492 SHOWERS OF FISH. 



in the public prints, but many of them are well-authenti- 

 cated. 



On the 20th of September, 1839, an English officer, in 

 the neighbourhood of Calcutta, saw a quantity of live 

 fish descend in a storm of rain. They measured about 

 three inches in length, and were all of the same species. 

 Some, falling on hard ground, were killed ; some, which 

 fell on soft grass, continued in life. " The most strange 

 thing that struck me in connection with this event," said 



O ' 



the officer,* " was that the fish did not fall helter-skelter, 

 everywhere, or here and there they fell in a straight 

 line, not more than a cubit in breadth." Shortly after 

 this event, at a village near Allahabad, three thousand 

 or four thousand fish were found on the ground, of a 

 well-known species, and about a span in length, but all 

 dead and dry. 



So, in 1820, a French cure, in the department of Loire- 

 Inferieure, was witness to a quantity of fishes, an inch or 

 so in length, falling during a heavy shower of rain. And 

 in the same year, near Nantes, the ground, for an area 

 of four hundred yards, was covered with fish, each about 

 an inch and a half in length. 



Hasted, in his " History of Kent," records that about 

 Easter 1666, in the parish of Stansted, which lies at 

 some distance from the sea, and has no fish-ponds near it, 

 a pasture-field was found strewed over with small fish. 



On the 14th of April, 1828, Major Forbes Mackenzie, 

 of Fodderty, Ross-shire, while walking in a meadow near 

 his farm, saw a considerable portion of the ground covered 

 with herring fry, three or four inches in length, fresh and 

 uninjured. The spot was three miles distant from the 



* Chambers, "Book of Days," ii., 361, 3Q2. 



