The Romance of Natural History Part 6

I have elsewhere referred to the curious phenomenon of crimson snow, and to the uncertainty which still hangs over its cause. I have lately met with another explanation, which seems sufficiently guaranteed to be depended on, though, as the red snow occurs in places where this cause cannot operate, it only shews that similar results may be produced by diverse agencies. A certain resemblance between the facts and those adduced by M. Peiresc will warrant my quoting them. Mr Thomas Nicholson, in a visit to Sowallik Point, in Prince Regent's Inlet, thus describes what he saw:--"The summit of the hill forming the point is covered with huge ma.s.ses of granite, while the side, which forms a gentle declivity towards the bay, was covered with crimson snow. It was evident, at first view, that this colour was imparted to the snow by a substance lying on the surface. This substance lay scattered here and there in small ma.s.ses bearing some resemblance to powdered cochineal, surrounded by a lighter shade, which was produced by the colouring matter being partly dissolved and diffused by the deliquescent snow. During this examination our hats and upper garments were observed to be daubed with a substance of a similar red colour; and a moment's reflection convinced us that this was the excrement of the little Auk, myriads of which bird were continually flying over our heads, having their nests among the loose ma.s.ses of granite. A ready explanation of the origin of the red snow was now presented to us, and not a doubt remained in the mind of any of us that this was the correct one. The snow on the mountains of higher elevation than the nests of these birds was perfectly white; and a ravine at a short distance, which was filled with snow from top to bottom, but which afforded no hiding-place for these birds to form their nests, presented an appearance uniformly white."[70]

After all, however, real _bona fide_ rain does sometimes descend, which, if not blood-red, is at least red. "M. Giovanni Campani, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Siena, has just published a letter, addressed to Professor Matteucci, on a most singular phenomenon which occurred at Siena in December last. On the 28th of that month, about seven A.M., the inhabitants of the northwestern part of the city witnessed with surprise the curious phenomenon of a copious fall of rain of a reddish hue, which lasted two hours; a second shower of the same colour occurred at eleven A.M., and a third at two P.M., but that of the deepest red fell the first time. But what adds to the strangeness of the occurrence is that it was entirely confined to that particular quarter of the town, and so nicely was the line drawn that the cessation of the red colour was ascertained in one direction to be at about two hundred metres from the meteorological observatory, the pluviometer of which received colourless rain at exactly the same time. The temperature during the same interval varied between 8 deg. and 10 deg. Centigrade (46 and 50 Fahrenheit). The wind blew from the S.W. at the beginning of the phenomenon, and afterwards changed to W.S.W. None of the rural population in the immediate vicinity of Siena remarked the occurrence, so that most probably the rain that fell round the town was colourless.

The same phenomenon, strange to say, recurred in exactly the same quarter of the town on the 31st of December, and again on the 1st of January, the wind being W.N.W., and the temperature respectively 35 and 3942 deg., Fahrenheit. Each time, however, the red colour diminished in depth, its greatest strength having at no time exceeded that of weak wine and water. A similar occurrence is recorded as having taken place in 1819 at Blankenburg, when MM. Meyer and Stopp found the water to contain a solution of chloride of cobalt. Professor Campani, who is now engaged, in conjunction with his colleague, Professor Gabrielli, in a.n.a.lyzing the red water collected, has ascertained that in this instance it contains no chloride of cobalt, and, moreover, that the colour must be owing to some solution, since the water has deposited no sediment."[71]

The occasional occurrence of large ma.s.ses of water stained of a vivid red hue, and for the most part suddenly, and without any ostensible cause, has not unreasonably been recorded as a prodigy, rivalling one of the plagues of Egypt--the turning of the waters into blood.

"I remember," says Mr Latrobe, "the report reaching Neufchatel, through the medium of the market-people pa.s.sing from the one lake to the other, (some time during the winter,) that the waters of the lake of Morat had suddenly become the colour of blood, though I could meet with no one whose testimony was sufficiently clear and unequivocal to establish the fact. This, joined to my not having the leisure then to go and see for myself, caused the matter to slip from my memory entirely, till I found myself in the neighbourhood. Here the circ.u.mstance was fully confirmed to me in a manner not to be questioned; and having since met with a paper, written by M. de Candolle, of Geneva, on the subject, I shall take what is there stated as my best guide in mentioning the facts as they occurred:--

"It appears that this singular phenomenon began to excite the attention of the inhabitants of Morat as early as November last year, and that it continued more or less observable during the whole of the winter.

