Footnote 3483: [(return)]
CUVIER and VALENCIENNES, Hist. Nat. des Poissons, tom. vii. p. 246.
Footnote 3484: [(return)]
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."
Footnote 3491: [(return)]
Fishes of the Ganges, 4to. 1822.
Footnote 3501: [(return)]
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.
Footnote 3502: [(return)]
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.
Footnote 3511: [(return)]
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 3512: [(return)]
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.
Footnote 3513: [(return)]
See ante, p. 285.
Footnote 3521: [(return)]
Lepidosiren annectans, Owen. See Linn. Trans. 1839.
Footnote 3522: [(return)]
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."