er pursued by wolves.

The perai, fortunately, lie only off sand-beaches and in quiet pools,
not frequenting the cataracts, where their presence would be anything
but acceptable to the men when working in the water. I was fortunate
enough to find the spawning-place of some perai on the matted clusters
of fibrous roots of some lianes, which hung from the branches of a tree
into the water, among which much earthy sediment had collected and many
small aquatic plants had grown. The sediment gave weight to the roots,
which kept the clusters under water, and the force of the current made
them buoyant, giving the lianes a slope when the river was high, which
kept them not far from its surface. My attention was attracted to them
by two perai lying close to them, with their heads up-stream, as the men
said, engaged in watching their eggs. Procuring one of the roots I
examined it, and found among it numbers of single eggs and clusters of
small jelly-like young, which had been already hatched. The eggs were
white and about one-eighth of an inch in diameter, with a hard exterior.
The young were very little larger, and had a glutinous surface, which
caused them to adhere together on being taken from the water. They had
not acquired any powers of locomotion, but could just wriggle their
tails like tadpoles. Under a lens they resembled the egg devoid of
its covering, with a gelatinous ridge around three-quarters of its
circumference, one of which expanded into a knob (probably the head),
while the other termination was flattened and tail-like. I could not
detect any eyes or mouth in them, but their bodies were speckled with
gray markings of coloring matter....

In hauling the boats up the shallow rapids near the mouth of the Cutari
the men, whilst wading, were frequently struck by conger eels. Every now
and then a man would call out "Congler, congler," and jumping into the
boat rub his shins, which had been benumbed by a touch from one of these
fish. After half a minute or so the numbness wore off and he took to the
water again. The boat being in a critical condition at the time, it was
impossible for the men to leave the water. They had therefore to brave
out the shocks from these batteries, which must have been very slight,
given probably by small eels, or they could not have stood them.

Small long-bodied fish were very common, and one kind, called courami,
took the baited hook as long as the fisherman who threw the line was out