MEANS OF DISPERSAL. 43 



times dry up lakes and ponds/ and fishes still alive, as 

 Darwin states, are not very rarely dropped by them at 

 distant points," so that we are justified, perhaps, in 

 assuming that the distribution of shells has been 

 influenced by such means. There are many authentic 

 accounts, it is said, of the falling of fish from the 

 atmosphere ; ^ and frogs and other creatures, no doubt 

 taken up by whirlwinds or hurricanes, have been seen 

 to fall in "showers." On the 9th of February, 1859, for 

 instance, a shower of small living fish appears to have 

 fallen in the valley of Aberdare. A sawyer at work in 

 Messrs. Nixon and Co.'s yard (whose statements were 

 taken down on the spot by the Vicar of the parish), 

 while getting out a piece of timber for the saw, was 

 startled by something (which he found to be little fish) 

 falling all over him ; and a long strip of ground, it is 

 said, soon became covered with the creatures, " jumping 

 all about ; " many were seen, also, on the top of a large 

 shed, etc. Numbers were gathered and thrown into a 

 rain-pool, where some were to be seen when the evi- 

 dence was taken. The wind at the time of the shower 

 was not very strong, but it was " uncommon wet," and 

 the fish came down with the rain " in a body like." 

 Mr. R. Drane, of Cardiff, who investigated the case, is 

 said to have obtained convincing evidence, from other 

 sources, that a large number of fish actually descended 

 with the rain, and over a considerable tract of country ; 

 specimens procured from three persons- resident some 



^ " Principles," ii, p. 392. - " Origin," p. 344. 



^ Wallace, " Geographical Distribution," i. p. 29. 



