[Footnote 1:  As anglers, the native Singhalese exhibit little expertness; but for fishing the rivers, they construct with singular ingenuity fences formed of strong stakes, protected by screens of ratan, which stretch diagonally across the current; and along these the fish are conducted into a series of enclosures from which retreat is impracticable.  Mr. LAYARD, in the Magazine of Natural History for May, 1853, has given a diagram of one of these fish “corrals,” as they are called.

[Illustration:  FISH CORRAL]]

So singular a phenomenon as the sudden reappearance of full-grown fishes in places which a few days before had been encrusted with hardened clay, has not failed to attract attention; but the European residents have been contented to explain it by hazarding the conjecture, either that the spawn had lain imbedded in the dried earth till released by the rains, or that the fish, so unexpectedly discovered, fall from the clouds during the deluge of the monsoon.

As to the latter conjecture; the fall of fish during showers, even were it not so problematical in theory, is too rare an event to account for the punctual appearance of those found in the rice-fields, at stated periods of the year.  Both at Galle and Colombo in the south-west monsoon, fish are popularly thought to have fallen from the clouds during violent showers, but those found on the occasions that give rise to this belief, consist of the smallest fry, such as could be caught up by waterspouts, and vortices analogous to them, or otherwise blown on shore from the surf; whereas those which suddenly appear in the replenished tanks and in the hollows which they overflow, are mature and well-grown fish.[1] Besides, the latter are found, under the circumstances I have described, in all parts of the interior, whilst the prodigy of a supposed fall of fish from the sky has been noticed, I apprehend, only in the vicinity of the sea, or of some inland water.

[Footnote 1:  I had an opportunity, on one occasion only, of witnessing the phenomenon which gives rise to this popular belief.  I was driving in the cinnamon gardens near the fort of Colombo, and saw a violent but partial shower descend at no great distance before me.  On coming to the spot I found a multitude of small silvery fish from one and a half to two inches in length, leaping on the gravel of the high road, numbers of which I collected and brought away in my palankin.  The spot was about half a mile from the sea, and entirely unconnected with any watercourse or pool.

Mr. WHITING, who was many years resident at Trincomalie, writes me that he “had often been told by the natives on that side of the island that it sometimes rained fishes; and on one occasion (he adds) I was taken by them, in 1849, to a field at the village of Karran-cotta-tivo, near Batticaloa, which was dry when I passed over it in the morning, but had been covered in two hours by sudden rain to the depth of