Cuar. X.] BURIED SPAWN. 343 
of the rain and oxygen in the next wet season, when 
vivification takes place from their joint influence.”? 
This hypothesis, however, appears to have been 
advanced upon imperfect data; for although some fish, 
like the salmon, scrape grooves in the sand and place 
their spawn in inequalities and fissures; yet as a general 
rule spawn is deposited not beneath but on the surface 
of the ground or sand over which the water flows, the 
adhesive nature of each egg supplying the means of 
attachment. But in the Ceylon tanks not only is the 
surface of the soil dried to dust after the evaporation of 
the water, but earth itself, twelve or eighteen inches 
deep, is converted into sun-burnt clay, in which, although 
the eggs of mollusca, in their calcareous covering, are 
in some instances preserved, it would appear to be as 
impossible for the ova of fish to be kept from decom- 
position as for the fish themselves to sustain life. Be- 
sides, moisture in such situations is only to be found at 
a depth to which spawn could not be conveyed by the 
parent fish, by any means with which we are yet 
acquainted. 
fish. The water had no connect- 
jon with any pond or stream what- 
soever.’ Mr. Crips, in like 
manner, in speaking of Galle, says: 
“T have seen in the vicinity of the 
fort, fish taken from rain-water 
that had accumulated in the hollow 
parts of land that in the hot season 
are perfectly dry and parched. 
The place is accessible to no run- 
ning stream or tank; and either the 
fish, or the spawn from which they 
were produced, must of necessity 
have fallen with the rain.” 
Mr. J. Prosser, the eminent 
secretary to the Asiatic Society of 
Bengal, found a fish in the pulvio- 
meter at Calcutta, in 1838.—Journ. 
Asiat. Soc. Bengal, vol. vi. p. 465. 
A series of instances in which 
fishes have been found on the con- 
tinent of India under circum- 
stances which lead to the con- 
clusion that they must have fallen 
from the clouds, have been col- 
lected by the late Dr. Buisr of 
Bombay, and will be found in the 
appendix to this chapter. 
1 Yarrevy, History of British 
Fishes, introd. vol. i. p. xxvi. This 
too was the opinion of Aristotle, 
De Respiratione, c. ix. 
Za 
