368 



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 jheels 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. Beng., vol. viii. 

 p. 551. 



2 Journ. Asiat Soc. Beng., vol. xi. p. 963. 



