THE AIR BREATHING FISH OF CEYLON. 129 



list these circumstances would probably have led to my discovering 

 at that time the fact that the fish, in which they were observed, 

 are air breathers, and as incapable of supporting life by breathing 

 water, and as liable to be drowned by being kept from access to 

 atmospheric air, as the whale or the seal or the turtle; but, not 

 being much accustomed to such investigations, I failed to perceive 

 the conclusion to which these habits obviously pointed. About 

 the same time, I learned from the natives, that there were certain 

 species of fish, generally inhabiting swamps and paddy fields, which, 

 when dry weather deprived their usual haunts of all their moisture, 

 were in the habit of burying themselves in large numbers in the 

 mud, and remaining there in safety even after a sod had been formed 

 by the growth of grass on the surface. 



With the intention of verifying that statement, I caused a very 

 large earthen vessel to be made, which I nearly filled with mud, 

 leaving a few inches of water on the surface. In this I placed a 

 number of those species of fish which were stated to bury them- 

 selves in the manner described, expecting that they would act in 

 the same manner in captivity as they were said to do in their na- 

 tural state. It is obvious however, that the conditions were not 

 similar — The evaporation in my experiment was confined to the 

 surface, whereas in a paddy field the moisture may be supposed to 

 escape in all directions and not from the surface only. Again, in 

 the paddy field, grass would begin to spring up while the surface 

 was still covered with water, and before the strictly aquatic vege- 

 tation had disappeared ; and a constant influence would thus be 

 exercised in keeping the water first, and the mud afterwards, free 

 from putrefaction. It is not to be wondered at therefore that all 

 the specimens of fish which I subjected to that experiment died 

 long before a sod was formed on the surface of the mud; but they 

 survived for several days after the water had all disappeared from 

 the surface by evaporation, and continued to manifest so much 

 vigour as to bespatter, in a very unpleasant manner, any person who 

 approached them incautiously. The result of that experiment was, 

 therefore, merely to confirm what was already known to naturalists, 



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