Chapter XV: Appendix: To Chapter VII (4)

Another armed fish, renowned since the times of Ælian and Pliny for its courage in attacking the whale, and even a ship, is the sword-fish (_Xiphias gladius_).[1] Like the thunny and bonito, it is an inhabitant of the deeper seas, and, though known in the Mediterranean, is chiefly confined to the tropics. The dangerous weapon with which nature has equipped it is formed by the prolongation and intertexture of the bones of the upper jaw into an exceedingly compact cylindrical protuberance, somewhat flattened at the base, but tapering to a sharp point. In strange inconsistence with its possession of so formidable an armature, the general disposition of the sword-fish is represented to be gentle and inoffensive; and although the fact of its assaults upon the whale has been incontestably established, yet the motive for such conflicts, and the causes of its enmity, are beyond conjecture. Competition for food is out of the question, as the Xiphias can find its own supplies without rivalry on the part of its gigantic antagonist; and as to converting the whale itself into food, the sword-fish, from the construction of its mouth and the small size of its teeth, is quite incapable of feeding on animals of such dimensions.

[Footnote 1: ÆLIAN tells a story of a ship in the Black Sea, the bottom of which was penetrated by the sword of a _Xiphias_ (L. xiv. c. 23); and PLINY (L. xxxii. c. 8) speaks of a similar accident on the coast of Mauritania. In the British Museum there is a specimen of a plank of oak, pierced by a sword-fish, and still retaining the broken weapon.]

In the seas around Ceylon sword-fishes sometimes attain to the length of twenty feet, and are distinguished by the unusual height of the dorsal fin. Those both of the Atlantic and Mediterranean possess this fin in its full proportions, only during the earlier stages of their growth. Its dimensions even then are much smaller than in the Indian species; and it is a curious fact that it gradually decreases as the fish approaches to maturity; whereas in the seas around Ceylon, it retains its full size throughout the entire period of life. They raise it above the water, whilst dashing along the surface in their rapid course; and there is no reason to doubt that it occasionally acts as a sail.

The Indian species (which are provided with two long and filamentous ventral fins) have been formed into the genus _Histiophorus_; to which belongs the individual figured on the next page. It is distinguished from others most closely allied to it, by having the immense dorsal fin of one uniform dark violet colour; whilst in its congeners, it is spotted with blue. The fish from which the engraving has been made, was procured by Dr. Templeton, near Colombo. The species was previously known only by a single specimen captured in the Red Sea, by Rüppell, who conferred upon it the specific designation of "_immaculatus_."[1]

[Footnote 1: Trans. Zool. Soc. ii. p. 71. Pl. 15.]

Ælian, in his graphic account of the strange forms presented by the fishes inhabiting the seas around Ceylon, says that one in particular is so grotesque in its configuration, that no painter would venture to depict it; its main peculiarity being that it has feet or claws rather than fins.[1] The annexed drawing[2] may probably represent the creature to which the informants of Ælian referred. It is a cheironectes; one of a group in which the bones of the carpus form arms that support the pectoral fins, and enable these fishes to walk along the moist ground, almost like quadrupeds.

[Footnote 1: [Greek: Podas ge mên chêlas ê pterygia.]--Lib. xvi. c. 18.]

[Footnote 2: The fish from which this drawing of the _Cheironectes_ was made, was taken near Colombo, and from the peculiarities which it presents it is in all probability a new and undescribed species. Dr. GÜNTHER has remarked, that in it, whilst the first and second dorsal spines are situated as usual over the eye (and form, one the angling bait of the fish, the other the crest above the nose), the third is at an unusual distance from the second, and is not separated, as in the other species, from the soft fin by a notch.]

They belong to the family of _Lophiads_ or "anglers," not unfrequent on the English coast; which conceal themselves in the mud, displaying only the erectile ray, situated on the head, which bears an excrescence on its extremity resembling a worm; by agitating which, they attract the smaller fishes, that thus become an easy prey.

On the rocks in Ceylon which are washed by the surf there are quantities of the curious little fish, _Salarius alticus_[1], which possesses the faculty of darting along the surface of the water, and running up the wet stones, with the utmost ease and rapidity. By aid of the pectoral and ventral fins and gill-cases, they move across the damp sand, ascend the roots of the mangroves, and climb up the smooth face of the rocks in search of flies; adhering so securely as not to be detached by repeated assaults of the waves. These little creatures are so nimble, that it is almost impossible to lay hold of them, as they scramble to the edge, and plunge into the sea on the slightest attempt to molest them. They are from three to four inches in length, and of a dark brown colour, almost undistinguishable from the rocks they frequent.

[Footnote 1: Cuv. and VALEN., _Hist. Nat. des Poissons_, tom. xi. p. 249. It is identical with _S. tridactylus,_ Schn.]

But the most striking to the eye of a stranger are those fishes whose brilliancy of colouring has won for them the wonder even of the listless Singhalese. Some, like the Red Sea Perch (_Holocentrum rubrum_, Forsk) and the Great Fire Fish[1], are of the deepest scarlet and flame colour; in others purple predominates, as in the _Serranus flavo-cæruleus_; in others yellow, as in the _Choetodon Brownriggii_[2], and _Acanthurus vittatus_, of Bennett[3], and numbers, from the lustrous green of their scales, have obtained from the natives the appropriate name of _Giraway_, or _parrots_, of which one, the _Sparus Hardwickii_ of Bennett, is called the "Flower Parrot," from its exquisite colouring, being barred with irregular bands of blue, crimson, and purple, green, yellow, and grey, and crossed by perpendicular stripes of black.

