=Pugnacity of Fishes.=--Some fishes are very pugnacious, always ready for a quarrel with their own kind. The sticklebacks show this disposition, especially the males. In Hawaii the natives take advantage of this trait to catch the Uu (_Myripristis murdjan_), a bright crimson-colored fish found in those waters. The species lives in crevices in lava rocks. Catching a live one, the fishermen suspend it by a string in front of the rocks. It remains there with spread fins and flashing scales, and the others come out to fight it, when all are drawn to the surface by a concealed net. Another decoy is substituted and the trick is repeated until the showy and quarrelsome fishes are all secured. In Siam the fighting-fish (_Betta pugnax_) is widely noted. The following account of this fish is given by Cantor:[11] "When the fish is in a state of quiet, its dull colors present nothing remarkable; but if two be brought together, or if one sees its own image in a looking-glass, the little creature becomes suddenly excited, the raised fins and the whole body shine with metallic colors of dazzling beauty, while the projected gill membrane, waving like a black frill round the throat, adds something of grotesqueness to the general appearance. In this state it makes repeated darts at its real or reflected antagonist. But both, when taken out of each other's sight, instantly become quiet. The fishes were kept in glasses of water, fed with larvæ of mosquitoes, and had thus lived for many months. The Siamese are as infatuated with the combats of these fish as the Malays are with their cock-fights, and stake on the issue considerable sums, and sometimes their own persons and families. The license to exhibit fish-fights is farmed, and brings a considerable annual revenue to the king of Siam. The species abounds in the rivulets at the foot of the hills of Penang. The inhabitants name it 'Pla-kat,' or the 'fighting-fish'; but the kind kept especially for fighting is an artificial variety cultivated for the purpose." A related species is the equally famous tree-climber of India (_Anabas scandens_). In 1797 Lieutenant Daldorf describes his capture of an _Anabas_, five feet above the water, on the bark of a palm-tree. In the effort to do this, the fish held on to the bark by its preopercular spines, bent its tail, inserted its anal spines, then pushing forward, repeated the operation. =Fear and Anger in Fishes.=--From an interesting paper by Surgeon Francis Day[12] on Fear and Anger in Fishes we may make the following extracts, slightly condensed and with a few slight corrections in nomenclature. The paper is written in amplification of another by Rev. S. J. Whitmee, describing the behavior of aquarium fishes in Samoa.