CHAP. IV.] 



BURYING FISH. 



221 



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

 under which, when the water is about to evaporate 

 during the dry season, it burrows and conceals itself 1 till 

 the returning rains restore it to activity, 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 Ttf-appear in full growth and vigour imme- 

 diately on the return of the rains. 2 



Dr. John Hunter 3 has advanced an 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 which extreme cold occasions, 

 and against the recurrence of which nature makes a 

 timely provision by a suspension of her functions. Ex- 



1 A knowledge of this fact was 

 turned to prompt account by Mr. 

 Edgar S. Layard, when holding a 

 judicial office at Point Pedro in 1849. 

 A native who had been defrauded of 

 his land complained before him of 

 his neighbour, Avho, during his ab- 

 sence, had removed their common 

 landmark by diverting the original 

 watercourse and obliterating its traces 

 by filling it to a level with the rest 

 of the held. Mr. Layard directed a 

 trench to be sunk at the contested 

 spot, and discovering numbers of the 

 Ampullaria, the remains of the eggs, 

 and the living animal which had been 

 buried for months, the evidence was 

 so resistless as to confound the wrong- 

 doer, and terminate the suit. 



2 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. BENSON, in the 

 first vol. of Gleanings of Science, pub- 

 lished at Calcutta in 1829, describes 

 a species of Paludina found in pools, 

 which are periodically dried up in 

 the hot season but reappear with the 

 rains, p. 363. And in the Journal of 

 the Asiatic Soc. of Bengal for Sept. 

 1832, Lieut. HTJTTON, in a singularly 

 interesting paper, has followed up the 



same subject by a narrative of his 

 own observations at Mirzapore, where 

 in June, 1832, after a few heavy 

 showers of rain, that formed pools 

 on the surface of the ground near a 

 mango grove, he saw the Paludina 

 issuing from the ground, "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 ascertain 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 

 Ampullaria; and Planorbes, as well 

 as the Paludinee, are found in similar 

 situations during the heats of the 

 dry season. The British Piaidea ex- 

 hibit the same faculty (see a mono- 

 graph in the Camb. 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 eves after being 

 parched to hardness during the heat 

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

 p. 312. 



3 HUNTER'S Observations on parts 

 of the Animal (Economy, p. 88. 