[Footnote 1: _Pterois muricata_, Cuv. and Val. iv. 363. _Scarpæna miles_, Bennett; named, by the Singhalese, "_Maharata-gini_," the Great Red Fire, a very brilliant red species spotted with black. It is very voracious, and is regarded on some parts of the coast as edible, while on others it is rejected.]

[Footnote 2: _Glyphisodon Brownriggii_, Cuv. and Val. v. 484; _Choetodon Brownriggii_, Bennett. A very small fish about two inches long, called _Kaha hartikyha_ by the natives. It is distinct from Choetodon, in which BENNETT placed it. Numerous species of this genus are scattered throughout the Indian Ocean. It derives its name from the fine hair-like character of its teeth. They are found chiefly among coral reefs, and, though eaten, are not much esteemed. In the French colonies they are called "Chauffe-soleil." One species is found on the shores of the New World (_G. saxatalis_), and it is curious that Messrs. QUOY and GAIMARD found this fish at the Cape de Verde Islands in 1827.]

[Footnote 3: This fish has a sharp round spine on the side of the body near the tail; a formidable weapon, which is generally partially concealed within a scabbard-like incision. It raises or depresses this spine at pleasure. The fish is yellow, with several nearly parallel blue stripes on the back and sides; the belly is white, the tail and fins brownish green, edged with blue.

It is found in rocky places; and according to BENNETT, who has figured it in his second plate, it is named _Seweya_. It has been known, however, to all the old ichthyologists, Valentyn, Renard, Seba, Artedi, and has been named _Chætodon lineatus_, by Linné. It is scarce on the southern coast of Ceylon.]

Of these richly coloured fishes the most familiar in the Indian seas are the _Pteroids_. They are well known on the coast of Africa, and thence eastward to Polynesia; but they do not extend to the west coast of America, and are utterly absent from the Atlantic. The rays of the dorsal and pectoral fins are so elongated, that when specimens were first brought to Europe it was conjectured that these fishes have the faculty of flight, and hence the specific name of "_volitans_" But this is an error, for, owing to the deep incisions between the pectoral rays, the pteroids are wholly unable to sustain themselves in the air. They are not even bold swimmers, living close to the shore and never venturing into the deep sea. Their head is ornamented with a number of filaments and cutaneous appendages, of which one over each eye and another at the angles of the mouth are the most conspicuous. Sharp spines project on the crown and on the side of the gill-apparatus, as in the other sea-perches, _Scorpæna, Serranus_, &c., of which these are only a modified and ornate form. The extraordinary expansion of their fins is not, however, accompanied by a similar development of the bones to which they are attached, simply because they appear to have no peculiar function, as in flying fishes, or in those where the spines of the fins are weapons of offence. They attain to the length of twelve inches, and to a weight of about two pounds; they live on small marine animals, and by the Singhalese the flesh (of some at least) is considered good for table. Nine or ten species are known to occur in the East Indian Seas, and of these the one figured above is, perhaps, the most common.

Another species known to occur on the coasts of Ceylon is the _Scorpæna miles_, Bennett, or _Pterois miles_, Günther[1], of which Bennett has given a figure[2], but it is not altogether correct in some particulars.

[Footnote 1: The fish from the Sea of Pinang, described by Dr. CANTOR with this name (Catal. Mal. Fish. p. 42), is again different, and belongs to a third species.]

[Footnote 2: _Fishes of Ceylon_, Pl. ix.]

In the fishes of Ceylon, however, beauty is not confined to the brilliancy of their tints. In some, as in the _/Scarus harid_, Forsk[1], the arrangement of the scales is so graceful, and the effect is so heightened by modifications of colour, as to present the appearance of tessellation, or mosaic work.

[Footnote 1: This is the fish figured by BENNETT as _Sparus pepo_. _Fishes of Ceylon_, Plate xxviii.]

_Fresh-water Fishes_.--Of the fresh-water fish, which inhabit the rivers and tanks, so very little has hitherto been known to naturalists[1], that of nineteen drawings sent home by Major Skinner in 1852, although specimens of well-known genera, Colonel Hamilton Smith pronounced nearly the whole to be new and undescribed species.

[Footnote 1: In extenuation of the little that is known of the fresh-water fishes of Ceylon, it may be observed that very few of them are used at table by Europeans, and there is therefore no stimulus on the part of the natives to catch them. The burbot and grey mullet are occasionally eaten, but they taste of mud, and are not in request.

Some years ago the experiment was made, with success, of introducing into Mauritius the _Osphromenus olfax_ of Java, which has also been taken to French Guiana. In both places it is now highly esteemed as a fish for table. As it belongs to a family which possesses the faculty, hereafter alluded to, of surviving in the damp soil after the subsidence of the water in the tanks and rivers, it might with equal advantage be acclimated in Ceylon. It grows to 20 lbs. weight and upwards.]

Of eight of these, which were from the Mahawelliganga, and caught in the vicinity of Kandy, five were carps; two were _Leucisci_, and one a _Mastacembelus_ (_M. armatus_, Lacep); one was an _Ophiocephalus_, and one a _Polyacanthus_, with no serræ on the gills. Six were from the Kalanyganga, close to Colombo, of which two were _Helostoma_, in shape approaching the Chætodon; two _Ophiocephali_, one a _Silurus_, and one an _Anabas_, but the gills were without denticulation. From the still water of the lake, close to the walls of Colombo, there were two species of _Eleotris_, one _Silurus_ with barbels, and two _Malacopterygians_, which appear to be _Bagri_.

