ELECTRICAL EELS.

Baron de Humboldt, in his Travels in South America, relates some curious particulars of the gymnoti, or electrical eels.

The Baron wishing to procure some of them in full vigour, the Indians said they would embarbascar con cavallos--set the fish to sleep, or intoxicate them with horses.

They therefore brought to the stream about thirty horses and mules, when the following singular scene ensued, as described by the learned traveller:--

"The extraordinary noise caused by the horses' hoofs makes the fish issue from the mud, and excites them to combat.

These yellowish and livid eels, resembling large aquatic serpents, swim on the surface of the water, and crowd under the bellies of the horses and mules.

A contest between animals of so different an organization, furnishes a very striking spectacle.

The Indians, provided with harpoons and long slender reeds, surround the pool closely; and some climb upon the trees, the branches of which extend horizontally over the surface of the water.

By their wild cries, and the length of their reeds, they prevent the horses from running away and reaching the bank of the pool.

The eels, stunned by the noise, defend themselves by the repeated discharge of their electric batteries.-- During a long time they seem to prove victorious.

Several horses sink beneath the violence of the invisible strokes, which they receive from all sides in organs the most essential to life; and, stunned by the force and frequency of the shocks, disappear under the water.--Others, panting, with mane erect and haggard eyes, expressing anguish, raise themselves, and endeavour to flee from the storm by which they are overtaken.

They are driven back by the Indians into the middle of the water; but a small number succeed in eluding the active vigilance of the fishermen.

These regain the shore, stumbling at every step, and stretch themselves on the sand, exhausted with fatigue, and their limbs benumbed by the electric shocks of the gymnoti.

"In less than five minutes two horses were drowned.

The eel, being five feet long, and presing itself against the belly of the horses, makes a discharge along the whole extent of its electric organ. It attacks at once the heart, the intestines, and the plexus coeliacus of the abdominal nerves.

It is natural that the effect felt by the horses should be more powerful than that produced upon man by the touch of the same fish, at only one of his extremities.

The horses are probably not killed, but only stunned.

They are drowned from the impossibility of rising amid the prolonged struggle between the other horses and the eels.

"We had little doubt that the fishing would terminate by killing successively all the animals engaged; but by degrees the impetuosity of this unequal combat diminished, and the wearied gymnoti dispersed.

They require a long rest, and abundant nourishment, to repair what they have lost of galvanic force.

The mules and horses appear less frightened; their manes are no longer bristled, and their eyes express less dread.

The gymnoti approach timidly the edge of the marsh, where they are taken by means of small harpoons fastened to long cords.

When the cords are very dry, the Indians feel no shock in raising the fish into the air.

In a few minutes we had five large eels, the greater part of which were but slightly wounded.

Some were taken by the same means toward the evening."