44 THE DISPERSAL OF SHELLS. 



distance from each other were of two species, the com- 

 mon minnow and the three-spined stickleback.* To 

 give another instance, the late Thomas Cooper (well 

 known to many through his delightful autobiography) 

 witnessed, when a boy — with others — a shower of frogs, 

 which, "jumping alive, fell on the pavement at our feet, 

 and came tumbling down the spouts from the tiles of 

 the houses into the water-tubs;" he was as sure of 

 what he had seen as of his own existence, and recorded 

 the fact because it had been stated in books that such 

 a sight was impossible." Water-beetles, also, are said 

 to have fallen in showers,^ but I am not aware that 

 aquatic molluscs are actually known to have done so.* 



^ J. Griffith, "Zoologist," xvii. (1859), 6493 ; 1^- Drane, p. 6564. 



- "Life of Thomas Cooper," pp. 20-1, as quoted in "Science 

 Gossip" for 1872, p. 167; and see on this subject Gosse's 

 •' Romance of Natural History," second series, 1861. 



^ See "American Entomologist, (2), i. (1880), 248; "American 

 Nat.,"xvi. (1882), 600. 



* A case has been recorded since the above was written. See 

 " Nature," xlvii. (1893), 278 : " Das Wetter of December last con- 

 tains an account of a heavy thunderstorm which occurred at 

 Paderborn on August 9, 1892, in which a number of living pond 

 mussels were mixed with the rain. The observer, who is in con- 

 nection with the Berlin Meteorological Office, sent a detailed 

 account of the strange occurrence, and a specimen was forwarded 

 to the Museum at Berlin, which stated that it was the Anodonta 

 anatina (Z.). A yellowish cloud attracted the attention of several 

 people, both from its colour and the rapidity of its motion, when 

 suddenly it burst, a torrential rain fell with a rattling sound, and 

 immediately afterwards the pavement was found to be covered 

 with hundreds of the mussels. Further details will be published 

 in the reports of the Berlin Office, but the only possible explana- 

 tion seems to be that the water of a river in the neighbourhood 