The _fresh-water Perches_ of Europe and of the North of America are represented in Ceylon and India by several genera, which bear to them a great external similarity (_Lates, Therapon_). They have the same habits as their European allies, and their flesh is considered equally wholesome, but they appear to enter salt-water, or at least brackish water, more freely. It is, however, in their internal organisation that they differ most from the perches of Europe; their skeletons are composed of fewer vertebræ, and the air bladder of the _Therapon_ is divided into two portions, as in the carps. Four species at least of this genus inhabit the lakes and rivers of Ceylon, and one of them, of which a figure is given above, has been but imperfectly described in any ichthyological work[1]; it attains to the length of seven inches.

[Footnote 1: Holocentrus quadrilineatus, _Bloch_. It is allied to _Helotes polytoenia_, Bleek., from Halmaheira which it can be readily distinguished by having only five or six blackish longitudinal bands, the black humeral spot being between the first and second; another blackish blotch is in the spinous dorsal fin. There are two specimens in the British Museum collection, one of which has recently arrived from Amoy; of the other the locality is unknown. See GÜNTHER, _Acanthopt. Fishes_, vol. i. p. 282, where mention of the black humeral spot has been omitted.]

In addition to marine eels, in which the Indian coasts abound, Ceylon has some true fresh-water eels, which never enter the sea. These are known to the natives under the name of _Theliya_, and to naturalists by that of _Mastacembelus_. They have sometimes in ichthyological systems been referred to the Scombridæ and other marine families, from the circumstance that the dorsal fin anteriorly is composed of spines. But, in addition to the general shape of the body, their affinity to the eel is attested, by their confluent fins, by the absence of ventral fins, by the structure of the mouth and its dentition, by the apparatus of the gills, which opens with an inferior slit, and above all by the formation of the skeleton itself.[1]

[Footnote 1: See GÜNTHER'S _Acanthopt. Fishes_, vol. iii. (Family Mastacembelidæ).]

Their skin is covered with minute scales, coated by a slimy exudation, and the upper jaw is produced into a soft tripartite tentacle, with which they are enabled to feel for their prey in the mud. They are very tenacious of life, and belong, without doubt, to those fishes which in Ceylon descend during the drought into the muddy soil.[1] Their flesh very much resembles that of the eel; and is highly esteemed.[2] They were first made known to European naturalists by Russell[3], who brought to Europe from the rivers round Aleppo specimens, some of which are still preserved in the collection of the British Museum. Aleppo is the most western point of their geographical range, the group being mainly confined to the East-Indian continent and its islands.

In Ceylon only one species appears to occur, the

[Footnote 1: See post, p. 351.]

[Footnote 2: CUV. and VAL., _Hist. Poiss._ vol. iii. p. 459.]

[Footnote 3: _Nat. Hist. Aleppo_, 2nd edit. Lond. 1794, vol. ii. p. 208, pl. vi.]

_Mastacembelus armatus_.[1] The back is armed with from thirty-five to thirty-nine short, stout spines; there being three others before the anal fin. The ground colour of the fish is brown, and the head has two rather irregular longitudinal black bands; deep-brown spots run along the back as well as along the dorsal and anal fins; and the sides are ornamented with irregular and reticulated brown lines. This eel attains to the length of two feet. The old females do not show any markings, being of a uniform brown colour.

[Footnote 1: Macrognathus armatus, _Lacép._; Mastacembelus armatus, _Cuv., Val._]

In the collection of Major Skinner, before alluded to, brought together without premeditation, the naturalist will be struck by the preponderance of those genera which are adapted by nature to endure, a temporary privation of moisture; and this, taken in connection with the vicissitudes affecting the waters they inhabit, exhibits a surprising illustration of the wisdom of the Creator in adapting the organisation of his creatures to the peculiar circumstances under which they are destined to exist.

So abundant are fish in all parts of the island, that Knox says, not the running streams alone, but the reservoirs and ponds, "nay, every ditch and little plash of water but ankle deep hath fish in it."[1] But many of these reservoirs and tanks are, twice in each year, liable to be evaporated to dryness till the mud of the bottom is converted into dust, and the clay cleft by the heat into gaping apertures; yet within a very few days after the change of the monsoon, the natives are busily engaged in fishing in those very spots and in the hollows contiguous to them, although the latter are entirely unconnected with any pool or running streams. Here they fish in the same way which Knox described nearly 200 years ago, with a funnel-shaped basket, open at bottom and top, "which," as he says, "they jibb down, and the end sticks in the mud, which often happens upon a fish; which, when they feel beating itself against the sides, they put in their hands and take it out, and reive a ratan through their gills, and so let them drag after them."[2]

[Footnote 1: Knox's _Historical Relation of Ceylon,_ Part i. ch. vii. The occurrence of fish in the most unlooked-for situations, is one of the mysteries of other eastern countries as well as Ceylon and India. In Persia irrigation is carried on to a great extent by means of wells sunk in line in the direction in which it is desired to lead a supply of water, and these are connected by channels, which are carefully arched over to protect them from evaporation. These _kanats,_ as they are called, are full of fish, although neither they nor the wells they unite have any connection with streams or lakes.]

[Footnote 2: Knox, _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, Part i. ch vi.]

This operation may be seen in the lowlands, traversed by the high road leading from Colombo to Kandy. Before the change of the monsoon, the hollows on either side of the highway are covered with dust or stunted grass; but when flooded by the rains, they are immediately resorted to by the peasants with baskets, constructed precisely as Knox has stated, in which the fish are entrapped and taken out by the hand.[1]

[Footnote 1: As anglers, the native Singhalese exhibit little expertness; but for fishing the rivers, they construct with singular ingenuity fences formed of strong stakes, protected by screens of ratan, that stretch diagonally across the current; and along these the fish are conducted into a series of enclosures from which retreat is impracticable. MR. LAYARD, in the _Magazine of Natural History_ for May, 1853, has given a diagram of one of these fish "corrals," as they are called, of which a copy is shown on the next page.]