"Mr Trechsel, a gentleman resident at Morat, to whom M. de Candolle applied, on hearing the report, for information and specimens of the colouring matter, stated--That during the early hours of the day no extraordinary appearance was observable in the lake; but that a little later, long parallel lines of reddish matter were seen to extend along the surface of the water, at some short distance from the banks. This, being blown by the wind towards the more sheltered parts of the sh.o.r.e, collected itself about the reeds and rushes, covering the surface of the lake with a light foam; forming as it were different strata of various colours, from greenish black, grey, yellow, and brown, to the most delicious red. He adds, that this matter exhaled a pestiferous odour during the day, but disappeared at the approach of night. It was further observed, that during tempestuous weather it vanished altogether. Many small fishes were seen to become intoxicated while swimming amongst it, and after a few convulsive leaps, to lie motionless on the surface.

"The naturalists of Geneva decided, from the specimens sent, that it was an animal substance, which, if not the _Oscillatoria subfusca_,[72]

was nearly allied to it.

"Soon after the beginning of May it disappeared entirely. It is not known that this phenomenon has appeared before in the lake of Morat within the memory of man. Tradition states the same to have happened the year preceding the great battle."[73]

A few years ago, in one of my tanks of sea-water, there occurred a phenomenon much like this. Patches of a rich crimson-purple colour formed here and there on the surface, which rapidly grew on all sides till they coalesced. If allowed to be a few days undisturbed, the entire surface of the water became covered with a pellicle of the substance, which spread also over the stones and sh.e.l.ls of the bottom, and the sides of the vessel. It could be lifted in impalpable laminae on sheets of paper. I found it difficult to keep it within bounds, and impossible to get quite rid of it, till, after some months, I lost it by the accidental breaking of the vessel. Under the microscope, this proved an _Oscillatoria_, which I could not identify with any of the described species in Harvey's _Phytologia_: the filaments creeping and twining with the peculiar vermicular movements of the genus.

Blood-like waters are sometimes produced by a rapid evolution of infusorial animalcules. Of these the most effective are _Astasia haematodes_, and _Euglena sanguinea_; both of them minute spindle-shaped creatures of a pulpy substance, and sanguine hue. They are produced occasionally in incalculable numbers, increasing with vast rapidity by means of spontaneous division. Ehrenberg suggests that the miracle of blood-change performed on the Nile and on all other collections of water in Egypt by Moses (Exod. vii. 17-25) may have been effected by the agency of these animalcules. Of course it would require Divine power as much to educe uncounted millions of animalcules at the word of command, as to form real blood, so that no escape from the presence of Deity would be gained by admitting the supposition; but the words of the inspired narrative seem to render it untenable.

To return to showers. "If it should rain cats and dogs,"--is a phrase which is in many mouths; but probably no one has heard it transferred from the subjunctive to the indicative mood. Why not, however, if it rains snails, frogs, fishes, and feathers? That these animals and animal products are really poured down from the atmosphere, I can adduce some evidence; the value of which my readers may weigh when they have heard the pleadings.

In that venerable newspaper, _Felix Farley's Journal_, for July 1821, there was "an account of a wonderful quant.i.ty of snail-sh.e.l.ls found in a piece of land of several acres near Bristol, that common report says fell in a shower." This sh.e.l.l-storm attracting much attention at the time, Mr Wm. Baker, of Bridgewater, asked information from the Curator of the Bristol Inst.i.tution, who thus cleared up the mystery:--"The periwinkles are indeed wonderful. They descended, forsooth, in a heavy rain-like shower on the field of Mr Peach, as a due punishment for his disrespect to the virtues of our late queen. The shower was so intense, that the umbrella of an old lady pa.s.sing by was broken to pieces, and the fragments lifted in the air by the whirlwind, which picked up all the periwinkles on the neighbouring hills, and dropped them three inches thick on Mr Peach's field! But you know the story of 'The Three Black Crows;' and thus the whole is reduced to no periwinkle rain, no whirlwind; but turns out to be our old friend _Helix virgata_, making its annual pilgrimage in search of a mate, and occurring one in almost every square inch in the field in question."

