The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1900-05-14
FIST fiH LUNGS
QUEER CREATURES THAT LIVE ON
$ LAND OR IN WATER.


One Specimen That Lives Buried I'M
der the River Bed During the Dry
season-India's Climbing Perch and
slams Inland Traveller.
Every one knows that most fishes
breathe In q different manner from
that Of the greater number of animals
and that they get the oxygen necessary
for their life from the water and not
directly from the atmosphere. Water
dissolves a certain-amount of oxygen,
and the gills of fishes take this out Of
the water as our lungs take it from
the mixed air we breathe. The gills
are bundles of fine blood vessels, COW
cred by o delicate membrane that per-
mits oxygen to pass through It to the
blood SO long as 1t Is moist, but usual
ly when a fish is taken out of water
the gills dry, and suffocation follows.
The gills are very thin and may be
torn or injured by slight violence. Mud,
sand, sawdust or any Of the many SIM
liar impurities In water may lacerate
or irritate them, SO nature has put Ill
tiers, like combs, just In front Of them
to strain such foreign matters out Of
the water before reaching the real gills.
These filters are called gill rakers"
and act as do the gratings put over
cutters to hold back trash that might
block them up, but the cutters graf
ings get clogged sometimes, and 80 do
the gill rakers. When this happens.
the fish must die, and 1t Is well known
that the sawdust in our streams has
been a chief factor In the destruction
OF our fresh water fishes.
But all fishes are not dependent on
their gills. Some Of them, like our
common carp and goldfish, come to
the surface now and then to take In
drafts Of air, and cells can travel over
land around dams or other 0bstruc-
tons. These efforts are trivial conf
pared with those Of some fishes found
In other parts Of the world.
These are the lung fishes, or dlpnoi,
as naturatsts call them, and the ac-
counts Of them seem to border on the
marvellous. In one group Of these ami
mails the "swimbladder" Is a kind Of
lung instead of a mere float as 1t Is in
most fishes, and In some strange fishes
in India there Is hollow space In the
skull that acts as lung, the walls Of
1t having clusters of blood vessels
about II, just as the vesicles of our
lungs have. These fishes can bury
themselves deep in the mud when the
dry season comes on and live through
1t till the rains fill the rivers again.
A fish in the Gambia river makes
cocoon Of mucus and mud, In which 1t
has been brought from Senegambia to
London, where the cocoon was gently
washed off and the fish found to be
living. The naturalist Natterer dis
covered similar fish in the Amazon,
but this one, the lepidosiren Of sci
ence, Is one Of the rarest specimens
In museums.
In the United States there is a fish,
the bowfin, that can be drowned by
stretching net below the surface Of
the water 90 that 1t cannot get to air.
DR.. Hector, the government geologist
of New Zealand, reported finding some
fish about 81 inches long among the
roots Of trees at depth of four feet
in stiff clay. The place where they
were found was some 81 feet above
the Hokitika river. where there had
been q backwater during a time Of
food. The mud fishes are common In
New Zealand. and the early settlers
were surprised to dig up fish with
their potatoes, as farmers on Long Is
land are said to be In doubt whether
their spades will unearth potatoes or
clans.
The most famous of the lung fishes
Is the climbing perch of India that has
often been. found several feet up the
These animals migrate
overland when their own streams fail
and are captured In great numbers by
the natives. to whom they are great
delicacies. Ceylon has several species
of them. The island is dotted over
with boys Of thick, chocolate colored
mud, covered by sod Of reeds and
grasses, and this mud teens with fish.
The Cingalese clear off a space and
wait till the fish come up to fill their
air bladder, when they catch them in
strong dip nets.
Sir John Bowring says that some
lung fishes in Siam 60 as much as
three miles from water and that they
have been seen tapping along dusty
road.
The lung fishes constitute wonder
full and interesting group Of animals
and show the wide range through
which nature can adapt creatures to
their surroundings. Biology is full Of
such instances, but few are more strik-
ing than this.-Washlngton Star.