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.]
[Illustration: MASTACEMBELUS ARMATUS]
_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.]
[Illustration: FROM KNOX'S CEYLON, A.D. 1681]
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.]
[Illustration: FISH CORRAL]
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.