So singular a phenomenon as the sudden re-appearance of full-grown fishes in places that a few days before had been encrusted with hardened clay, has not failed to attract attention; but the European residents have been content to explain it by hazarding conjectures, either that the spawn must have lain imbedded in the dried earth till released by the rains, or that the fish, so unexpectedly discovered, fall from the clouds during the deluge of the monsoon.

As to the latter conjecture; the fall of fish during showers, even were it not so problematical in theory, is too rare an event to account for the punctual appearance of those found in the rice-fields, at stated periods of the year. Both at Galle and Colombo in the south-west monsoon, fish are popularly believed to have fallen from the clouds during violent showers, but those found on the occasions that give rise to this belief, consist of the smallest fry, such as could be caught up by waterspouts, and vortices analogous to them, or otherwise blown on shore from the surf; whereas those which suddenly appear in the replenished tanks and in the hollows which they overflow, are mature and well-grown fish.[1] Besides, the latter are found, under the circumstances I have described, in all parts of the interior, whilst the prodigy of a supposed fall of fish from the sky has been noticed, I apprehend, only in the vicinity of the sea, or of some inland water.

[Footnote 1: I had an opportunity, on one occasion only, of witnessing the phenomenon which gives rise to this popular belief. I was driving in the cinnamon gardens near the fort of Colombo, and saw a violent but partial shower descend at no great distance before me. On coming to the spot I found a multitude of small silvery fish from one and a half to two inches in length, leaping on the gravel of the high road, numbers of which I collected and brought away in my palankin. The spot was about half a mile from the sea, and entirely unconnected with any watercourse or pool.

Mr. Whiting, who was many years resident in Trincomadie, writes me that he "had often been told by the natives on that side of the island that it sometimes rained fishes; and on one occasion" (he adds) "I was taken by them, in 1849, to a field at the village of Karrancotta-tivo, near Batticaloa, which was dry when I passed over it in the morning, but, had been covered in two hours by sudden rain to the depth of three inches, in which there was then a quantity of small fish. The water had no connection with any pond or stream whatsoever." Mr. Cripps, in like manner, in speaking of Galle, says: "I have seen in the vicinity of the fort, fish taken from rain-water that had accumulated in the hollow parts of land that in the hot season are perfectly dry and parched. The place is accessible to no running stream or tank; and either the fish or the spawn from which they were produced, must of necessity have fallen with the rain."

Mr. J. PRINSEP, the eminent secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, found a fish in the pulviometer at Calcutta, in 1838.--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal_, vol. vi. p. 465.

A series of instances in which fishes have been found on the continent of India under circumstances which lead to the conclusion that they must have fallen from the clouds, have been collected by the late Dr. BUIST of Bombay, and will be found in the appendix to this chapter.]

The surmise of the buried spawn is one sanctioned by the very highest authority. Mr. Yarrell in his "_History of British Fishes_," adverting to the fact that ponds (in India) which had been previously converted into hardened mud, are replenished with small fish in a very few days after the commencement of each rainy season, offers this solution of the problem as probably the true one: "The impregnated ova of the fish of one rainy season are left unhatched in the mud through the dry season, and from their low state of organisation as ova, the vitality is preserved till the recurrence, and contact of the rain and oxygen in the next wet season, when vivification takes place from their joint influence."[1]

[Footnote 1: YARRELL, _History of British Fishes_, introd. vol. i. p. xxvi. This too was the opinion of Aristotle, _De Respiratione_, c. ix.]

This hypothesis, however, appears to have been advanced upon imperfect data; for although some fish, like the salmon, scrape grooves in the sand and place their spawn in inequalities and fissures; yet as a general rule spawn is deposited not beneath but on the surface of the ground or sand over which the water flows, the adhesive nature of each egg supplying the means of attachment. But in the Ceylon tanks not only is the surface of the soil dried to dust after the evaporation of the water, but earth itself, twelve or eighteen inches deep, is converted into sun-burnt clay, in which, although the eggs of mollusca, in their calcareous covering, are in some instances preserved, it would appear to be as impossible for the ova of fish to be kept from decomposition as for the fish themselves to sustain life. Besides, moisture in such situations is only to be found at a depth to which spawn could not be conveyed by the parent fish, by any means with which we are yet acquainted.

But supposing it possible to carry the spawn sufficiently deep, and to deposit it safely in the mud below, which is still damp, whence it could be liberated on the return of the rains, a considerable interval would still be necessary after the replenishing of the ponds with water to admit of vivification and growth. Yet so far from this interval being allowed to elapse, the rains have no sooner fallen than the taking of the fish commences, and those captured by the natives in wicker cages are mature and full grown instead of being "small fish" or fry, as supposed by Mr. Yarrell.

Even admitting the soundness of his theory, and the probability that, under favourable circumstances, the spawn in the tanks might be preserved during the dry season so as to contribute to the perpetuation of their breed, the fact is no longer doubtful, that adult fish in Ceylon, like some of those that inhabit similar waters both in the New and Old World, have been endowed by the Creator with the singular faculty of providing against the periodical droughts either by journeying overland in search of still unexhausted water, or, on its utter disappearance, by burying themselves in the mud to await the return of the rains.

