214 MB. r. DAT ON AMPHIBIOUS FISHES OF ASIA. 



important part in providing for the nourishment of the larger 

 kinds. 



All species, amphibious or not so, it is asserted, may be found 

 torpid ; and John Hunter's hypothesis is probably correct. He 

 observes " that hibernation is apparently due to a suspension of 

 the faculties of animals by nature during such seasons and in 

 such situations that a supply of food is not obtainable." Pish 

 sleep or sestivate during the hot months at a period when nature 

 is generally torpid, reviving again with the monsoon-rains as 

 animal life resuscitates. 



In Orissa the following instance occurred of the exhumation of 

 fishes from the earth. 



T was fishing there in January 1869, in company with a very 

 intelligent native, to whom I expressed a wish to see fish exhumed 

 from the mud of tanks. He remarked that those which I have 

 termed amphibious, and also the spined eels, or Ehynchobdellidae 

 invariably retire into the mud of tanks as the water dries up ; 

 but he denied that carp ever did. 



He suggested that we should at once make a trial at a neigh- 

 bouring tank, which was about an acre in extent and had not 

 more than four inches depth of water in its centre, whilst its 

 circumference was sufficiently hardened to walk upon. The soil 

 was a thick, consistent, bluish clay, and no excavation w^as made 

 within thirty paces of the water. 



Within five minutes the coolies extracted, from at least 2 feet 

 below the mud, two OpMocepTialus punctatus and three 'Bhyncho- 

 Mella aculeata, all of which were lively and not in the least torpid. 



There is a specimen of AmpJiipnous cuchia, or the amphibious 

 eel, in the Calcutta Museum, 13 inches long, presented by S. E. 

 Peal, Esq., with the following label : — " This fish v^^as hoed out of 

 stiff blue clay as I was standing overlooking men at work making 

 a bund, June 24ith, 1865. No water had been seen near for some 

 time "*. 



We could easily suppose that what occurs in the Lepidosiren 

 may likewise take place in these amphibious fishes. Lepidosiren 

 are found inactive during the hot dry months, when their pulmo- 

 nary air-bladders are employed for respiration ; during this time 

 of the year they burrow in the mud, which becomes dried above, 

 them ; but they maintain a small communicating aperture with the 

 outer world, " and coiling themselves up in their cool chamber 

 clothe themselves by a layer of thick mucous secretion, and await 



* The remainder of the label illegible. 



