340 FISHES. [Caar. X. 
to be evaporated to dryness till the mud of the bottom 
is converted into dust, and the clay cleft by the heat 
into gaping apertures; yet within a very few days after 
the change of the monsoon, the natives are busily en- 
gaged in fishing in those very spots and in the hollows 
contiguous to them, although the latter are entirely 
unconnected with any pool or running streams. Here 
» they fish in the same way which Knox described nearly 
200 years ago, with a funnel-shaped basket, open at 
bottom and top, “ which,” as he says, “they jibb down, 
and the end sticks in the mud, which often happens 
upon a fish ; which, when they feel beating itself against 
the sides, they put in their hands and take it out, and 
reive a ratan through their gills, and so let them drag 
after them.”? 
ml 
FROM KNOX’S CEYLON, a,». 1681 
This operation may be seen in the lowlands, traversed 
’ Knox, Historical Relation of Ceylon, Part t ch. vi. 