It is an illustration of the eagerness with which, after the expedition of Alexander the Great, particulars connected with the natural history of India were sought for and arranged by the Greeks, that in the works both of ARISTOTLE and THEOPHRASTUS facts are recorded of the fishes in the Indian rivers migrating in search of water, of their burying themselves in the mud on its failure, of their being dug out thence alive during the dry season, and of their spontaneous reappearance on the return of the rains. The earliest notice is in ARISTOTLE'S treatise _De Respiratione_[1], where he mentions the strange discovery of living fish found beneath the surface of the soil, "[Greek: tôn ichthyôn oi polloi zôsin en tê gê, akinêtizontes mentoi, kai euriskontai oryttomenoi?]" and in his History of Animals he conjectures that in ponds periodically dried the ova of the fish so buried become vivified at the change of the season.[2] HERODOTUS had previously hazarded a similar theory to account for the sudden appearance of fry in the Egyptian marshes on the rising of the Nile; but the cases are not parallel. THEOPHRASTUS, the friend and pupil of Aristotle, gave importance to the subject by devoting to it his essay [Greek: Peri tês tôn ichthyôn en zêrô diamonês], _De Piscibus in sicco degentibus_. In this, after adverting to the fish called _exocoetus_, from its habit of going on shore to sleep, "[Greek: apo tês koitês,]" he instances the small fish ([Greek: ichthydia]), that leave the rivers of India to wander like frogs on the land; and likewise a species found near Babylon, which, when the Euphrates runs low, leave the dry channels in search of food, "moving themselves along by means of their fins and tail." He proceeds to state that at Heraclea Pontica there are places in which fish are dug out of the earth, "[Greek: oryktoi tôn ichthyôn]," and he accounts for their being found under such circumstances by the subsidence of the rivers, "when the water being evaporated the fish gradually descend beneath the soil in search of moisture; and the surface becoming hard they are preserved in the damp clay below it, in a state of torpor, but are capable of vigorous movements when disturbed." "In, this manner, too," adds Theophrastus, "the buried fish propagate, leaving behind them their spawn, which becomes vivified on the return of the waters to their accustomed bed." This work of Theophrastus became the great authority for all subsequent writers on this question. ATHENÆUS quotes it[3], and adds the further testimony of POLYBIUS, that in Gallia Narbonensis fish are similarly dug out of the ground.[4] STRABO repeats the story[5], and the Greek naturalists one and all received the statement as founded on reliable authority.

[Footnote 1: Chap. ix.]

[Footnote 2: Lib. vi. ch. 15, 16, 17.]

[Footnote 3: Lib. viii. ch. 2.]

[Footnote 4: _Ib._ ch. 4.]

[Footnote 5: Lib. iv. and xii.]

Not so the Romans. LIVY mentions it as one of the prodigies which were to be "expiated" on the approach of a rupture with Macedon, that "in Gallico agro qua induceretur aratrum sub glebis pisces emersisse,"[1] thus taking it out of the category of natural occurrences. POMPONIUS MELA, obliged to notice the matter in his account of Narbon Gaul, accompanies it with the intimation that although asserted by both Greek and Roman authorities, the story was either a delusion or a fraud, JUVENAL has a sneer for the rustic--

"miranti sub aratro
Piscibus inventis."--_Sat_. xiii. 63.

[Footnote 1: Lib. xlii. ch. 2.]

And SENECA, whilst he quotes Theophrastus, adds ironically, that now we must go to fish with a _hatchet_ instead of a hook; "non cum hamis, sed cum dolabra ire piscatum." PLINY, who devotes the 35th chapter of his 9th book to this subject, uses the narrative of Theophrastus, but with obvious caution, and universally the Latin writers treated the story as a fable.

In later times the subject received more enlightened attention, and Beekman, who in 1736 published his commentary on the collection [Greek: Peri Thaumasiôn akousmatôn], ascribed to Aristotle, has given a list of the authorities about his own times,--GEORGIUS AGRICOLA, GESNER, RONDELET, DALECHAMP, BOMARE, and GRONOVIUS, who not only gave credence to the assertions of Theophrastus, but adduced modern instances in corroboration of his Indian authorities.

As regards the fresh-water fishes of India and Ceylon, the fact is now established that certain of them possess the power of leaving the rivers and returning to them again after long migrations on dry land, and modern observation has fully confirmed their statements. They leave the pools and nullahs in the dry season, and led by an instinct as yet unexplained, shape their course through the grass towards the nearest pool of water. A similar phenomenon is observable in countries similarly circumstanced. The Doras of Guiana[1] have been seen travelling over land during the dry season in search of their natural element[2], in such droves that the negroes fill baskets with them during these terrestrial excursions. PALLEGOIX in his account of Siam, enumerates three species of fishes which leave the tanks and channels and traverse the damp grass[3]; and SIR JOHN BOWRING, in his account of his embassy to the Siamese kings in 1855, states, that in ascending and descending the river Meinam to Bankok, he was amused with the novel sight of fish leaving the river, gliding over the wet banks, and losing themselves amongst the trees of the jungle.[4]

[Footnote 1: _D. Hancockii_, CUV. et VAL.]

[Footnote 2: Sir R. Schomburgk's _Fishes of Guiana_, vol. i. pp. 113, 151, 160. Another migratory fish was found by Bose very numerous in the fresh waters of Carolina and in ponds liable to become dry in summer. When captured and placed on the ground, "they _always, directed themselves towards the nearest water, which they could not possibly see_, and which they must have discovered by some internal index. They belong to the genus _Hydrargyra_ and are called Swampines.--KIRBY, _Bridgewater Treatise_, vol. i. p. 143.

Eels kept in a garden, when August arrived (the period at which instinct impels them to go to the sea to spawn) were in the habit of leaving the pond, and were invariably found moving eastward _in the direction of the sea_.--YARRELL, vol. ii. p. 384. Anglers observe that fish newly caught, when placed out of sight of water, always struggle towards it to escape.]

[Footnote 3: PALLEGOIX, vol. i. p. 144.]