Provincial newspapers seem to have a special power of reporting such natural history facts, which rarely survive investigation. The _Stroud Free Press_, for May 23, 1851, tells us that "an extraordinary scene was witnessed at Bradford, about twelve miles from Bristol, on Sat.u.r.day week, when that village was visited by a heavy shower of snails. They might have been gathered by bushels." Mr J. W. Douglas, the eminent entomologist, immediately asked some pertinent questions anent the shower; but whether it was that the witnesses were grieved at his profanely comparing such prodigies to Professors Morison and Holloway's cures, or whether they had no more definite intelligence to communicate, _certes_ echo answered not.

We fear we must give up snails. But frogs! everybody knows that toads and frogs fall from the sky. According to travellers in tropical America, the inhabitants of Portobello a.s.sert that every drop of rain is changed into a toad; the more instructed, however, believe that the sp.a.w.n of these animals is raised with the vapour from the adjoining swamps, and being driven in the clouds over the city, the ova are hatched as they descend in rain. 'Tis certain that the streets after a night of heavy rain are almost covered with the ill-favoured reptiles, and it is impossible to walk without crus.h.i.+ng them.[74] But heretic philosophers point to the mature growth of the vermin, many of them being six inches in length, and maintain that the clever hypothesis just mentioned will scarcely account for the appearance of these.

In the _Leeds Mercury_ for June 1844, there occurred the following statement:--"In the course of the afternoon of Monday last, during the prevalence of rather heavy rain, the good people of Selby were astonished at a remarkable phenomenon. It was rendered forcibly apparent, that, with the descent of the rain, there was a shower of another description, viz. a shower of frogs. The truth of this was rendered more manifest by the circ.u.mstance that several of the frogs were caught in their descent by holding out hats for that purpose. They were about the size of a horse-bean, and remarkably lively after their aerial but wingless flight. The same phenomenon was observed in the immediate neighbourhood."

The editor of the _Zoologist_ immediately asked for confirmation of the stated facts, from resident persons of science; but notwithstanding the circ.u.mstantiality of the account, and especially the reported actual capture of the little sprawlers in hats, no one replied to the demand, and we are compelled to conclude that the report would not bear critical investigation.

Yet incredulity may be pushed too far even here. For, in the continental journals many more such statements occur than in those of this country, and some of them vouched by apparently indisputable authority. If my readers will refer to _L'Inst.i.tut._ tom. ii. (1834) pp. 337, 346, 347, 353, 354, 386, 409; tom. iv. (1836) pp. 221, 314, 325; tom. vi. (1838) p. 212, they will find mention made of this phenomenon,--showers of toads. In two or three of these cases, the toads were not only observed in countless numbers on the ground, during, and after, heavy storms of rain, but were seen to strike upon the roofs of houses, bounding thence into the streets; they even fell upon the hats, umbrellas, and clothes of the observers, who were out in the storm, and, in one instance, were actually received into the outstretched hand.[75]

Much more recently, namely, early in 1859, the newspapers of South Wales recorded a shower of fish in the Valley of Aberdare. The repeated statements attracted more notice than usual, and the Rev. John Griffith, the vicar of the parish, communicated the following results of his inquiries to the _Evening Mail_:--

"Many of your readers might, perhaps, like to see the facts connected with this phenomenon. They will be better understood in the words of the princ.i.p.al witness, as taken down by me on the spot where it happened.

This man's name is John Lewis, a sawyer in Messrs Nixon and Co.'s yard.

His evidence is as follows:--'On Wednesday, February 9, I was getting out a piece of timber for the purpose of setting it for the saw, when I was startled by something falling all over me--down my neck, on my head, and on my back. On putting my hand down my neck I was surprised to find they were little fish. By this time I saw the whole ground covered with them. I took off my hat, the brim of which was full of them. They were jumping all about. They covered the ground in a long strip of about eighty yards by twelve, as we measured afterwards. That shed (pointing to a very large workshop) was covered with them, and the shoots were quite full of them. My mates and I might have gathered bucketfuls of them, sc.r.a.ping with our hands. We did gather a great many, about a bucketful, and threw them into the rain-pool, where some of them now are. There were two showers, with an interval of about ten minutes, and each shower lasted about two minutes or thereabouts. The time was eleven A.M. The morning up-train to Aberdare was just then pa.s.sing. It was not blowing very hard, but uncommon wet, just about the same wind as there is to-day (blowing rather stiff), and it came from this quarter (pointing to the S. of W.). They came down with the rain in "a body, like."' Such is the evidence. I have taken it for the purpose of being laid before Professor Owen, to whom, also, I shall send to-morrow, at the request of a friend of his, eighteen or twenty of the little fish.

