1 66 Instincts, Habits, and Adaptations 



charge of a salmon-pass, who does not know how easy it is for 

 poachers to deter the salmon from venturing along the path 

 raised expressly for his use. 



Among the coral reefs of the Andaman Islands I found the 

 little Chromis lepisurus abundant. As soon as the water was 

 splashed they appeared to retire for safety to the branching coral, 

 where no large fish could follow them; so frightened did they 

 become that on an Andamanese diving from the side of the 

 boat, they at once sought shelter in the coral, in which they 

 remained until it was removed from the sea. In Burma I ob- 

 served, in 1869, that when weirs are not allowed to stretch 

 across the rivers (which would impede navigation), the open 

 side as far as the bank is studded with reeds; these, as the 

 water passes over them, cause vibration, and occasion a curious 

 sound alarming the fishes, which, crossing to the weired side of 

 the river, become captured. 



Hooker, alluding to gulls, terns, wild geese, and pelicans in 

 the Ganges Valley, observes: "These birds congregate by the 

 sides of pools and beat the water with violence, so as to scare 

 the fish, which then become an easy prey a fact which was, I 

 believe, first indicated by Pallas during his residence on the 

 banks of the Caspian Sea."* Fishes, under the influence of 

 terror, dash about with their fins expanded, and often run into 

 places which must destroy them. Thus droves and droves of 

 sardines in the east, impelled by the terror of pursuing sharks, 

 bonitos, and other voracious fishes, frequently throw them- 

 selves on the shores in enormous quantities. Friar Odoric, 

 who visited Ceylon about 1320, says: "There are fishes in those 

 seas which come swimming towards the said country in such 

 abundance, that for a great distance into the sea nothing can 

 be seen but the backs of fishes, which, casting themselves on 

 the shore, do suffer men for the space of three days to come, 

 and to take as many of them as they please, and then they 

 return again into the sea." f 



Pennant tells us that the river bullhead (Cottus gobio) "de- 

 posits its spawn in a hole it forms in the gravel, and quits it 

 with great reluctance." General Hardwicke tells how the 



* Himalayan Journals, vol. i. p. 80. 

 t Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 37. 



