There are fishes in Asia which respire atmo spheric air direct. They possess respiratory organs in the form of an accessory respiratory sac, distinct from gills, and they are essentially amphibious. The genera of Indian fishes (excluding Chanos) which possess respiratory organs, having a lung like function, and which are distinct from the gills, are, amongst the acanthopterygians, species of Anabas, Polyacanthus, Osphromenus, and Tricho gaster ; also species of tho Ophiocephalidaa and the genera Clarias and Saccobranchus among the Siluridte. Of tho family Symbranchicke, is the Cuchia eel (Amphipnous cuchia). The Ophio cephalidte are very predatory, and their favourite lurkieg-place is amongst the grass at the margin of a tank. These amphibious fishes, and also the spined eels, Rhynchobdellidm, retire into the mud of tanks as the water dries up.
In January 1869, in Orissa, Dr. Day dug up in a tank, two feet below the mud, two Ophiocephalus punctatus and three Rhynchobdella acnleata. The Amphipnous cuchia, or amphibious eel, has also been dug out of blue clay. They have blow holes in the mud, as seals have in the ice. Mr. Bonyngo says (America, p. 165) he had seen the natives in the N.E. of India dig fish out of the earth ; the fish is called Zamin ki mutchee (earth-fish), of about 5 to 7 inches in length, fiat, and black in colour, flesh hard, and in flavour somewhat like an eel. Tenna.nt tells us (Sketches, p. 351) that in Ceylon, where the country is flat, and small I tanks aro extremely numerous the natives aro accustomed in the hot season t's• dig in the mud for fish. lilr. Whiting, the chief skilless of tho Eastern Province, informed him that, on two oc,casions, ho was present accidentally when the villagers were so engaged, once at the tank of Isfalliativoe, within a few miles of Kottiar, near the 13ay of Trincomalee, and again at a umk be tween Ellendetorro and Armitivoe, on the bank of the Vergel river. The clay was firm but moist, and as the men flung out lumps of it with a spade, it fell to pieces, disclosing fish from 9 to 12 inches long, full grown and healthy, which jumped on the bank when exposed to the sunlight. Tho Lepidosiren of Africa and S. America is placed midway between the reptiles and fishes, and has gills and true lungs. It htu3 the habit on the approach of drought of burying itself several feet deep into the mud of the ponds in which it usually dwells. It does not appear to possess the power of traveling.
Fishes do travel,—not eels alone, which in all countries can move rapidly over moist • land. Theophrastus (De Piseibus), the contemporary of Aristotle, is the first who mentions fishes found in the Euphrates, which in the dry seasons leave the vacant channels and crawl over the ground in search of water, moving along by means of their fins and tail. The travelling powers of the Ophiocephalus amphibeus of Burma are known. The Ophiocephalus striatus, which occurs in the Indian Peninsula, attains a length of upwards of 3 feet. O. gachua grows to one foot long, and Dr. Day believes that they breathe air direct from
the atmosphere. Dr. Bowring (Sizun, p. 10), in ascending and descending the Meinam river, to and from Bankok, was amused with the sight of fish leaving the river, gliding over the wet banks, and losing themselves among the trees of the jungle. Bishop Pallegoix (Siam, i. 144) says fish will wander more than a league from the water. Some years ago, he says, a great drought had dried up all the ponds in the neighbourhood of Aysithia ; during the night torrents of min fell. Next day, ftoing for a walk into the country, he was surplised ac't seeing the ponds almost full, and a quantity of lish leaping about I 'Whence have these fish come? ' he inquired of a labourer ; 'yesterday there was not one. He replied, 'They were cotne under favour of the rain.' In 1831, when fish were uncommonly cheap, the bishop placed 50 cwt. in his ponds, but su less than a month nine-tenths escaped during a rain that fell in the night. There are three species of this wtmdering fish, c.slled Pla xon, Pla-duk, Pla-mo. The first is vomcious, and about the size of a carp; tsalted and dried, it can be preserved for a year. It is very abundant, is exported to China, Singapore, and Java, and is a particularly wholesome and health-giving fish. Ophiocephalidas have a great vitality. In China they aro kept alive at the markets, and slices are said to be cut off their bodies as required by customers.
Near the rocks of the Ceylon coast are multi tudes of the Salarias aliens, which pcesesses the faculty of darting along the surface of the water, and running up the wet stones and across the sand with the utmost ease and rapidity. :Sir. Gorse (p. 122) mentions basing seen a spectes of Anten narium running quickly to tuld fro on the surface of the great beds of floating sea-weed in tho Gulf Stream, progressing by means of its pectoral and ventral fins, quite out of water. The Hydrargyrze of Carolina leave the drying pools and seek the nearest water, in a straight line, though at a con siderable distance. The hassar of Essequibo is the Doras costata. When the water is leaving the pools in which theycommonly reside, the yarrow (a species of Esox, Linn.), as well as a species of the hassar, bury themselves in the mud, while all the other fish perish for want of their natural element, or are picked up by rapacious birds. The flat-head hassar, on the contrary, simultaneously quit the place, and march overland in search of water, travelling for a whole night in its search. They can live for many hours out of the water, even when exposed to the sun's rays. They project themselves forward on their bony arms by the elastic spring of their tail ; their progress is nearly as fast as a man can walk. Sir R. Schomburgh tells us that the hassar are occasionally met with in such numbers in their travels, that the negroes fill baskets with them. If they fail in finding water, they are said to burrow in the soft mud, and pass the dry season in torpidity like the lepidosiren.