[Footnote 4: Sir J. BOWERING'S _Siam,_ &c., vol. i. p. 10.]

The class of fishes endowed with this power are chiefly those with labyrinthiform pharyngeal bones, so disposed in plates and cells as to retain a supply of moisture, which, whilst they are crawling on land, gradually exudes so as to keep the gills damp.[1]

[Footnote 1: CUVIER and VALENCIENNES, _Hist. Nat. des Poissons_, tom. vii. p. 246.]

The individual most frequently seen in these excursions in Ceylon is a perch called by the Singhalese _Kavaya_ or _Kawhy-ya_, and by the Tamils _Pannei-eri_, or _Sennal_. It is closely allied to the _Anabas scandens_ of Cuvier, the _Perca scandens_ of Daldorf. It grows to about six inches in length, the head round and covered with scales, and the edges of the gill-covers strongly denticulated. Aided by the apparatus already adverted to in its head, this little creature issues boldly from its native pools and addresses itself to its toilsome march generally at night or in the early morning, whilst the grass is still damp with the dew; but in its distress it is sometimes compelled to move by day, and Mr. E.L. Layard on one occasion encountered a number of them travelling along a hot and dusty road under the midday sun.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist_., May, 1853, p. 390. Mr. Morris, the government-agent of Trincomalie, writing to me on this subject in 1856, says--"I was lately on duty inspecting the kind of a large tank at Nade-cadua, which, being out of repair, the remaining water was confined in a small hollow in the otherwise dry bed. Whilst there heavy rain came on, and, as we stood on the high ground, we, observed a pelican on the margin of the shallow pool gorging himself; our people went towards him and raised a cry of fish! fish! We hurried down, and found numbers of fish struggling upwards through the grass in the rills formed by the trickling of the rain. There was scarcely water enough to cover them, but nevertheless they made rapid progress up the bank, on which our followers collected about two bushels of them at a distance of forty yards from the tank. They were forcing their way up the knoll, and, had they not been intercepted first by the pelican and afterwards by ourselves, they would in a few minutes have gained the highest point and descended on the other side into a pool which formed another portion of the tank. They were chub, the same as are found in the mud after the tanks dry up." In a subsequent communication in July, 1857, the same gentleman says--"As the tanks dry up the fish congregate in the little pools till at last you find them in thousands in the moistest parts of the beds, rolling in the blue mud which is at that time about the consistence of thick gruel."

"As the moisture further evaporates the surface fish are left uncovered, and they crawl away in search of fresh pools. In one place I saw hundreds diverging in every direction, from the tank they had just abandoned to a distance of fifty or sixty yards, and still travelling onwards. In going this distance, however, they must have used muscular exertion sufficient to have taken them half a mile on level ground, for at these places all the cattle and wild animals of the neighbourhood had latterly come to drink; so that the surface was everywhere indented with footmarks in addition to the cracks in the surrounding baked mud, into which the fish tumbled in their progress. In those holes which were deep and the sides perpendicular they remained to die, and were carried off by kites and crows."

"My impression is that this migration takes place at night or before sunrise, for it was only early in the morning that I have seen them progressing, and I found that those I brought away with me in chatties appeared quiet by day, but a large proportion managed to get out of the chatties at night--some escaped altogether, others were trodden on and killed."

"One peculiarity is the large size of the vertebral column, quite disproportioned to the bulk of the fish. I particularly noticed that all in the act of migrating had their gills expanded."]

Referring to the _Anabas scandens_, DR. HAMILTON BUCHANAN says, that of all the fish with which he was acquainted it is the most teliacious of life; and he has known boatmen on the Ganges to keep them for five or six days in an earthen pot without water, and daily to use what they wanted, finding them as lively and fresh as when caught.[1] Two Danish naturalists residing at Tranquebar, have contributed their authority to the fact of this fish ascending trees on the coast of Coromandel, an exploit from which it acquired its epithet of _Perca scandens_. DALDORF, who was a lieutenant in the Danish East India Company's service, communicated to Sir Joseph Banks, that in the year 1791 he had taken this fish from a moist cavity in the stem of a Palmyra palm, that grew near a lake. He saw it when already five feet above the ground struggling to ascend still higher;--"suspending itself by its gill-covers, and bending its tail to the left, it fixed its anal fin in the cavity of the bark, and sought by expanding its body to urge its way upwards, and its march was only arrested by the hand with which he seized it."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Fishes of the Ganges_, 4to. 1822.]

[Footnote 2: _Transactions Linn. Soc._ vol. iii. p. 63. It is remarkable, however, that this discovery of Daldorf, which excited so great an interest in 1791, had been anticipated by an Arabian voyager a thousand years before. Abou-zeyd, the compiler of the remarkable MS. known since Renaudot's translation by the title of the _Travels of the Two Mahometans_, states that Suleyman, one of his informants, who visited India at the close of the ninth century, was told there of a fish which, issuing from the waters, ascended the coco-nut palms to drink their sap, and returned to the sea. "On parle d'un poisson de mer qui, sortant de l'eau, monte sur la cocotier et boit le suc de la plante; ensuite il retourne á la mer." See REINAUD, _Rélations des Voyages faits par les Arabes et Persans dans le neuvième siècle_, tom. i. p, 21, tom. ii. p. 93.]

There is considerable obscurity about the story of this ascent, although corroborated by M. JOHN. Its motive for climbing is not apparent, since water being close at hand it could not have gone for sake of the moisture contained in the fissures of the palm; nor could it be in search of food, as it lives not on fruit but on aquatic insects.[1] The descent, too, is a question of difficulty.

