tits
poissons." In the library of the British Museum there is an unique MS.
of MANOEL DE ALMEIDA, written in the sixteenth century, from which
Balthasar Tellez compiled his _Historia General de Ethiopia alta_,
printed at Coimbra in 1660, and in it the above statement of Mendes is
corroborated by Almeida, who says that he was told by Joao Gabriel, a
Creole Portuguese, born in Abyssinia, who had visited the Merab, and who
said that the "fish were to be found everywhere eight or ten palms down,
and that he had eaten of them."]

In South America the "round-headed hassar" of Guiana, _Callicthys
littoralis_, and the "yarrow," a species of the family Esocidae, although
they possess no specially modified respiratory organs, are accustomed to
bury themselves in the mud on the subsidence of water in the pools
during the dry season.[1] The _Loricaria_ of Surinam, another Siluridan,
exhibits a similar instinct, and resorts to the same expedient. Sir R.
Schomburgk, in his account of the fishes of Guiana, confirms this
account of the Callicthys, and says "they can exist in muddy lakes
without any water whatever, and great numbers of them are sometimes dug
up from such situations."

[Footnote 1: See Paper "_on some Species of Fishes and Reptiles in
Demerara_," by J. HANDCOOK, Esq., M.D., _Zoological Journal_, vol. iv.
p. 243.]

In those portions of Ceylon where the country is flat, and small tanks
are extremely numerous, the natives in the hot season are accustomed to
dig in the mud for fish. Mr. Whiting, the chief civil officer of the
eastern province, informs me that, on two occasions, he was present
accidentally when the villagers were so engaged, once at the tank of
Moeletivoe, within a few miles of Kottiar, near the bay of Trincomalie,
and again at a tank between Ellendetorre and Arnetivoe, 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 nine
to twelve inches long, which were full grown and healthy, and jumped on
the bank when exposed to the sun light.

Being desirous of obtaining a specimen of the fish so exhumed, I
received from the Moodliar of Matura, A.B. Wickremeratne, a fish taken
along with others of the same kind from a tank in which the water had
dried up; it was found at a depth of a foot and a half where the mud was
still moist, whilst the surface was dry and hard. The fish which the
moodliar sent to me proved