Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1893 — Fishes That Do Not Move. [ARTICLE]

Fishes That Do Not Move.

A groat many of our well-known fishes do not move from Christmas to Easter, and often for a much longer period. I paid a visit to the chief Canadian fish hatchery, which is under the superintendence of Mr. Wilmot, at Newcastle, Ont., early in December. In some of the tanks were carp, and in others were eels. One large eel was in the form of a letter 8, aud poised midway in the water; when I returned to Newcastle, early in March, the eel had not changed its place or its form, and Mr. Wilmot assured me that it had not moved in all that time. The carp lay close to the bottom of the tanks, and did not move either. They like to go into deep, reedy lakes or ponds, get close to the bottom, and remain there till the ice above their heads has melted Unless they are disturbed, I doupt if some of these hibernating fishes move so much as a fin during the winter. A frog will remain for four months, looking apparently into the heavens with wide-opened eyes, without once moving them or any other portion his body. At the New York Hospital they related to me a curious occurrence bearing on the hibernation of fishes. In the conservatory in the upper part of the building they had several glass jars in which were gold-fish, which is a species of carp. One morning the caretaker found a jar broken and the water frozen through and through, the fish, of course, being as rigid as ice. The lump was taken away and thrown into an old rubbish barrel, where it remained several weeks. One March day the sun was unusually strong audit split the cylinder of ice, but what was the astonishment of the caretaker to see the tail of a fish wriggling out of a part of the broken block. The actual freezing had not killed the fish, which was removed to another tank, where it swims about as if nothing had befallen it.—[Our Animal Friends.