Three of them are large and very stout, measuring about four inches. The rest are small. There were some--but they are since dead--fully five inches long. They are very lively.--Your obedient servant,

"JOHN GRIFFITH, "Vicar of Aberdare and Rural Dean.

"VICARAGE, ABERDARE, _March 8_."

The specimens which were forwarded to Professor Owen were exhibited in a tank at the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park: they consisted of minnows (_Leuciscus phoxinus_) and Smooth-tailed sticklebacks (_Gasterosteus leiurus_.) A _savant_ thus endeavoured to "enlighten" the uninitiated on the matter:--"On reading the evidence it appears to me most probably only a practical joke of the mates of John Lewis, who seem to have thrown a pailful of water with the fish in it over him, and he appears to have returned them to the pool from which they were originally taken. The fish forwarded are very unlike those taken up in whirlwinds in tropical countries, and we must make allowance for unintentional exaggerations of quant.i.ty, &c., in an account given a month after the event had occurred."

This "appears to me" a beautiful example of critical ac.u.men. My readers will do well to look at it for a moment; as they may thus learn how to sift the grain of truth out of the bushel of chaff. _Reverenter procedamus!_

The main (is it not the only?) objection to the honest sawyer's statement is that "the fish are very unlike those taken up in whirlwinds in tropical countries." That is, that, seeing the phenomenon occurs in Great Britain, it is most unfortunate that the fishes are British species. Now, in India, when such things occur, it is always _Indian_ species that are taken up; _ergo_, it ought to be Indian species _here_.

But these are "very unlike" the Indian fishes; _ergo_, it is manifestly a humbug.

Then, does it not strike one as palpably probable, when once one's dull intellect has been "enlightened" by the brilliant suggestion,--that the worthy sawyer who had a pail of water soused upon him, thought it was a heavy shower of rain? _Very_ heavy, no doubt; indeed he says it was "uncommon wet." To be sure, he thought there were _two_ showers, each lasting about two minutes, with an interval of ten minutes between them; but this little error might be easily made, for doubtless a bucket of water poured on one's head might well be equivalent to two showers of rain, or even ten, for that matter. To be sure, moreover, there was a considerable quant.i.ty of fish:--"The whole ground was covered with them: they were jumping all about: they covered the ground in a long strip of about eighty yards by twelve, _as we measured_ afterwards: the shed was covered with them, and the shoots were quite full of them.... My mates and I might have gathered bucketfuls of them: we did gather about a bucketful." Yes, yes: but all were originally in the pail of water thrown over you, John. How stupid you were, not to perceive _that_! How there was room for any water at all in the pail, seeing there were so many fish, you say you don't know; but that is your stupidity, John!

There _must_ have been room for water, for it was "uncommon wet;" and the water was in the pail, for the Doctor says so. Uncommon fishy, too, I should think; but let that pa.s.s. Where the mates collected the pail of live fishes for their pleasant and profitable hoax, and how, and when,--the sceptic might wonderingly ask; but a hoax it was. _Ipse dixit._

However, the verdict did not obtain universal a.s.sent; and an excellent and well-known naturalist, Mr Robert Drave, residing in the vicinity, ventured modestly to indicate a dissent. "I think actual fact will excuse the otherwise apparently unbecoming a.s.sumption in me, of opposing such high authority by a contrary opinion, for from information _obtained from many sources, and very careful and minute_ inquiry, I am quite convinced that a great number of fish did actually descend with rain _over a considerable tract of country_. The specimens I obtained _from three individuals_, resident some distance from each other, were of two species, the common minnow and the three-spined stickleback; the former most abundant, and mostly very small, though some had attained their full size."[76]

If now we look to other lands, we shall find that the descent of fishes from the atmosphere, under conditions little understood, is a phenomenon which rests on indubitable evidence. Humboldt has published interesting details of the ejection of fish in large quant.i.ties from volcanoes in South America. On the night between the 19th and 20th of June, 1698, the summit of Carguairazo, a volcano more than 19,000 feet in height, fell in, and all the surrounding country for nearly thirty-two square miles was covered with mud and fishes. A similar eruption of fish from the volcano of Imbaburu was supposed to have been the cause of a putrid fever which raged in the town of Ibarra seven years before that period.

