So the scientists got busy. In the 1930's,Professor Hatai at Tohoku University set up an experiment. He watched the behavior of catfish in laboratory tanks. Day after day,the catfish remained calm. They did not even eact to finger tapping on the table that held their tank.Hatai noticed,however,that in 80 percent of the cases they became jumpy six to eight hours before an eathquake.Hatai believes that catfish are somehow sensitive to electrical currents in the eath. These currents change before earthquake activity.