[Footnote 1: Kirby says that it is "in pursuit of certain crustaceans that form its food" (_Bridgewater Treatise_, vol i. p. 144); but I am not aware of any crustaceans in the island which ascend the palmyra or feed upon its fruit. The _Birgus latro_, which inhabits Mauritius, and is said to climb the coco-nut for this purpose, has not been observed in Ceylon.]

The position of its fins, and the spines on its gill-covers, might assist its journey upwards, but the same apparatus would prove anything but a facility in steadying its journey down. The probability is, as suggested by Buchanan, that the ascent which was witnessed by Daldorf was accidental, and ought not to be regarded as the habit of the animal. In Ceylon I heard of no instance of the perch ascending trees[1], but the fact is well established that both it, the _pullata_ (a species of _polyacanthus_), and others, are capable of long journeys on the level ground.[2]

[Footnote 1: This assertion must be qualified by a fact stated by Mr. E.A. Layard, who mentions that on visiting one of the fishing stations on a Singhalese river, where the fish are caught in staked enclosures, as described at p. 342, and observing that the chambers were covered with netting, he asked the reason, and was told "_that some of the fish climbed up the sticks and got over._"--Mag. Nat. Hist, for May 1823, p. 390-1.]

[Footnote 2: Strange accidents have more than once occurred at Ceylon arising from the habit of the native anglers; who, having neither baskets nor pockets in which to place what they catch, will seize a fish in their teeth whilst putting fresh bait on their hook. In August, 1853, a man was carried into the Pettah hospital at Colombo, having a climbing perch, which he thus attempted to hold, firmly imbedded in his throat. The spines of its dorsal fin prevented its descent, whilst those of the gill-covers equally forbade its return. It was eventually extracted by the forceps through an incision in the oesophagus, and the patient recovered. Other similar cases have proved fatal.]

_Burying Fishes._--But a still more remarkable power possessed by some of the Ceylon fishes, is that already alluded to, of secreting themselves in the earth in the dry season, at the bottom of the exhausted ponds, and there awaiting the renewal of the water at the change of the monsoon. The instinct of the crocodile to resort to the same expedient has been already referred to[1], and in like manner the fish, when distressed by the evaporation of the tanks, seek relief by immersing first their heads, and by degrees their whole bodies, in the mud; sinking to a depth at which they find sufficient moisture to preserve life in a state of lethargy long after the bed of the tank has been consolidated by the intense heat of the sun. It is possible, too, that the cracks which reticulate the surface may admit air to some extent to sustain their faint respiration.

[Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 285.]

The same thing takes place in other tropical regions, subject to vicissitudes of drought and moisture. The Protopterus[1], which inhabits the Gambia (and which though demonstrated by Professor Owen to possess all the essential organisation of fishes, is nevertheless provided with true lungs), is accustomed in the dry season, when the river retires into its channel, to bury itself to the depth of twelve or sixteen inches in the indurated mud of the banks, and to remain in a state of torpor till the rising of the stream after the rains enables it to resume its active habits. At this period the natives of the Gambia, like those of Ceylon, resort to the river, and secure the fish in considerable numbers as they flounder in the still shallow water. A parallel instance occurs, in Abyssinia in relation to the fish of the Mareb, one of the sources of the Nile, the waters of which are partially absorbed in traversing the plains of Taka. During the summer its bed is dry, and in the slime at the depth of more than six feet is found a species of fish without scales, different from any known to inhabit the Nile.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Lepidosiren annectans_, Owen. See _Linn. Trans._ 1839.]

[Footnote 2: This statement will be found in QUATREMERE'S Mémoires sur l'Egypte, tom. i. p. 17, on the authority of Abdullah ben Ahmed ben Solaim Assouany, in his _History of Nubia_, "Simon, héritier présomptif du royanme d'Alouah, m'a assuré que l'on trouve, dans la vase qui couvre fond de cette rivière, un grand poisson sans écailles, qui ne ressemble en rien aux poissons du Nil, et que, pour l'avoir, il faut creuser à une toise et plus de profondeur." To this passage, there is appended this note:--"Le patriarche Mendes, cité par Legrand (_Relation Hist. d' Abyssinie_, du P. LOBO, p. 212-3) rapporte que le fleuve Mareb, après avoir arrosé une étendue de pays considérable, se perd sous terre; et que quand les Portugais faisaient la guerre dans ce pays, ils fouilloient dans le sable, et y trouvoient de la bonne eau et du ban poisson. An rapport de l'auteur de _l' Ayin Akbery_ (tom. ii, p. 146, ed. 1800), dans le Soubah do Caschmir, pres du lieu nommé Tilahmoulah, est une grande pièce de terre qui est inondée pendant la saison des pluies. Lorsque les eaux se sont évaporées, et que la vase est presque séche, les habitans prennant des bâtons d'environ une aune do long, qu'ils enfoncent dans la vase, et ils y trouvent quantité de grands et petits poissons." In the library of the British Museum there is an unique MS. of MANOEL DE ALMEIDA, written in the sixteenth century, from which Balthasar Tellec compiled his _Historia General de Ethiopia alta_, printed at Coimbra in 1660, and in it the above statement of Mendes is corroborated by Almeida, who says that he was told by João Gabriel, a Creole Portuguese, born in Abyssinia, who had visited the Mareb, and who said that the "fish were to be found everywhere eight or ten palms down, and that he had eaten of them."]

In South America the "round-headed hassar" of Guiana, _Callicthys littoralis_, and the "yarrow," a species of the family Esocidæ, although they possess no specially modified respiratory organs, are accustomed to bury themselves in the mud on the subsidence of water in the pools during the dry season.[1] The _Loricaria_ of Surinam, another Siluridan, exhibits a similar instinct, and resorts to the same expedient. Sir R. Schomburgk, in his account of the fishes of Guiana, confirms this account of the Callicthys, and says "they can exist in muddy lakes without any water whatever, and great numbers of them are sometimes dug up from such situations."[2]

[Footnote 1: See Paper "_on some Species of Fishes and Reptiles in Demerara_," by J. HANDCOCK, Esq., M.D., _Zoological Journal_, vol. iv. p. 243.]

