ance, by burying themselves in the mud to await the
return of the rains.

It is an illustration of the eagerness with which, after the expedition
of Alexander the Great, particulars connected with the natural history
of India were sought for and arranged by the Greeks, that in the works
both of ARISTOTLE and THEOPHRASTUS facts are recorded of the fishes in
the Indian rivers migrating in search of water, of their burying
themselves in the mud on its failure, of their being dug out thence
alive during the dry season, and of their spontaneous reappearance on
the return of the rains. The earliest notice is in ARISTOTLE'S treatise
_De Respiratione_[1], where he mentions the strange discovery of living
fish found beneath the surface of the soil, "[Greek: ton ichthyon oi
polloi zosin en te ge, akinetizontes mentoi, kai euriskontai
oryttomenoi?]" and in his History of Animals he conjectures that in
ponds periodically dried the ova of the fish so buried become vivified
at the change of the season.[2] HERODOTUS had previously hazarded a
similar theory to account for the sudden appearance of fry in the
Egyptian marshes on the rising of the Nile; but the cases are not
parallel. THEOPHRASTUS, the friend and pupil of Aristotle, gave
importance to the subject by devoting to it his essay [Greek: Peri tes
ton ichthyon en zero diamones], _De Piscibus in sicco degentibus_. In
this, after adverting to the fish called _exocoetus_, from its habit of
going on shore to sleep, "[Greek: apo tes koites,]" he instances the
small fish ([Greek: ichthydia]), that leave the rivers of India to
wander like frogs on the land; and likewise a species found near
Babylon, which, when the Euphrates runs low, leave the dry channels in
search of food, "moving themselves along by means of their fins and
tail." He proceeds to state that at Heraclea Pontica there are places in
which fish are dug out of the earth, "[Greek: oryktoi ton ichthyon],"
and he accounts for their being found under such circumstances by the
subsidence of the rivers, "when the water being evaporated the fish
gradually descend beneath the soil in search of moisture; and the
surface becoming hard they are preserved in the damp clay below it, in a
state of torpor, but are capable of vigorous movements when disturbed."
"In, this manner, too," adds Theophrastus, "the buried fish propagate,
leaving behind them their spawn, which becomes vivified on the return of
the waters to their accustomed bed.