358 
FISHES. 
[Chap. X. 
cylindrical, with a thick body, somewhat shaped like a pike, 
but rounder, the nose curved upwards, the colour olive-green, 
with orange stripes, and the head speckled with crimson. 1 
This fish, according to the native story, is caught not in the 
rivers in whose vicinity it is found, but "in perfectly dry- 
places in the middle of grassy jungle, sometimes as far as two 
miles from the banks." Here, on finding a hole four or five 
inches in diameter, they commence to dig, and continue till 
they come to water ; and presently the bora-chung rises to the 
surface, sometimes from a depth of nineteen feet. In these 
extemporised wells these fishes are found always in pairs, and 
when brought to the surface they glide rapidly over the ground 
with a serpentine motion. This account appeared in 1839 ; 
but some years later, Mr. Campbell, the Superintendent of 
Darjeeling, in a communication to the same journal 2 , divested 
the story of much of its exaggeration, by stating, as the result 
of personal inquiry in Bhootan, that the bora-chung inhabits 
the j heels and slow-running .streams near the hills, but lives 
principally on the banks, into which it penetrates from one to 
five or six feet. The entrance to these retreats leading from 
the river into the bank is generally a few inches below the 
surface, so that the fish can return to the water at pleasure. 
The mode of catching them is by introducing the hand into 
these holes ; and the bora-chungs are found generally two in 
each chamber, coiled concentrically like snakes. It is not 
believed that they bore their own burrows, but that they take 
possession of those made by land-crabs. Mr. Campbell denies 
that they are more capable than other fish of moving on dry 
ground. From the particulars given, the bora-chung would 
appear to be an Ophiocephalus, probably the 0. barka described 
by Buchanan, as inhabiting holes in the banks of rivers tri- 
butary to the Ganges. 
1 Paper by Mr. J. T. Pearson, Journ. Asiat. Soc. JBeng., vol. viii. 
p. 551. 
2 Journ. Asiat. Soc. Seng., vol. xi. p. 963. 
I 
