The travelling fish of India (Ophiocephalus), possessing an amphibious respiration, is capable of traversing from one pond to another, as necessity or fancy dictates. Jugglers carry them about in order to assist in their performances ; while so great is their vitality, that the saleswomen cut portions off them while still alive, for disposal to purchasers, who will only give a decreased price when life ceases to exist. Their mode of continuing their kind is likewise very interesting : they live in pairs, occasionally in the holes made by crabs or birds situated on the banks of rivers, while the forms which reside in tanks construct nests of the grasses growing there. Biting some off and entwining others, they construct a domicile wherein their eggs are deposited, while they pro tect their young until they are able to shift for themselves.
In Ceylon, the fish most frequently seen travel ling is a perch called by the Singhalese Kavaya or Kawhyya, and by the Tamil, Pannei-eri, or Sennal. It is the Anabas scandens, Cuvier. It grows to about 6 inches in length, the head round and covered with scales, and the edges of the gill-covers strongly denticulated. Aided by the apparatus in its head, this little creature issues boldly from its native pools, and addresses itself to its toilsome march, generally at night or in :the early morning, whilst the grass is still damp with the dew ; but in its distress it is some titnes compelled to move by day ; and Mr. E. L. Layard on one occasion encountered a number of them travelling along a dusty road under the midday sun. Mr. Layard (Ann. Nat. Hist. Mag. 1853) says it is most tenacious of life. Dr. Hamilton Buchanan says he bad known boatmen on the Ganges 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. • Mr. Morris, Government age_nt, Trincomalee, writing to Sir J. E. Tennant on this subject in 1856, mentioned that when .inspecting the bund of a large tank at Nade-cadua, he 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 nevertheless they made rapid progress up the bank, and his followers collected about two bushels of them at a distanee -of 40 yards from the tank. They were forcing` their way up the knoll. They were chub, the same as are found in the mud after the tanks dry up. Subsequently, in July 1857, Mr. Morris mentioned that as the tanks dry up the fish congregate in the little pools, till at last you find them in thousands 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 from the surface,. they are left uncovered, and they crawl away in search of fresh pools. In one pla.ce he saw hundreds diverging in every direction from the tank they had just abandoned to a distance of 50 or 60 yards, and still travelling onwards. His impression was that this migration takes place at night, or before sunrise, for it was only early in the morning that he had seen them progressing. All in the act of migration had their gills expanded.
Many fish die rapidly in turbid water, and they strive to escape from it. On the 2d August 1878, fish left the Ganges at Mirzapur for the dry land, but huge quantities of rohu, tengra, eels, hilsa, skates, piyasi, saoli, baehwa, and other fish died in the river. The smallest quantity of water, however, suffices to enable the multitudes of small fishes to climb high away from the tanks of India to the high ground, when the water of the tauk has become loaded with soil washed down by heavy rain.
Fish-rain.—Dr. Buist, writing in the Bombay Times in 1856, mentioned that in 1824 fishes fell at Meerut on the men of II er Majesty's 14th Regi ment, then out at drill, and were caught in numbers. In July 1826,1ive fish were seen to fall on the grass at Moradabad during a storm. They were the common cyprinus, so prevalent in Indian waters. On the 19th of February 1830, at noon, a heavy fall of fish occurred at the Nokulhatta factory in the Dacca zillah ; 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 1853, a fall of fish occurred in the zillah of Futtehpur, about 3 miles north of the Jumna, after a violent storm of wind and rain. The fish were from 1i lbs. to 3 lbs. 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 Allahabad during a storm in May 1835 ; they were species of the chowla, and were found dead and dry after the storm had passed over the district. On the 20th of Sep tember 1839, after a smart shower of rain, a quantity of live fish, about 3 inches in length, and all of the same kind, fell in the Sunderbuns, about 20 miles south of Calcutta. 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. During a tremendous deluge of rain at Kattyawar, on the 25th of July 1850, the ground around Rajkot was found literally covered with fish ; some of /hem weiefound on the tops of haystacks, where faiobably they had been drifted by the storm. In tho course of 24 suc eessive Ileum, 27 inches of rain fell, 35 fell in 26 hours, 7 inches within one hour and a half, being the heaviest fall on record. At Poona, on the 3.1 of August 1852, after a very heavy fall of rain, multitudes of fish were caught on the ground in the cantonments, full half a mile from the nearest stream. Sir J. E. Tennant, when driving in the cinnamon gardens near the fort of Colombo, saw a violent but partial shower. On coming to the spot, he found a multitude of small silvery fish, from lf to 2 inches in length, leaping on the gravel of the high road, niunbers of which he collected and brought away ; and Mr. Whiting, civil servant of Ceylon, mentioned to Sir J. E. Tennant that he had been often told by the natives at Trincomalee that it sometimes rained fishes at that side of Ceylon.—Tennant's Skeiches;pp. 342-4; Gosse, Romance of Nat. Hist., 1861.