1793 on the generation of fifbes. "73 
FARTHER ELUCIDATIONS RESPECTING THE SUDDEN 
GENERATION OF FISHES IN INDIA, FROM A COR- 
RESPONDENT aT Mapras. | 
For the Bee. 
WE were not surprised at reading your paper on the 
generation of fifhes,-we every day hear similar ac- 
counts ; but when we endeavour to trace them to their 
source, vain is the attempt, Like many other stories 
they have pafsed current so long as to be believed ; 
and the great quantities of small fith that are found 
during the monsoon so universally over the tace of 
the country, and on such elevated spots-as are never 
overflowed by riversor reservoirs of water, seemingly 
give probability to them ; and the appearance of fith'of 
considerable magnitude, two or three inches long, that 
are caught in streams from high grounds, induce ma- 
ny to believe that they must have fallen from the 
heavens; for no fish could have existed there be 
fore. ‘ . 
That fifh are found wherever there is standing or 
running water, and frequently on very high ground, 
is most true; but that fifh are fourd on the tops of 
houses,,1 must have occular demonstration to believe. 
The instance you mention as oceurring at St. 
Thomas’s Mount, was not I believe on the ‘top of 2 
house, but on the high ground there, which equally 
astonifhed those that saw it. Mankind are fond of 
the marvellous, and always improve such stories. 
I have not paid much attention to this subject, but 
believe there is nothing wonderfyl in what we gene~ 
