1868.] DR. F. DAY ON INDIAN FRESHWATER FISHES. 283 



fishes, and the annual visit of the Salmon to the sea, or else from a 

 necessity of obtaining a suitable situation in which to deposit their 

 ova. It is generally at this season that fish are seen travelling on 

 land. By this means it may be imagined that plains only occasionally 

 covered by water become populated with fish after a heavy fall of 

 rain. Amongst authorities testifying to having personally witnessed 

 this migration is Mr. Morris, the Government Agent at Trinco- 

 malee, who, in an interesting letter to Sir Emerson Tennent on this 

 subject in 1857, states, "As the tanks dry up the fish congregate in 

 the little pools, till at last you find them by 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 tanks they had just abandoned to a dis- 

 tance of fifty or sixty yards, and still travelling onwards. In going 

 this distance, however, they must have used muscular exertion suf- 

 ficient 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 surrounding 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. My impression is, that this 

 migration takes place at night or before sunrise ; for it was only 

 early in the morning that I have seen them progressing, and I 

 found those I brought away with me in chatties appeared quiet 

 by day, but managed to get out of the chatties at night. Some 

 escaped altogether; others were trodden on and killed"*. Many 

 others, both Europeans and natives, have added their testimony to 

 these migrations, which they have personally observed. Sir John 

 Bowring, in his work on Siam, observes, with reference to the river 

 Meinani, that he was amused by the novel sight " of fish leaving the 

 river, gliding over the wet banks, and losing themselves amongst the 

 trees in the jungles "-f. And in another part of the same work he 

 says that the very sandbanks of the Meinam were full of life, and a 

 "sort of amphibious fish were flitting from the water to be lost amongst 

 the roots of the jungle wood" J. He also quotes from Bishop Pal- 

 legoix §, that some of these fishes will wander more than a league 

 from the water || . The Anabas scandens is able to travel short dis- 

 tances on land, and has been seen to do so by many Europeans, 



* Sir Emerson Tennent, ' Ceylon,' vol. i. p. 215. 

 + Kingdom and People of Siam, vol. i. p. 10. 

 X Ibid. vol. i. p. 392. 



I Description des Royaumes Thai ou Siam, 1854, vol. i. pp. 193, 194. 



II Pallegoix mentions that there are three species of what he calls these 

 " Wandering Fishes," termed pla-xon, pla-duk, a.nA pla-mo ; but, from the ab- 

 sence of scientific data, they have not been identified. The pla-xon he de- 

 scribes as about the size of a Carp, very voracious, and abundant. It is 

 exported to China, Singapore, and Java, and considered particularly whole- 

 some as food. 



