Chap. X.] BUEIED SPAWN. 343 



of the rain and oxygen in the next wet season, when 

 vivification takes place from their joint influence." 1 



This hypothesis, however, appears to have been 

 advanced upon imperfect data ; for although some fish, 

 like the salmon, scrape grooves in the sand and place 

 their spawn in inequalities and fissures ; yet as a general 

 rule spawn is deposited not beneath but on the surface 

 of the ground or sand over which the water flows, the 

 adhesive nature of each egg supplying the means of 

 attachment. But in the Ceylon tanks not only is the 

 surface of the soil dried to dust after the evaporation of 

 the water, but earth itself, twelve or eighteen inches 

 deep, is converted into sun-burnt clay, in which, although 

 the eggs of mollusca, in their calcareous covering, are 

 in some instances preserved, it would appear to be as 

 impossible for the ova of fish to be kept from decom- 

 position as for the fish themselves to sustain life. Be- 

 sides, moisture in such situations is only to be found at 

 a depth to which spawn could not be conveyed by the 

 parent fish, by any means with which we are yet 

 acquainted. 



fish. The water had no connect- 

 ion with any pond or stream what- 

 soever." Mr. Cripps, in like 

 manner, in speaking of Gralle, says : 

 " I have seen in the vicinity of the 

 fort, fish taken from rain-water 

 that had accumulated in the hollow 

 parts of land that in the hot season 

 are perfectly dry and parched. 

 The place is accessible to no run- 

 ning stream or tank ; and either the 

 fish, or the spawn fiom which they 

 were produced, must of necessity 

 have fallen with the rain." 



Mr. J. Prinsep, the eminent 

 secretary to the Asiatic Society of 



z 



Bengal, found a fish in the pulvio- 

 meter at Calcutta, in 1838. — Journ. 

 Asiat. Soc. Bengal, vol. vi. p. 465. 



A series of instances in which 

 fishes have been found on the con- 

 tinent of India under circum- 

 stances which lead to the con- 

 clusion that they must have fallen 

 from the clouds, have been col- 

 lected by the late Dr. Buist of 

 Bombay, and will be found in the 

 appendix to this chapter. 



1 Yarrell, History of British 

 Fishes, introd. vol. i. p. xxvi. This 

 too was the opinion of Aristotle, 

 De Bespiratione, c. ix. 



4 



