows, estuaries, and muddy creeks, where Europeans rarely go, and resembles the fresh-water perch of Europe, It is about lOin. long, and white in colour, wit): bluish spots. It begins to sing at sunset and continues all the night, and it is believed that the sound is only made when the fish is. attached to some object by a little projection from the back of the head, and that it cannot make any sound while swimming. It is suggested, too, that to these fishes might be attributable the legends of sirens and sea-nymphs that sang in caves and lured brave mariners to their doom.