Fish up a Tree

A workman trimming a big tree in Tuscarawas Park at New Philadelphia, Ohio one day last week, suddenly gasped and stared. There, in a rain-filled crevice, 40 ft. above ground, alive and wriggling, lay a 7-in. catfish. Goggle-eyed with wonder, the sawyer carried it down, threw it in a nearby lake. The catfish swam swiftly away.

Park Superintendent W. E. Geiser concluded that a kingfisher must have carried the catfish aloft. Not even a climbing perch (Anabas scandens) could have shinnied up 40 ft. A small, dark green fish with dusky bands, the climbing perch inhabits Far Eastern estuaries and rivers. It can wrap its pectoral fins around grass stems, drag itself long distances. Why it wants to go overland, no one knows.

The periophthalus (eyewinker) is a pop-eyed dweller along Eastern shores. At a distance it looks like a big tadpole. It has well-developed eyelids which wink. Powerful muscles enable it to use its pectoral fins like arms in hoisting itself a little way up wide-based tropical trees. When the periophthalus wishes to it can lift the front part of its body with these fins, gaze solemnly around, blinking like a dowager basking on her elbows at the beach.

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