Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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A Gymnotus That Has Been Kept A Long Time In Captivity,
Accustoms Itself To The Imprisonment To Which It Is Reduced; It
Resumes By Degrees The Same Habits In The Tub, Which It Had In The
Rivers And Marshes.
An electrical eel was brought to me at Calabozo:
it had been taken in a net, and consequently having no wound.
It ate
meat, and terribly frightened the little tortoises and frogs which,
not aware of their danger, placed themselves on its back. The frogs
did not receive the stroke till the moment when they touched the body
of the gymnotus. When they recovered, they leaped out of the tub; and
when replaced near the fish, they were frightened at the mere sight of
it. We then observed nothing that indicated an action at a distance;
but our gymnotus, recently taken, was not yet sufficiently tame to
attack and devour frogs. On approaching the finger, or the metallic
points, very close to the electric organs, no shock was felt. Perhaps
the animal did not perceive the proximity of a foreign body; or, if it
did, we must suppose that in the commencement of its captivity,
timidity prevented it from darting forth its energetic strokes except
when strongly irritated by an immediate contact. The gymnotus being
immersed in water, I placed my hand, both armed and unarmed with
metal, within a very small distance from the electric organs; yet the
strata of water transmitted no shock, while M. Bonpland irritated the
animal strongly by an immediate contact, and received some very
violent shocks.
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