Archer Fish

Archer Fish, a popular name for Toxotes jaculator, of the Acanthopterygian family Squamipennes, from its singular habit of ejecting a tiny stream of water from its mouth over insects at rest on plants near, or flying above the surface, and so causing them to fall in, when they become an easy prey. It is six or seven inches in length, ranging from the East Indies to the north coast of Australia. The Malays keep it in captivity and place insects near it, in order to witness this curious habit. The same act is erroneously attributed to Chelmo rostratus, a fish of the same family and nearly the same habitat. Dr. Gunther says that the long tube into which its snout is produced "rather enables it to draw from holes and crevices animals which it could not otherwise reach."