342 



FISHES. 



[Chap. X. 



suddenly appear in the replenished tanks and in the 

 hollows which they overflow, are mature and well-grown 

 fish. 1 Besides, the latter are found, under 

 the circumstances I have described, in all 

 parts of the interior, whilst the prodigy of 

 a supposed fall of fish from the sky has 

 been noticed, I apprehend, only in the vi- 

 cinity of the sea, or of some inland water. 



The surmise of the buried spawn is one 

 sanctioned by the very highest authority. 

 Mr. Yarkell in his "History of British 

 Fishes? adverting to the fact that ponds (in 

 India) which had been previously converted 

 into hardened mud, are replenished with 

 small fish in a very few days after the com- 

 mencement of each rainy season, offers this 

 solution of the problem as probably the true 

 one : " The impregnated ova of the fish of 

 one rainy season are left unhatched in the 

 mud through the dry season, and from their 

 low state of organisation as ova, the vitality 



FISH CORRAL. . _ .,, 



is preserved till the recurrence, and contact 



1 I had an opportunity, on one nected with any watercourse or 



occasion only, of witnessing the pool. 



phenomenon which gives rise to Mr, Whiting, who was many 



this popular belief. I was driving years resident in Trincomalie, 



in the cinnamon gardens near the writes me that he "had often been 



fort of Colombo, and saw a violent told by the natives on that side of 



but partial shower descend at no the island that it sometimes rained 



great distance before me. On fishes ; and on one occasion " (he 



coming to the spot I found a multi- adds) "I was taken by them, in 1849, 



tude of small silvery fish from one to a field at the village of Karran- 



and a half to two inches in length, cotta-tivo, near Batticaloa, which 



leaping on the gravel of the high was dry when I passed over it in 



road, numbers of which I collected the morning, but had been covered 



and brought away in my palankin. in two hours by sudden rain to the 



The spot was about half a mile depth of three inches, in which 



from the sea, and entirely uncon- there was then a quantity of small 



