s he observes--and which is
still more surprising--"circumscribed within different limits, from
Tabalinga to Para, where the waters differ neither in temperature, nor
in the nature of their bed, nor in the vegetation along their borders.
There are met with, from distance to distance, assemblages of fishes
completely distinct from each other."

Still more curious, perhaps, is the intensity with which life is
manifested in these waters. All the rivers in Europe, from the Tagus to
the Volga, do not nourish a hundred and fifty species of fresh-water
fishes; and yet in a little lake near Manaos, called Lago Hyanuary, the
surface of which hardly covers four or five hundred square yards, more
than two hundred distinct species were discovered, the greater part of
which have not been observed elsewhere.

GYMNOTUS, OR ELECTRIC EEL.

In the forest pools, as well as in the marshy ponds and slow-flowing
rivers of the Llanos, numbers of huge serpentlike heads may be seen
bobbing above the surface; or a huge, thick-bodied, yellow, snake-like
creature may be caught sight of gliding through the water. It is the
gymnotus electricus, or electric eel,--one of the many curious
inhabitants of this region,--from two to five, and even eight feet in
length. Though really a fish, it resembles the eel, but is stouter in
its proportions. It is nearly equal in thickness throughout. It has a
rude, depressed, and obtuse head, and a compressed tail. So great is
the electric power it possesses, that when in full vigour it is able to
kill the largest animal, when it can unload its electric organs in a
favourable direction. All other fish, knowing by instinct the deadly
effects of its stroke, fly from the formidable gymnotus. When fish are
struck, or any animals which enter the pools inhabited by gymnoti--to
drink, or cool their bodies, heated by the burning sun of the Llanos--
they become stupified, and thus easily fall a prey to the electrical
tyrant.

The natives of Venezuela employ a cruel mode of catching the creatures,
which, notwithstanding their nature, they use as food. Placing but
little value on mules and horses, they collect a number of these
animals, and, armed with harpoons and long slender rods, drive them with
shouts towards a pool inhabited by gymnoti. The noise of the horses'
hoofs and the men's shrieks make the fish issue from the mud, when the
huge, hideous creatures swim on the surface of the water, and crowd
under the