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 



