[Illustration]

THE COW-FISH

(FROM TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON.)

BY SIR ALFRED RUSSELL WALLACE.

[Illustration:  SKULL OF COW-FISH.]

It was a female, about six feet long, and nearly five in circumference in the thickest part.  The body is perfectly smooth, and without any projections or inequalities, changing into a horizontal semicircular flat tail, with no appearance whatever of hind limbs.  There is no distinct neck; the head is not very large, and is terminated by a large mouth and fleshy lips, somewhat resembling those of a cow.  There are stiff bristles on the lips, and a few distantly scattered hairs over the body.  Behind the head are two powerful oval fins, and just beneath them are the breasts, from which, on pressure being applied, flows a stream of beautiful white milk.  The ears are minute holes, and the eyes very small.  The color is a dusky lead, with some large pinkish-white marbled blotches on the belly.  The skin is about an inch thick on the back, and a quarter of an inch on the belly.  Beneath the skin is a layer of fat of a greater or less thickness, generally about an inch, which is boiled down to make an oil used for light and for cooking.  The intestines are very voluminous, the heart about the size of a sheep’s, and the lungs about two feet long, and six or seven inches wide, very cellular and spongy, and can be blown out like a bladder.  The skull is large and solid, with no front teeth; the vertebrae extend to the very tip of the tail, but show no rudiments of posterior limbs; the fore limbs, on the contrary, are very highly developed, the bones exactly corresponding to those of the human arm, having even the five fingers, with every joint distinct, yet enclosed in a stiff inflexible skin, where not a joint can have any motion.

The cow-fish feeds on grass at the borders of the rivers and lakes, and swims quickly with the tail and paddles; and though the external organs of sight and hearing are so imperfect, these senses are said by the hunters to be remarkably acute, and to render necessary all their caution and skill to capture the animals.  They bring forth one, or rarely two, young ones, which they clasp in their arms or paddles while giving suck.  They are harpooned or caught in a strong net, at the narrow entrance of a lake or stream.  Each yields from five to twenty-five gallons of oil.  The flesh is very good, being something between beef and pork, and this one furnished us with several meals, and was an agreeable change from our fish diet.

[Illustration]

[Illustration:  THE COW FISH.]

OLD RATTLER AND THE KING SNAKE[8]

BY DAVID STARR JORDAN.

PRESIDENT OF LELAND STANFORD, JUNIOR, UNIVERSITY.

[8] From The Popular Science Monthly by permission.