The flesh or muscle of fishes is usually white, but it often assumes a pink colour in the case of those fishes that feed largely on crustaceans. This is due to the presence of a substance in the horny or calcareous skins of the crustaceans that is turned red by the action of the digestive fluids--the same substance that is turned red when the crustaceans are boiled. This is notably the case with the salmon; but the red pigment thus derived originally from the crustaceans frequently shows itself more in the skin of the fish than in the flesh, as observed in the common red gurnard. Most fishes possess a membranous bag containing air, situated just below the backbone, and known as the air-bladder; but this organ does not exist in sharks and rays and in some of the heavier bony fishes that live on the bottom. The air-bladder is capable of being compressed by the action of certain muscles, and its principal use seems to be the adjustment of the specific gravity of the fish to that of the surrounding water; but it is interesting to note that the development of this air-bladder is precisely the same as that of the lungs of air-breathing animals, and that in some fishes which live in foul muddy waters it is really a functional lung by means of which the fishes can breathe direct from the atmosphere. We can find space to refer only to one other internal structure of the fish, namely, the roe of the female. This usually consists of a very large number of eggs of small size, sometimes numbering many thousands, and even millions, in a single individual. So numerous, indeed, are the eggs, that were it not for the multitudes of carnivorous animals that devour both eggs and fry, the sea and fresh-water lakes and rivers would soon become so thickly populated that the fish would die in millions for lack of food and air. In some cases, however, the eggs are much larger and fewer in number, but these are generally protected from the ravages of predaceous species by a hard covering, as we shall observe in the sharks and rays. Finally, a word or two must be said about the distribution of fishes. We have already referred briefly to species that live principally at the surface, and others that make the bottom their home: but some of the former go to the bottom for food or to deposit their spawn, while some of the latter occasionally rise to the surface and swim in shoals. We have noticed, too, that the paired fins of bottom fishes are sometimes modified into feelers, or into fingerlike processes adapted for creeping. Similar organs, employed undoubtedly as organs of touch, and called barbels or barbules, are often developed on the chins or jaws of these fishes.