is fish ascending trees on the coast of Coromandel, an
exploit from which it acquired its epithet of _Perca scandens_. Daldorf,
who was a lieutenant in the Danish East India Company's service,
communicated to Sir Joseph Banks, that in the year 1791 he had taken
this fish from a moist cavity in the stem of a Palmyra palm, which grew
near a lake. He saw it when already five feet above the ground
struggling to ascend still higher;--suspending itself by its
gill-covers, and bending its tail to the left, it fixed its anal fin in
the cavity of the bark, and sought by expanding its body to urge its way
upwards, and its march was only arrested by the hand with which he
seized it.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Fishes of the Ganges_, 4to. 1822.]

[Footnote 2: _Transactions Linn. Soc._ vol. iii. p. 63. It is
remarkable, however, that this discovery of Daldorf, which excited so
great an interest in 1791, had been anticipated by an Arabian voyager a
thousand years before. Abou-zeyd, the compiler of the remarkable MS.
known since Renandot's translation by the title of the _Travels of Two
Mahometans_, states that Suleyman, one of his informants, who visited
India at the close of the ninth century, was told there of a fish which,
issuing from the waters, ascended the coco-nut palms to drink their sap,
and returned to the sea. "On parle d'un poisson de mer que sortant de
l'eau, monte sur la cocotier et boit le suc de la plante; ensuite il
retourne a la mer." See REINAUD, _Relations des Voyages faits par les
Arabes et Persans dans le neuvieme siecle_, tom. i. p. 21, tom ii. p.
93.]

There is considerable obscurity about the story of this ascent, although
corroborated by M. John. Its motive for climbing is not apparent, since
water being close at hand it could not have gone for sake of the
moisture contained in the fissures of the palm; nor could it be in
search of food, as it lives not on fruit but on aquatic insects.[1] The
descent, too, is a question of difficulty. The position of its fins, and
the spines on its gill-covers, might assist its journey upwards, but the
same apparatus would prove anything but a facility in steadying its
journey down. The probability is, as suggested by Buchanan, that the
ascent which was witnessed by Daldorf was accidental, and ought not to
be regarded as the habit of the animal. In Ceylon I heard of no instance
of the perch ascending trees[2], but the fact is well established that
both it, the _pullata_ (a species