Chap. X.] 



CLIMBING FISH. 



349 



Keferring to the Anabas scandens, Dk. Hamilton 

 Buchanan says, that of all the fish with which he was 

 acquainted it is the most tenacious of life ; and he has 

 known boatmen on the Granges to keep them for five or 

 six days in an earthen pot without water, and daily to 

 use what they wanted, finding them as lively and fresh 

 as when caught. 1 Two Danish naturalists residing at 



Whilst there heavy rain came on, 

 and, as we stood on the high 

 ground, we observed a pelican on 

 the margin of the shallow pool 

 gorging himself; our people went 

 towards him and raised a cry of 

 fish ! fish ! We hurried down, and 

 found numbers of fish struggling 

 upwards through the grass in the 

 rills formed by the trickling of the 

 rain. There was scarcely water 

 enough to cover them, but never- 

 theless they made rapid progress 

 up the bank, on which our fol- 

 lowers collected about two bushels 

 of them at a distance of forty 

 yards from the tank. They were 

 forcing their way up the knoll, and, 

 had they not been intercepted first 

 by the pelican and afterwards by 

 ourselves, they would in a few 

 minutes have gained the highest 

 point and descended on the other 

 side into a pool which formed 

 another portion of the tank. They 

 were chub, the same as are found 

 in the mud after the tanks dry up." 

 In a subsequent communication in 

 July, 1857, the same gentleman 

 says — "As the tanks dry up the 

 fish congregate in the little pools 

 till at last you find them in thou- 

 sands in the moistest parts of the 

 beds, rolling in the blue mud 

 which is at that time about the 

 consistence of thick gruel." 



" As the moisture further evapo- 

 rates the surface fish are left un- 

 covered, and they crawl away in 



search of fresh pools. In one place 

 I saw hundreds diverging in every 

 direction, from the tank they had 

 just abandoned to a distance of 

 fifty or sixty yards, and still travel- 

 ling onwards. In going this dis- 

 tance, however, they must have 

 used muscular exertion sufficient 

 to have taken them half a mile on 

 level ground, for at these places all 

 the cattle and wild animals of the 

 neighbourhood had latterly come 

 to drink ; so that the surface was 

 everywhere indented with foot- 

 marks in addition to the cracks in 

 the surrounding baked mud, into 

 which the fish tumbled in their 

 progress. In those holes which 

 were deep and the sides perpen- 

 dicular they remained to die, and 

 were carried off by kites and crows." 



" My impression is that this mi- 

 gration takes place at night or 

 before sunrise, for it was only early 

 in the morning that I have seen 

 them progressing, and I found that 

 those I brought away with me in 

 chatties appeared quiet by day, 

 but a large proportion managed to 

 get out of the chatties at night — 

 some escaped altogether, others 

 were trodden on and killed." 



" One peculiarity is the large 

 size of the vertebral column, quite 

 disproportioned to the bulk of the 

 fish. I particularly noticed that all 

 in the act of migrating had their 

 gills expanded." 



1 Fishes of the Ganges, 4to. 1822. 



