The following particulars regarding this new food fish have been printed by the Acclimatisation Society, to whom the greatest praise is due for its introduction:—Its appearance is not pleasant, the large flattened head having a capacious mouth, which is capable of seizing the largest kind of prey; so that if this fish be successfully propagated in our streams and lakes, the pike, the water-wolf of the British waters, will meet with more than its match. The habits of the _Silurus glanis_ are said to be most ferocious, and its growth, provided there be a sufficient supply of food, very rapid. The body is less elongated than the eel, and there are, stretching from the head, long tapering barbels; the eyes are frog-like, and there are many other points of resemblance to the frog. The new fish is like the eel in its habits, being a wallowing fish, fond of burrowing in the mud, and hiding amongst the rotten roots of trees. There are dark charges made against some of the largest specimens of the _Silurus glanis_, in the stomachs of which it is reported that portions of human bodies have been found. However, this is probably an exaggeration. There can, however, be no doubt of the extraordinary appetite and fierceness of this fish. In the floods of the Danube the silurus finds plentiful prey in the multitude of frogs which pass into the river; but at other times, fish, small animals, worms, indeed anything which comes near, afford a supply of food; and there may be fear that, notwithstanding the valuable qualities of the silurus as a means of supply to our tables, it may more than balance its value in this way by the immense destruction of fish which is needed for its support. It is said that the silurus, when the prey is plentiful, will attain over fifty-six pounds in four years; and Englishmen who have tasted it report that in flavour it is superior to the salmon. Specimens of the wels have been brought alive from a distance of nearly two thousand miles to the station of the society at Twickenham by the exertions of Sir Stephen Lakeman and Mr. Lowe, a gentleman who takes a great interest in all questions of natural science. In all, fourteen of these young fish were brought from Kapochien, in Wallachia, where Sir Stephen Lakeman has an estate. The Argich river, which flows past there, abounds in these and other valuable fish, which are found more or less throughout central Europe and in Scandinavia. In the Danube and many of its tributaries the number is abundant; and in those wide waters the _Silurus glanis_ is said to reach the enormous weight of three hundred pounds. CHAPTER IV. ANGLERS’ FISHES.