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Show 1868.] DR. F. DAY ON INDIAN FRESHWATER FISHES. 283 fishes, and the annual visit of the Salmon to the sea, or else from a necessity of obtaining a suitable situation in which to deposit their ova. It is generally at this season that fish are seen travelling on land. By this means it may be imagined that plains only occasionally covered by water become populated with fish after a heavy fall of rain. Amongst authorities testifying to having personally witnessed this migration is M r . Morris, the Government Agent at Trinco-malee, who, in an interesting letter to Sir Emerson Tennent on this subject in 1857, states, " A s the tanks dry up the fish congregate in the little pools, till at last you find them by 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 tanks 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. M y 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 those I brought away with m e in chatties appeared quiet by day, but managed to get out of the chatties at night. Some escaped altogether; others were trodden on and killed"*. Many others, both Europeans and natives, have added their testimony to these migrations, which they have personally observed. Sir John Bowring, in his work on Siam, observes, with reference to the river Meinam, that he was amused by the novel sight " of fish leaving the river, gliding over the wet banks, and losing themselves amongst the trees in the jungles "f. And in another part of the same work he says that the very sandbanks of the Meinam were full of life, and a "sort of amphibious fish were flitting from the water to be lost amongst the roots of the jungle wood" J. He also quotes from Bishop Pal-legoix §, that some of these fishes will wander more than a league from the water ||. The Anabas scandens is able to travel short distances on land, and has been seen to do so by many Europeans, * Sir Emerson Tennent, ' Ceylon,' vol. i. p. 215. t Kingdom and People of Siam, vol. i. p. 10. J Ibid. vol. i. p. 392. § Description des Royaumes Thai ou Siam, 1854, vol. i. pp. 193, 194. | Pallegoix mentions that there are three species of what he calls these " Wandering Fishes," termed pla-xon, pla-duk, and pla-mo ; but, from the absence of scientific data, they have not been identified. The pla-xon he describes as about the size of a Carp, very voracious, and abundant. It is exported to China, Singapore, and Java, and considered particularly wholesome as food. |