by the water;
because, though they seem to eat nothing, yet the consequences of eating
often drop from them. That they are best pleased with such _jejune_ diet
may easily be confuted, since if you toss them crumbs they will seize
them with great readiness, not to say greediness; however, bread should
be given sparingly, lest, turning sour, it corrupt the water. They will
also feed on the water-plant called _lemna_ (ducks' meat), and also on
small fry.

When they want to move a little, they gently protrude themselves with
their _pinnae pectorales_; but it is with their strong muscular tails
only that they and all fishes shoot along with such inconceivable
rapidity. It has been said that the eyes of fishes are immovable; but
these apparently turn them forward or backward in their sockets as
occasions require. They take little notice of a lighted candle, though
applied close to their heads, but flounce and seem much frightened by a
sudden stroke of the hand against the support whereon the bowl is hung;
especially when they have been motionless, and are perhaps asleep. As
fishes have no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when they are sleeping
or not, because their eyes are always open.

Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl containing such fishes; the
double refractions of the glass and water represent them, when moving, in
a shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours;
while the two mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex shape of the
vessel, magnify and distort them vastly; not to mention that the
introduction of another element and its inhabitants into our parlours
engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner.

Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of China and Japan, yet
are become so well reconciled to our climate as to thrive and multiply
very fast in our ponds and stews. Linnaeus ranks this species of fish
under the genus of _cyprinus_, or carp, and calls it _cyprinus auratus_.

Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful way; for they
cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large hollow space within, that
does not communicate with it. In this cavity they put a bird
occasionally; so that you may see a goldfinch or a linnet hopping as it
were in the midst of the water, and the fishes swimming in a circle round
it. The simple exhibition of the fishes is agreeable and pleasant: but
in so complicated a way becomes whimsical and unnatural, and liable to
th