ther from sickness, or sulkiness, he refused
food of every description, and is said to have eaten nothing from the day
he was taken, in March, 1838, to the 19th of the following October. He was
confided upon his arrival to the care of Mr. Bradley, who placed him in an
apartment the temperature of which could be maintained at about
seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit, and acting upon the suggestions of Baron
Humboldt, he endeavored to feed him with bits of boiled meat, worms,
frogs, fish, and bread, which were all tried in succession. But the animal
would not touch these. The plan adopted by the London fishmongers for
fattening the common eel was then had recourse to; a quantity of bullock's
blood was put into the water, care being taken that it should be changed
daily, and this was attended with some beneficial effects, as the animal
gradually improved in health. In the month of October it occurred to Mr.
Bradley to tempt him with some small fish, and the first gudgeon thrown
into the water he darted at and swallowed with avidity. From that period
the same diet has been continued, and he is now fed three times a day, and
upon each occasion is given two or three carp, or perch, or gudgeon, each
weighing from two to three ounces. In watching his movements we observed,
that in swimming about he seems to delight in rubbing himself against the
gravel which forms the bed above which he floats, and the water
immediately becomes clouded with the mucus from which he thus relieves the
surface of his body.

When this species of fish was first discovered, marvelous accounts
respecting them were transmitted to the Royal Society: it was even said
that in the river Surinam, in the western province of Guiana, some existed
twenty feet long. The present specimen is forty inches in length; and
measures eighteen inches round the body; and his physiognomy justifies the
description given by one of the early narrators, who remarked, that the
Gymnotus "resembles one of our common eels, except that its head is flat,
and its mouth wide, like that of a cat-fish, without teeth." It is
certainly ugly enough. On its first arrival in England, the proprietors
offered Professor Faraday (to whom this country may possibly discover,
within the next five hundred years, that it owes something) the privilege
of experimenting upon him for scientific purposes, and the result of a
great number of experiments, ingeniously devised, and executed with great
nicety, clea