Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/124

110 experiments were instituted to ascertain the fact. We know that it is the case with one species inhabiting the same seas, but so different in its structure as to form a genus by itself, the Archer of Java (Toxotes jaculator, .). The mouth is not at all tubular, nor is it produced into a snout, the gape is rather wide, and the lower jaw is longer than the upper, a mouth totally different from that of Chelmon, yet it has exactly the same habit. "It well merits," observe MM. Cuvier and Valenciennes, "the name of Archer, by its singular industry. It knows how to shoot drops of water to a great height, three feet and upwards, and to reach, almost without failure, the insects, or other minute animals, which creep on the aquatic plants, or even on those that grow upon the shore. The inhabitants of many countries of the Indies, especially the Chinese of Java, rear it in their houses to amuse themselves with its manœuvres, and offer it ants or flies on threads and sticks within its reach. We have received from Batavia an individual, the stomach of which was entirely filled with ants."

It is probable that this is by no means the constant habit of procuring food even with this species, but that they more commonly content themselves with the minute animals which, like themselves, inhabit the sea-water. The learned naturalists just quoted, found, on dissecting a second specimen of the Toxotes, that the stomach was filled with small crustacea. We have watched the proceedings of a brilliant little Chætodon on the shores of Jamaica (Ch. striatus),—a tiny creature, no larger than a five-shilling