n 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 passed over the district. On the 20th of September,
1839, after a smart shower of rain, a quantity 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 multitudes 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, so 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 tops 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 within one hour and a half, being the heaviest fall on
record. At Poonah, on the 3rd 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. If showers of
fish are to be explained on the assumption that they are carried up by
squalls or violent winds, from rivers or spaces of water not far away
from where they fall, it would be nothing w