CL1M1S1NQ PERCH. 'AnuOut 



possess this singular property of walking over dry ground, so that the old proverb of a fiah 

 out of water is, in these cases, quite inapplicable. Several instances of this remarkable 

 propensity have been collected by Sir J. Emerson Tennent, and have been inserted in his 

 valuable work on the Natural History of Ceylon. The following account is written by 

 Mr. Morris, the Government agent in Trincomalee : 



" I was lately on duty inspecting the bund of a large tank at Nade-cadua, which 

 being out of repair, the remaining water was confined in a small hollow in the otherwise 

 dry bed. Whilst there, heavy rains came on, and as we stood on the high ground, we 

 observed a pelican on the margin of the shallow pool gorging himself : our people went 

 towards him, and raised a cry of Fish ! fish ! We hurried down, and found numbers of fish 

 struggling upward through the grass, in the rills formed by the trickling of the rain. There 

 was scarcely water to cover them, but nevertheless they made rapid progress up the bank, 

 on which our followers collected about two baskets of them at a distance of about forty 

 yards from the tank. They were forcing their way up the knoll, and had they not been 

 interrupted first by the pelican and afterwards by ourselves, they would in a few minutes 

 have gained the highest point, and descended on the other side into a pool which formed 

 another portion of the tank. 



... As the tanks dry up, the fish congregate in the little pools, till at last you find 

 them in thousands in the moistest parts of the beds, rolling in the blue mud, which is at 

 that time about the consistence of thick gruel. 



As the moisture further evaporates, the surface fish are left uncovered, and they crawl 

 away in search of fresh pools. In one place I saw hundreds diverging in every direction 

 from the tank they had just abandoned, to a distance of fifty or sixty yards, and still 

 travelling onwards. In going this distance, however, they must have used muscular 

 exertion enough to have taken them half a mile on level ground, for at these places all the 

 cattle and wild animals of the neighbourhood had latterly come to drink, so that the 

 surface was everywhere indented with footmarks in addition to the cracks in the sur- 

 rounding baked mud, into which the fish tumbled in their progress. In those holes which 

 were deep, and the sides perpendicular, they remained to die, and were carried off by kites 

 and crows. 



