CiiAi>. TV.] 



BURYING FISH. 



221 



in each group, at a considerable depth in the soft mud, 

 under which, when the water is about to evaporate 

 duririf^' the dry season, it burrows and conceals itself^ till 

 the returning rains restore it to liberty, and reproduce its 

 accustomed food. The Melania Paludina in the same 

 way retires during the droughts into the muddy soil of 

 the rice lands ; and it can only be by such an instinct 

 that this and other mollusca are preserved when the tanks 

 evaporate, to re-appear in fuU growth and vigour imme- 

 diately on the return of the rains. '^ 



Dr. John Hunter^ has advanced the opinion that hy- 

 bernation, although a result of cold, is not its immediate 

 consequence, but is attributable to that deprivation of 

 food and other essentials Avhicli extreme cold occasions, 

 and asainst the recurrence of which nature makes a 

 timely provision by a suspension of her functions. Ex- 



1 A knowledge of this fact was 

 tiu-ned to prompt account by Mr. 

 Evlgar S. Lavard, when hokling a 

 judicial office at Point I'edro in 1849. 

 A native who had been defrauded of 

 bis land complained before him of 

 his neighbom-, who, during his ab- 

 sence, had removed their common 

 landmark by diverting the original 

 watercourse and obliterated its traces 

 by tilling it to a level \n\\\ the rest 

 of the held. Mr. Lavard directed a 

 trench to be sunk at the contested 

 spot, and disco^•ering numbers of the 

 AmpuUaria, the remains of the eggs, 

 and the living animal which had been 

 buried for months, the e^'idence was 

 so resistless as to confound the'vsTong- 

 doer, and terminate the suit. 



- For a similar fact relative to the 

 shells and water beetles in the pools 

 near Rio Janeiro, see Darwin's Nat. 

 Journal, ch. v. p. 99. Bexsox, in the 

 first vol. of G/ea)ii»f/s of Science, pub- 

 lished at Calcutta in 1829, describes 

 a species of P«^/f//«rt found in pools, 

 which are periodically dried up in 

 the hot season but reappear with the 

 rains, p. SQS. And in the Journal of 

 the Axiatic Soc. of Bcnr/al for Sept. 

 1832, Lieut. Huttox, in a singularly 

 interesting paper, has followed up the 



same subject by a nan-ative of his 

 own observations at Mirzapore, where 

 in June, 1832, after a few heavy 

 showers of rain, which formed pools 

 on the surface of the ground near a 

 mango gTove, he saw the Paludiiue 

 issuing from the gToimd, "pushing 

 aside the moistened earth and coming 

 forth from their retreats ; but on the 

 disappearance of the water not one of 

 them was to be seen above ground. 

 Wishing to ascerttun what had be- 

 come of them, he turned up the earth 

 at the base of several trees, and in- 

 variably found the shells buried from 

 an inch to two inches below the sur- 

 face." Lieut. Ilutton adds that the 

 AmpuUarice and Planorhes, as well 

 as the Pahidince, are fomid in similar 

 situations during the heats of the 

 dry season. The British Pmdea ex- 

 hibit the same foculty (see a mono- 

 gTaph in the Canih. Phil. Trans, vol. 

 iv.). The fact is elsewhere alluded 

 to in the present work of the power 

 possessed by the land leech of Ceylon 

 of retaining vitality even after being- 

 parched to hardness during the heat 

 of the rainless season. Vol. I. ch. vii. 

 p. 312. 



2 IlrxTER's Ohserratimis on parts 

 of the Animal CEcononiij, p. 88. 



