. Ceylon : an account of the island, physical, historical, and topographical with notices of its natural history, antiquities and productions. Natural history. 220 ZOOLOGY. [rART II. province, informs me that, on two occasions, he was pre- sent accidentally when the villagers Avere so engaged, once at the tank of Moeletivoe, within a few miles of Kottiar, near the bay of Trincomahe, 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 flnng out lumps of it with a spade, it fell to pieces, disclosing fish from nine
. Ceylon : an account of the island, physical, historical, and topographical with notices of its natural history, antiquities and productions. Natural history. 220 ZOOLOGY. [rART II. province, informs me that, on two occasions, he was pre- sent accidentally when the villagers Avere so engaged, once at the tank of Moeletivoe, within a few miles of Kottiar, near the bay of Trincomahe, 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 flnng 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 moodhar sent to me proved to be an Anabas, and closely resembles the Perca scan- dens of Daldorf. UUu^-^2i/y. THE ANABAS OF THE DR7 TANKS, But the faculty of becoming torpid at such periods is not confined in Ceylon to the crocodiles and fishes, it is equally possessed by some of the fresh-water mollusca and aquatic coleoptera. The largest of the former, the Ampullaria glauca, is found in still water in all parts of the island, not alone in the tanks, but in rice-fields and the watercourses by wliich they are irrigated. There it deposits a bundle of eggs with a white cal- careous shell, to the number of one hundred and more. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Tennent, James Emerson, Sir, 1804-1869. London : Longman, Green, Longman, and Rober
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