Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-01-19
FISH WITH STRANGE HABITS
FOUND IN JUNGLES OF SIAM
Males of One Variety Keep
Eggs 6 to 8 Weeks Until
Hatched.
Another Kind Actually Shoots
Insects With Drop
of Water.

Discovery of some of the worlds
queerest fish in the dense mountain
jungles of Northern Siam is reported by
DR.. Hugh NJ. Smith, scientific adviser
in fisheries to the Siamese government.
Dr. Smith, who formerly was United
States commissioner of fisheries, now is
on his way back to Siam after spending
several months in Washington. During
the past few years he has made extern
Sive explorations of remote sections OF
the country, seeking natural history
specimens.
Among the fish with the most bizarre
habits. he says, are many kinds OF cat
fish, whose eggs are carried in the mouth
of the male until they are Matched.
Then the fry remain in the fathers
mouth until they are able to swim away
and get their own food. The mother
apparently drops out of the picture once
the eggs are laid. Usually fish lay
enormous numbers of eggs and leave
them for nature to hatch In this case
one female lays only a few and these
are as large as the end OF mans
thumb.
Hatch in 6 to 8 Weeks.
From six to eight weeks are required
for Matching. During this period the
male eats nothing DR.. Smith believes
ii is physiologically impossible for him
to eat. Ordinarily the catfish is one
of the most voracious eaters in the ami
NAL kingdom. The male comes through
the ordeal extremely emaciated.
Whatever the origin of this strange
phenomenon, DR.. Smith says, something
like it is necessary for the preservation
CT the race The river waters in which
these fish live have a soft-mud bottom.
If the eggs were laid there they would
soon be suffocated with mud and silt or
deyoured by such creatures as crabs and
snakes. An unsolved puzzle is how the
eggs are passed from the mother to the
father, but DR. Smith believes this Is
partly explained by the structure OF her
ventral fins, which enables her to hold
the eggs for some time until the father
takes them. He found a maximum OF
40 in the mouth of one male.
In the Mekong River. the great boun-
Diary river between Siam and French
o-China, he found one variety Of
catfish nearly three meters long. This
giant is not yet in any collection. DR..
Smith believes it is an overgrown form
of some more common species, but that
its great size has brought about physi-
cal notifications so that it is hard to
identify. 1t has no teeth, which are
conspicuous in all other members of the
family. Instead, its powerful jaws and
arc uSCu 4O1 CIOPR11lH d46uC
from stones in the streams. All that is
found in its stomach is vegetable mat
ter with occasional stones some as large
as a mans fist, which it has swallowed
accidentally.
Shooting Fish" Studied.
This creature has some Importance
as food fish. One fishery, due to an
cient superstition, is operated only three
days in February following the full
moon. DR.. Smith observed this fishery
in 1928 when a mushroom village of
about 5000 persons sprang up overnight
and 800 boats, each with two or three
men, fished with gill nets. French and
Siamese officials were present and spe-
cial buildings were erected for their
families and staffs But the total haul
of the three days was only four hSh.
This particular species, he says, has
probably been described before, but he
has found another, which also attains
| a maximum of three meters, apparently
| unknown to science.
DR.. Smith has made q special study
Of the behavior of the shooting fish, IS
perhaps the strangest Of all inhabitants
| of .SiameSe waters. He Is convinced
that it actually shoots"
Its characteristic feeding habit" DR..
Smith says, lis to propel a drop of
water at insects on overhanging vege-
| tation, the sides of boats, etc. When
about to shoot It comes to the surface