Chap. X.] 
BURYING FISHES. 
351 
The position of its fins, and the spines on its gill-covers, 
might assist its journey upwards, but the same apparatus 
would prove anything but a facility in steadying its 
journey down. The probability is, as suggested by Bu- 
chanan, that the ascent which was witnessed by Daldorf 
was accidental, and ought not to be regarded as the 
habit of the animal. In Ceylon I heard of no instance 
of the perch ascending trees 1 , but the fact is well esta- 
blished that both it, the pullata (a species of polyacan- 
thus), and others, are capable of long journeys on the 
level ground. 2 
Burying Fishes. — But a still more remarkable power 
possessed by some of the Ceylon fishes, is that already 
alluded to, of secretiDg themselves in the earth in the 
dry season, at the bottom of the exhausted ponds, and 
there awaiting the renewal of the water at the change of 
the monsoon. The instinct of the crocodile to resort to 
the same expedient has been already referred to 3 , and in 
like manner the fish, when distressed by the evaporation 
of the tanks, seek relief by immersing first their heads, 
for this purpose, lias not been baskets nor pockets in -which to 
observed in Ceylon. place what they catch, will seize a 
1 This assertion must be quali- fish in their teeth whilst putting 
tied by a fact stated by Mr. E. A. fresh bait on their hook. In 
Layard, who mentions that on August, 1853, a man was carried 
visiting one of the fishing stations into the Pettah hospital at Colombo, 
on a Singhalese river, where the having a climbing perch, which he 
fish are caught in staked enclo- thus attempted to hold, firmly im- 
sures, as described at p. 342, and bedded in his throat. The spines 
observing that the chambers were of its dorsal fin prevented its de- 
covered with netting, he asked the scent, whilst those of the gill- 
reason, and was told that some of covers equally forbade its return. 
the fish climbed up the sticks and got It was eventually extracted by 
over." — Mag. Nat. Hist, for May the forceps through an incision in 
1823, p. 390-1. the oesophagus, and the patient re- 
2 Strange accidents have more covered. Other similar cases have 
than once occurred at Ceylon proved fatal. 
arising from the habit of the 3 See ante, p. 285. 
native anglers; who, having neither 