These facts are not inexplicable. Subterraneous lakes, communicating with surface-waters, form in deep cavities in the declivities, or at the base of a volcano. In certain active stages of ignition, these internal cavities are burst open, and their contents discharged through the crater. Humboldt ascertained that the fishes in question belonged to a curious and ill-favoured species of the _Siluridae_,--the _Pimelodes Cyclopum_.

Showers of fishes, however, do occur, which cannot be connected with volcanic agency. Dr Buist, in an interesting paper published in the _Bombay Times_ in 1856, has collected a number of authentic examples of this phenomenon. The author, after enumerating the cases just cited, and others of similar character, in which fishes were said to have been thrown out from volcanoes in South America, and precipitated from clouds in various parts of the world, adduces the following instances of similar occurrences in India:--"In 1824," he says, "fishes fell at Meerut, on the men of her Majesty's 14th Regiment, then out at drill, and were caught in numbers. In July 1826, live fish were seen to fall on the gra.s.s at Moradabad during a storm. They were the common _Cyprinus_, so prevalent in our Indian waters. On the 19th of February 1830, at noon, a heavy fall of fish occurred at the Nokulhatty factory, in the Daccah 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, 1833, a fall of fish 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 Allahabad, during a storm in May 1835; they were of the chowla species, and were found dead and dry after the storm had pa.s.sed over the district. On the 20th of September 1839 after a smart shower of rain, a quant.i.ty 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 mult.i.tudes 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, as 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 Rajkote was found literally covered with fish; some of them were found on the top 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 inches in one hour and a-half, being the heaviest fall on record.

At Poonah, on the 3d of August 1852, after a very heavy fall of rain, mult.i.tudes of fish were caught on the ground in the cantonments, full half a mile from the nearest stream. If showers of fish are to be explained on the a.s.sumption that they are carried up by squalls or violent winds, from rivers or s.p.a.ces of water not far away from, where they fall, it would be nothing wonderful were they seen to descend from the air during the furious squalls which occasionally occur in June."

Sir E. Tennent adds the following examples:--"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 at Trincomalee, writes me that he 'had been often 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 connexion 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 the 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.'"[77]

Mr J. Prinsep, the eminent secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, found a fish in the pluviometer at Calcutta, in 1838.[78]

It is a highly curious fact that the pools, reservoirs, and tanks in India and Ceylon are well provided with fish of various species, though the water twice every year becomes perfectly evaporated, and the mud of the bottom becomes converted into dust, or takes the condition of baked clay, gaping with wide and deep clefts, in which not the slightest sign of moisture can be detected. This is the case with temporary hollows in the soil, which have no connexion with running streams or permanent waters, from which they might be supposed to receive a fresh stock of fish.

Two modes of accounting for this strange phenomenon have obtained currency. The one is that received by those Europeans who are content with any solution of a difficulty, without too closely testing it; viz., that the fishes fall with the rains from the air. The actual occurrence of such showers rests, as we have just seen, on good evidence; but, admitting the fact, it must be a rare phenomenon, whereas the presence of fish in the new-made pools is universal. Again, if the rains brought them in such abundance as to stock all the pools, an equal number would fall on the dry ground, which is not pretended to be the case. The other accepted solution is that which has received the sanction of Mr Yarrell, who observes--"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 occurrence and contact of the rain and the oxygen of the next wet season, when vivification takes place from their joint influence."[79]

This may be fully allowed, yet it does not meet the exigences of the case. Sir E. Tennent and others have shewn that it is not young fishes just escaped from the egg which appear in the new-formed pools, but full-grown fishes, fit for the market; a fact well known to the Singalese fishermen, who resort to the hollows as soon as the monsoon has brought rain; and they invariably take in these pools, which a day or two before were as dry as dust, plenty of fishes fully grown, a foot or eighteen inches long, or longer.

