Chap. X.] 
CLIMBING FISH. 
349 
Eeferring to the Anabas scandens, Dk. Hamilton 
Buchanan says, that of all the fish with which he was 
acquainted it is the most tenacious of life ; and he has 
known boatmen on the Granges to keep them for five or 
six days in an earthen pot without water, and daily to 
use what they wanted 3 finding them as lively and fresh 
as when caught. 1 Two Danish naturalists residing at 
Whilst there heavy rain came on, 
and, as we stood on the high 
ground, we observed a pelican on 
the margin of the shallow pool 
gorging himself; our people went 
towards him and raised a cry of 
fish ! fish ! We hurried down, and 
found numbers of fish struggling 
upwards through the grass in the 
rills formed by the trickling of the 
rain. There was scarcely water 
enough to cover them, but never- 
theless they made rapid progress 
up the bank, on which our fol- 
lowers collected about two bushels 
of them at a distance of forty 
yards from the tank. They were 
forcing their way up the knoll, and, 
had they not been intercepted first 
by the pelican and afterwards by 
ourselves, they would in a few 
minutes have gained the highest 
point and descended on the other 
side into a pool which formed 
another portion of the tank. They 
were chub, the same as are found 
in the mud after the tanks dry up." 
In a subsequent communication in 
July, 1857, the same gentleman 
says — "As the tanks dry up the 
fish congregate in the little pools 
till at last you find them in thou- 
sands in the moistest parts of the 
beds, rolling in the blue mud 
which is at that time about the 
consistence of thick gruel." 
" As the moisture further evapo- 
rates the surface fish are left un- 
covered, and they crawl away in 
search of fresh pools. In one -place 
I saw hundreds diverging in every 
direction, from the tank they had 
just abandoned to a distance of 
fifty or sixty yards, and still travel- 
ling onwards. In going this dis- 
tance, however, they must have 
used muscular exertion sufficient 
to have taken them half a mile on 
level ground, for at these places all 
the cattle and wild animals of the 
neighbourhood had latterly come 
to drink ; so that the surface was 
everywhere indented with foot- 
marks in addition to the cracks in 
the surrounding baked mud, into 
which the fish tumbled in their 
progress. In those holes which 
were deep and the sides perpen- 
dicular they remained to die, and 
were carried off by kites and crows." 
" My impression is that this mi- 
gration takes place at night or 
before sunrise, for it was only early 
in the morning that I have seen 
them progressing, and I found that 
those I brought away with me in 
chatties appeared quiet by day, 
but a large proportion managed to 
get out of the chatties at night — 
some escaped altogether, others 
were trodden on and killed." 
" One peculiarity is the large 
size of the vertebral column, quite 
disproportioned to the bulk of the 
fish. I particularly noticed that all 
in the act of migrating had their 
gills expanded." 
1 Fishes of the Ganges, 4to. 1822, 
