Some Curious Fishes
I don’t suppose you think there are any fishes that can either walk or live any time out of water. Yet there are.
The gurnard is one of the most important of the walking fish. M. Deslongchamp had an artificial fish-pond on the shores of Normandy, in which several of these creatures were. When he waded in the pond, he could easily see all their movements.
On one occasion, when he was watching them in this way, he saw them close their fins against their sides, and walk along the ground by means of six slender legs, three on each pectoral fin. By these they can walk very fast.
The square-browed malthe can also walk, and can live out of water. Sometimes it spends two or three days creeping over the land. The reason that all fishes cannot stay out of water is because they are so made that they have to breathe air through water. All fishes are this way, but some can carry water in their gills both for breathing and drinking purposes for several days.
The grouper fish is very queer in that it will swallow such curious things, which you would not think it could possibly digest. One was caught on the coast of Queensland which, when opened, was found to have in its stomach two broken bottles, a quart pot, a preserved milk-tin, seven crabs, a piece of earthenware encrusted with oyster shells, a sheep’s head, some mutton and beef bones, and some oyster shells.
There is a crab in the Keeling Islands, that lives on the land all day, returning to the water only at night to moisten its gills. It also eats cocoanuts, opening the shell with its huge claws, and the natives of the islands say that it climbs the trees to get them. This, however, is not known.
Thus we see that there are some very curious fishes; yet none of them have mind, and are not to be compared with man. Let us be thankful, then, that God made us human beings, and not fishes.