224 THE ANGLER-NATUEALIST. 



and taken out by tlie hand. These fish are mature and fall- 

 grown ; and the spots where they are thus found are in the 

 interior^ and too far from either seas or rivers to permit 

 of their appearance being explained by the questionable 

 theory of " fish-showers," — even putting aside the conclu- 

 sive fact that the adult fish, measuring from 9 to 12 inches, 

 have been, over and over again, actually dug up at a depth 

 of several feet from the surface. Mr. Whitting, Chief 

 Civil Ofiicer of the Eastern Province, was a witness on 

 several occasions to these disinterments, — the buried fish 

 being a species of Anabas closely resembling the Perca 

 scandens of Daldorfi". Yarrell's theory, therefore, that 

 the reappearance of the fish is caused by the impreg- 

 nated ova of one rainy season being left unhatched 

 until the next*, cannot be admitted as accurate. The 

 correct solution is doubtless that given by Sir Emerson 

 Tennent. He considers that, as the water decreases, the 

 fish seek relief from the heat by burying first their heads, 

 and finally their whole bodies in the ground, gradually 

 working their way deeper down as the moisture is dried 

 up from the surface — in fact, that they ' sestivate ' in 

 dry earth, as eels and other fish are known to hibernate 

 in mud. 



These burying-fish are by no means confined to Ceylon. 

 They exist in theGambiat, in the Mareb of Abyssinia J, in 



* British Fishes, Introd. vol. i. p. xxvi. 



t Lepidosiren annectans, Linn. Trans. 1S39. 



X Quatremere's M(5moire3 sur I'Egypte, torn. i. p. 17. 



