(* For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters,
see Derham's Physico-Theology.)



Letter LIV
To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Dear Sir,

When I happen to visit a family where gold and silver fishes are
kept in a glass bowl, I am always pleased with the occurrence,
because it offers me an opportunity of observing the actions and
propensities of those beings with whom we can be little acquainted
in their natural state. Not long since I spent a fortnight at the house
of a friend where there was such a vivary, to which I paid no small
attention, taking every occasion to remark what passed within its
narrow limits. It was here that I first observed the manner in which
fishes die. As soon as the creature sickens, the head sinks lower
and lower, and it stands as it were on its head; till, getting weaker,
and losing all poise, the tail turns over, and at last it floats on the
surface of the water with its belly uppermost. The reason why
fishes, when dead, swim in that manner is very obvious; because,
when the body is no longer balanced by the fins of the belly, the
broad muscular back preponderates by its own gravity, and turns
the belly uppermost, as lighter from its being a cavity, and because
it contains the swimming-bladders, which contribute to render it
buoyant. Some that delight in gold and silver fishes have adopted a
notion that they need no aliment. True it is that they will subsist for
a long time without any apparent food but what they can collect