Chap. X.] 
SHOWERS OF FISHES. 
363 
depositions on the subject were obtained from nine different 
parties. The fish were all dead ; most of them were large ; 
some were fresh, others were rotten and mutilated. They 
were seen at first in the sky, like a flock of birds, descending 
rapidly to the ground ; there was rain drizzling, but no storm. 
On the 16th and 17th of May, 1833, a fall offish occurred in 
the zillah of Futtehpoor, about three miles north of the Jumna, 
after a violent storm of wind and rain. The fish were from a 
pound and a half to three pounds in weight, and of the same 
species as those found in the tanks in the neighbourhood. 
They were all dead and dry. A fall of fish occurred at Alla- 
habad, during a storm in May, 1835 ; they were of the chowla 
species, and were found dead and dry after the storm had 
passed over the district. On the 20th of September, 1839, 
after a smart shower of rain, a quantity of live fish, about 
three inches in length and all of the same kind, fell at the 
Sunderbunds, about twenty miles south of Calcutta. On this 
occasion it was remarked that the fish did not fall here and 
there irregularly over the ground, but in a continuous straight 
line, not more than a span in breadth. The vast multitudes 
of fish, with which the low grounds round Bombay are covered, 
about a week or ten days after the first burst of the monsoon, 
appear to be derived from the adjoining pools or rivulets, and 
not to descend from the sky. They are not, so far as I know, 
found in the higher parts of the island. I have never seen 
them, (though I have watched carefully,) in casks collecting 
water from the roofs of buildings, or heard of them on the 
decks or awnings of vessels in the harbour, where they must 
have appeared had they descended from the sky. One of the 
most remarkable phenomena of this kind occurred during a 
tremendous deluge of rain at Kattywar, on the 25th of July, 
1850, when the ground around Eajkote was found literally 
Covered with fish ; some of them were found on the tops of 
haystacks, where probably they had been drifted by the storm. 
In the course of twenty-four successive hours twenty-seven 
inches of rain fell, thirty-five fell in twenty-six hours, seven 