Neither of these hypotheses, then, will account for the fact: and we must admit that the fishes of these regions have the instinct to burrow down in the solid mud of the bottom, at the approach of the dry season, and the power of retaining life, doubtless in a torpid condition, until the return of the periodic rains, as Theophrastus long ago observed.[80]

The _Lepidosiren_, a very remarkable genus of animals from Africa and South America, affords a curious ill.u.s.tration of this power. It is altogether a highly singular creature, and has attracted a great deal of notice because its organisation belongs to two types: it is, so to speak, placed midway between the great cla.s.ses of Reptiles and Fishes, the characters which identify it with either being almost equally balanced. Professor Owen and other eminent physiologists regard it as a fish, while Professor Bischoff, with others equally learned, consider it an Amphibian reptile.

It is the habits of this strange creature, however, which induce me to notice it here. An inhabitant of rivers and ponds, which are swollen by periodic rains, and subject to entire or partial desiccation by long droughts, it is liable to be left by the retreating waters, exposed to the burning sun, under which it would presently die, but for a special provision.

The animal has the instinct to bury itself in the mud of the bottom, on the approach of the droughts, penetrating to a depth of several feet.

There it coils itself into a ball, with the tail folded over the nose, but so as to leave the nasal apertures uncovered; and, probably by its wrigglings, it forms a cavity or chamber in the clay, which becomes lined with a membranous slough thrown off from its body. Meanwhile the water evaporates, the mud dries, bakes, and cracks under the torrid heat of the dry season, thus allowing air to penetrate down to the retreat of the torpid mud-fish, in sufficient quant.i.ty for its very sluggish respiration. Here it lies inactive for five or six months, until the wet season again sets in, and the returning floods cover the old beds, soften the baked clay, revivify the imprisoned animal, and restore it to liberty and aquatic locomotion.

To meet these strange conditions of life, the _Lepidosiren_ is furnished with a twofold apparatus for respiration; the one aquatic, consisting of gills, ordinarily contained in a branchial chamber, (but in one species, at least, external,) suited for the separation of oxygen from the water, and the other aerial, consisting of true lungs, closely resembling those of serpents, though manifestly only a modification of the well-known swim-bladder of many fishes,--by means of which the animal breathes atmospheric air, during its periodic captivity.

The same emergency is met by other species in another way. It does not appear that the _Lepidosiren_ has the power of voluntarily forsaking the water, or of travelling on land, notwithstanding its twofold respiration; but some of the fishes of the tropics certainly resort to this mode of evading the fatal contingency of being baked out by the evaporating power of the periodical dry season.

Theophrastus, the contemporary of Aristotle, 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 fins and tail.[81] Pallegoix gives three kinds of fish in Siam, which leave the tanks and channels and travel through the gra.s.s;[82] and Sir John Bowring states that in ascending the river Meinam to Bangkok, he was amused with the sight of fish leaving the stream, gliding over the wet banks, till they disappeared among the trees of the jungle.[83] The _Hydragyrae_ of Carolina in like manner leave the drying pools, and seek the nearest water in a straight line, though at a considerable distance.

And Sir R. Schomburgk tells us that certain species of _Dora_ in Guiana have the same habit, and are occasionally met with in such numbers in their terrestrial travels that the negroes fill baskets with them.[84]

These fishes, provincially called Ha.s.sars, project themselves on their bony pectoral fins, aiding their advance by the elastic spring of the tail exerted sidewise, proceeding in this manner nearly as fast as a man can walk. The strong scaly bands which envelop the body facilitate the march, in the same way as the transverse plates (_scuta_) on the belly of serpents, which take hold of the ground, as the ribs perform the office of feet. The Indians know that these fishes have the power of carrying a supply of water in a reservoir, for the keeping of the gills in a moist condition. If they fail in finding water, they are said to burrow in the still soft mud, and pa.s.s the dry season in torpidity like the _Lepidosiren_.

The common eel is well known to have this habit of travelling with us; I well remember my surprise, when a boy, at finding an eel in a gra.s.sy meadow one dewy summer evening, at a considerable distance from water.

Since then I have seen a small species of _Antennarius_, running quickly to and fro on the surface of the great beds of floating sea-weed in the Gulf stream, progressing by means of its pectorals and ventrals quite out of water, with the utmost facility.