INSTANCES OF FISHES FALLING FROM THE CLOUDS IN INDIA.

From the Bombay Times, 1856.

Dr. Buist, after enumerating cases in which fishes were said to have been thrown out from volcanoes in South America and precipitated from clouds in various parts of the world, adduces the following instances of similar occurrences in India.  “In 1824,” he says, “fishes fell at Meerut, on the men of Her Majesty’s 14th Regiment, then out at drill, and were caught in numbers.  In July, 1826, live fish were seen to fall on the grass at Moradabad during a storm.  They were the common cyprinus, so prevalent in our Indian waters.  On the 19th of February, 1830, at noon, a heavy fall of fish occurred at the Nokulhatty factory, in the Daccah zillah; depositions on the subject were obtained from nine different parties.  The fish were all dead; most of them were large:  some were fresh, others were rotten 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