[Footnote 2: A curious account of the _borachung_ or "ground fish" of Bhootan, will be found in Note (C.) appended to this chapter.]

In those portions of Ceylon where the country is flat, and small tanks are extremely numerous, the natives are accustomed in the hot season to dig in the mud for fish. Mr. Whiting, the chief civil officer of the eastern province, informs me that, on two occasions, he was present accidentally when the villagers were so engaged, once at the tank of Malliativoe, within a few miles of Kottiar, near the bay of Trincomalie, and again at a tank between Ellendetorre and Arnitivoe, on the bank of the Vergel river. The clay was firm, but moist, and as the men flung out lumps of it with a spade, it fell to pieces, disclosing fish from nine to twelve inches long, which were full grown and healthy, and jumped on the bank when exposed to the sun light.

Being desirous of obtaining a specimen of fish so exhumed, I received from the Moodliar of Matura, A.B. Wickremeratne, a fish taken along with others of the same kind from a tank in which the water had dried up; it was found at a depth of a foot and a half where the mud was still moist, whilst the surface was dry and hard. The fish which the moodliar sent to me is an Anabas, closely resembling the _Perca scandens_ of Daldorf; but on minute examination it proves to be a species unknown in India, and hitherto found only in Boreno and China. It is the _A. oligolepis_ of Bleek.

But the faculty of becoming torpid at such periods is not confined in Ceylon to the crocodile sand fishes;--it is also possessed by some of the fresh-water mollusca and aquatic coleoptera. One of the former, the _Ampullaria glauca_, is found in still water in all parts of the island, not alone in the tanks, but in rice-fields and the watercourses by which they are irrigated. When, during the dry season, the water is about to evaporate, it burrows and conceals itself[1] till the returning rains restore it to activity, and reproduce its accustomed food. There, at a considerable depth in the soft mud, it deposits a bundle of eggs with a white calcareous shell, to the number of one hundred or more in each group. The _Melania Paludina_ in the same way retires during the droughts into the muddy soil of the rice lands; and it can only be by such an instinct that this and other mollusca are preserved when the tanks evaporate, to re-appear in full growth and vigour immediately on the return of the rains.[2]

[Footnote 1: A knowledge of this fact was turned to prompt account by Mr. Edgar S. Layard, when holding a judicial office at Point Pedro in 1849. A native who had been defrauded of his land complained before him of his neighbour, who, during his absence, had removed their common landmark, diverting the original watercourse and obliterating its traces by filling it up to a level with the rest of the field. Mr. Layard directed a trench to be sunk at the contested spot, and discovering numbers of the Ampullaria, the remains of the eggs, and the living animal which had been buried for months, the evidence was so resistless as to confound the wrong-doer, and terminate the suit.]

[Footnote 2: For a similar fact relative to the shells and water beetles in the pools near Rio Janeiro, see DARWIN'S _Nat. Journal_, ch. v. p. 99. BENSON, in the first vol. of _Gleanings of Science_, published at Calcutta in 1829, describes a species of _Paludina_ found in pools, which are periodically dried up in the hot season but reappear with the rains, p. 363. And in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_ for Sept. 1832, Lieut. HUTTON, in a singularly interesting paper, has followed up the same subject by a narrative of his own observations at Mirzapore, wherein June, 1832, after a few heavy showers of rain, that formed pools on the surface of the ground near a mango grove, he saw the _Paludinæ_ issuing from the ground, "pushing aside the moistened earth and coming forth from their retreats; but on the disappearance of the water not one of them was to be seen above ground. Wishing to ascertain what had become of them he turned up the earth at the base of several trees, and invariably found the shells buried from an inch to two inches below the surface." Lieut. Hutton adds that the _Ampullariæ_ and _Planorbes_, as well as the _Paludinæ_ are found in similar situations during the heats of the dry season. The British _Pisidea_ exibit the same faculty (see a monograph in the _Camb. Phil. Trans._ vol. iv.). The fact is elsewhere alluded to in the present work of the power possessed by the land leech of Ceylon of retaining vitality even after being parched to hardness during the heat of the rainless season. LYELL mentions the instance of some snails in Italy which, when they hybernate, descend to the depth of five feet and more below the surface. _Princip. of Geology,_ &c, p. 373.]

Dr. John Hunter[1] has advanced an opinion that hybernation, although a result of cold, is not its immediate consequence, but is attributable to that deprivation of food and other essentials which extreme cold occasions, and against the recurrence of which nature makes a timely provision by a suspension of her functions. Excessive heat in the tropics produces an effect upon animals and vegetables analogous to that of excessive cold in northern regions, and hence it is reasonable to suppose that the torpor induced by the one may be but the counterpart of the hybernation which results from the other. The frost that imprisons the alligator in the Mississippi as effectually cuts it off from food and action as the drought which incarcerates the crocodile in the sun-burnt clay of a Ceylon tank. The hedgehog of Europe enters on a period of absolute torpidity as soon as the inclemency of winter deprives it of its ordinary supply of slugs and insects; and the _tenrec_[2] of Madagascar, its tropical representative, exhibits the same tendency during the period when excessive heat produces in that climate a like result.

[Footnote 1: HUNTER'S _Observations on parts of the Animal oeconomy_, p. 88.]

[Footnote 2: _Centetes ecaudatus_, Illiger.]