rather to leap from stone to stone, than to pass through the water; and we saw several of them pass entirely over puddles in this manner, till they came to dry ground and then leap away."
Cooks first Voyage, B. 3. Ch. 2.
This probably explains a fact mentioned by Capt. Percival in his account of Ceylon. "One circumstance (says that author) has often struck me with astonishment, that in every pond or muddy pool casually supplied with rain water, or even only recently formed, and entirely unconnected with any other water, swarms of fishes are continually found. The only explanation (he adds) which it appears possible to give of this phenomenon is, that the spawn is by some unknown process carried up with the rain into the sky and then let down with it upon the earth in a condition immediately to become alive."P. 318.
These fish may be of the same kind as those which Captain Cook observed in
