Part 30 (2/2)
[Footnote 3: _Nat. Hist. Aleppo_, 2nd edit. Lond. 1794, vol. ii. p. 208, pl. vi.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: MASTACEMBELUS ARMATUS]
_Mastacembelus armatus_.[1] The back is armed with from thirty-five to thirty-nine short, stout spines; there being three others before the a.n.a.l fin. The ground colour of the fish is brown, and the head has two rather irregular longitudinal black bands; deep-brown spots run along the back as well as along the dorsal and a.n.a.l fins; and the sides are ornamented with irregular and reticulated brown lines. This eel attains to the length of two feet. The old females do not show any markings, being of a uniform brown colour.
[Footnote 1: Macrognathus armatus, _Lacep._; Mastacembelus armatus, _Cuv., Val._]
In the collection of Major Skinner, before alluded to, brought together without premeditation, the naturalist will be struck by the preponderance of those genera which are adapted by nature to endure, a temporary privation of moisture; and this, taken in connection with the vicissitudes affecting the waters they inhabit, exhibits a surprising ill.u.s.tration of the wisdom of the Creator in adapting the organisation of his creatures to the peculiar circ.u.mstances under which they are destined to exist.
So abundant are fish in all parts of the island, that Knox says, not the running streams alone, but the reservoirs and ponds, ”nay, every ditch and little plash of water but ankle deep hath fish in it.”[1] But many of these reservoirs and tanks are, twice in each year, liable to be evaporated to dryness till the mud of the bottom is converted into dust, and the clay cleft by the heat into gaping apertures; yet within a very few days after the change of the monsoon, the natives are busily engaged in fis.h.i.+ng in those very spots and in the hollows contiguous to them, although the latter are entirely unconnected with any pool or running streams. Here they fish in the same way which Knox described nearly 200 years ago, with a funnel-shaped basket, open at bottom and top, ”which,”
as he says, ”they jibb down, and the end sticks in the mud, which often happens upon a fish; which, when they feel beating itself against the sides, they put in their hands and take it out, and reive a ratan through their gills, and so let them drag after them.”[2]
[Footnote 1: Knox's _Historical Relation of Ceylon,_ Part i. ch. vii.
The occurrence of fish in the most unlooked-for situations, is one of the mysteries of other eastern countries as well as Ceylon and India. In Persia irrigation is carried on to a great extent by means of wells sunk in line in the direction in which it is desired to lead a supply of water, and these are connected by channels, which are carefully arched over to protect them from evaporation. These _kanats,_ as they are called, are full of fish, although neither they nor the wells they unite have any connection with streams or lakes.]
[Footnote 2: Knox, _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, Part i. ch vi.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM KNOX'S CEYLON, A.D. 1681]
This operation may be seen in the lowlands, traversed by the high road leading from Colombo to Kandy. Before the change of the monsoon, the hollows on either side of the highway are covered with dust or stunted gra.s.s; but when flooded by the rains, they are immediately resorted to by the peasants with baskets, constructed precisely as Knox has stated, in which the fish are entrapped and taken out by the hand.[1]
[Footnote 1: As anglers, the native Singhalese exhibit little expertness; but for fis.h.i.+ng the rivers, they construct with singular ingenuity fences formed of strong stakes, protected by screens of ratan, that stretch diagonally across the current; and along these the fish are conducted into a series of enclosures from which retreat is impracticable. MR. LAYARD, in the _Magazine of Natural History_ for May, 1853, has given a diagram of one of these fish ”corrals,” as they are called, of which a copy is shown on the next page.]
So singular a phenomenon as the sudden re-appearance of full-grown fishes in places that a few days before had been encrusted with hardened clay, has not failed to attract attention; but the European residents have been content to explain it by hazarding conjectures, either that the sp.a.w.n must have lain imbedded in the dried earth till released by the rains, or that the fish, so unexpectedly discovered, fall from the clouds during the deluge of the monsoon.
As to the latter conjecture; the fall of fish during showers, even were it not so problematical in theory, is too rare an event to account for the punctual appearance of those found in the rice-fields, at stated periods of the year. Both at Galle and Colombo in the south-west monsoon, fish are popularly believed to have fallen from the clouds during violent showers, but those found on the occasions that give rise to this belief, consist of the smallest fry, such as could be caught up by waterspouts, and vortices a.n.a.logous to them, or otherwise blown on sh.o.r.e from the surf; whereas those which 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 circ.u.mstances 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 vicinity of the sea, or of some inland water.
[Footnote 1: I had an opportunity, on one occasion only, of witnessing the phenomenon which gives rise to this popular belief. I was driving in the cinnamon gardens near the fort of Colombo, and saw a violent but partial shower descend at no great distance before me. On coming to the spot I found a mult.i.tude of small silvery fish from one and a half to two inches in length, leaping on the gravel of the high road, numbers of which I collected and brought away in my palankin. The spot was about half a mile from the sea, and entirely unconnected with any watercourse or pool.
Mr. Whiting, who was many years resident in Trincomadie, writes me that he ”had often been told by the natives on that side of the island that it sometimes rained fishes; and on one occasion” (he adds) ”I was taken by them, in 1849, to a field at the village of Karrancotta-tivo, near Batticaloa, which was dry when I pa.s.sed over it in the morning, but, had been covered in two hours by sudden rain to the depth of three inches, in which there was then a quant.i.ty of small fish. The water had no connection with any pond or stream whatsoever.” Mr. Cripps, in like manner, in speaking of Galle, says: ”I have seen in the vicinity of the fort, fish taken from rain-water that had acc.u.mulated in the hollow parts of land that in the hot season are perfectly dry and parched. The place is accessible to no running stream or tank; and either the fish or the sp.a.w.n from which they were produced, must of necessity have fallen with the rain.”
Mr. J. PRINSEP, the eminent secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, found a fish in the pulviometer at Calcutta, in 1838.--_Journ. Asiat.
Soc. Bengal_, vol. vi. p. 465.
A series of instances in which fishes have been found on the continent of India under circ.u.mstances which lead to the conclusion that they must have fallen from the clouds, have been collected by the late Dr. BUIST of Bombay, and will be found in the appendix to this chapter.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FISH CORRAL]
The surmise of the buried sp.a.w.n is one sanctioned by the very highest authority. Mr. Yarrell 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 commencement 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 is preserved till the recurrence, and contact of the rain and oxygen in the next wet season, when vivification takes place from their joint influence.”[1]
[Footnote 1: YARRELL, _History of British Fishes_, introd. vol. i. p.
xxvi. This too was the opinion of Aristotle, _De Respiratione_, c. ix.]
This hypothesis, however, appears to have been advanced upon imperfect data; for although some fish, like the salmon, sc.r.a.pe grooves in the sand and place their sp.a.w.n in inequalities and fissures; yet as a general rule sp.a.w.n 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 decomposition as for the fish themselves to sustain life. Besides, moisture in such situations is only to be found at a depth to which sp.a.w.n could not be conveyed by the parent fish, by any means with which we are yet acquainted.
But supposing it possible to carry the sp.a.w.n sufficiently deep, and to deposit it safely in the mud below, which is still damp, whence it could be liberated on the return of the rains, a considerable interval would still be necessary after the replenis.h.i.+ng of the ponds with water to admit of vivification and growth. Yet so far from this interval being allowed to elapse, the rains have no sooner fallen than the taking of the fish commences, and those captured by the natives in wicker cages are mature and full grown instead of being ”small fish” or fry, as supposed by Mr. Yarrell.
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