262 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



Hippocampus in the character of this tail, and suggests the 

 idea of a genetical relationship between the two genera. A 

 similar relation exists between the genera Neropliis and 

 Syngnathus ; the latter, the pipefish of our coast, being pro- 

 vided with a caudal fin, while the former is without it. 13 

 A, March 15,1872,111. 



CHINESE CYPRINID^E. 



Dr. Bleeker, the indefatigable ichthyologist, of Holland, 

 has lately published a paper upon the cyprinoids of China. 

 In this he enumerates fifty species already described, and 

 adds to them twenty from collections made by Daubry and 

 the Abbe David. He is, however, of the opinion that this 

 number scarcely embraces half of the cyprinoids actually be- 

 longing to the fresh waters of the Chinese empire. The 

 forms are rather those of Japan and Europe than of tropical 

 Asia. 13 A, April 15, 1872, 152. 



DEATH OF AN AGED CARP. 



According to the Journal des Debats, a carp has just died 

 at Chantilly, in France, aged three hundred and seventy-five 

 years. How much longer it would have lived it is impossi- 

 ble to conjecture, as its death was prematurely hastened by 

 a combat with a huge pike. It is stated that this fish be- 

 longed to a merchant of Chantilly, who bought it a year ago 

 for 1300 francs, and that it was hatched out in 1497, or a little 

 after the period of the discovery of America by Columbus. 



SALMON FLY-FISHING ON THE NORTHWEST COAST OF AMERICA. 



The fact that in the waters of Orecron and of Washington 

 Territory, as well as of Alaska, salmon can not be captured 

 with the artificial fly nor, indeed, taken at all with the line 

 has been a subject of much surprise and no little disap- 

 pointment to sportsmen who have tried the experiment, and 

 the subject has been dwelt upon as exhibiting a strong con- 

 trast between the habits of the Western fish and those of the 

 North Atlantic. 



It is also maintained and generally believed that of the 

 myriads of salmon that ascend the Western rivers, few or 

 none retrace their course to the sea, but succumb to the fa- 

 tigue and dangers of the ascent, and to the exhaustion pro- 



