Dartford. In the year 1830, the inhabitants of
the island of Ula, in Argyleshire, after a day of very hard rain, which
occurred on the 9th March, were surprised to find numbers of small
herrings strewed over the fields, perfectly fresh and some of them alive.
Some years ago, during a strong gale, herrings and other fish were
carried from the Frith of Forth so far as Loch-Leven.

In some countries rats migrate in vast numbers from the high to the low
countries; and it is recorded in the history of Norway, that a shower of
these, transported by the wind, fell in an adjacent valley.

Several notices have, from time to time, been brought before the French
Academy, of showers of frogs having fallen in different parts of France.
Professor Pontus, of Cahors, states, that in August, 1804, while distant
three leagues from Toulouse, the sky being clear, suddenly a very thick
cloud covered the horizon, and thunder and lightning came on. The cloud
burst over the road about sixty toises (383 feet) from the place where M.
Pontus was. Two gentlemen, returning from Toulouse, were surprised by
being exposed not only to a storm, but to a shower of frogs. Pontus
states that he saw the young frogs on their cloaks. When the diligence
in which he was travelling, arrived at the place where the storm burst,
the road, and the fields alongside of it, were observed full of frogs, in
three or four layers placed one above the other. The feet of the horses
and the wheels of the carriage killed thousands. The diligence travelled
for a quarter of an hour, at least, along this living road, the horses
being at a trot.

In the "Journal de St. Petersburg," is given an account of the fall of a
shower of insects during a snow-storm in Russia. "On the 17th October,
1827, there fell in the district of Rjev, in the government of Tver, a
heavy shower of snow, in the space of about ten versts (nearly seven
English miles), which contained the village of Pakroff and its environs.
It was accompanied in its fall by a prodigious quantity of worms of a
black colour, ringed, and in length about an inch and a quarter. The
head of these insects was flat and shining, furnished with antennae, and
the hair in the form of whiskers; while the body, from the head to about
one-third of their length, resembled a band of black velvet. They had on
each side three feet, by means of which they appeared to crawl very fast
upon the snow, and assembled in groups about the pl