G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 263 



daced by the spawning operation. Certain it is that the 

 shores of the Columbia and other great streams during the 

 salmon season are lined with dead fish throughout their en- 

 tire length, furnishing food for innumerable hawks, eagles, 

 buzzards, crows, etc., as well as to mammals of various kinds. 



Quite recently, however, it has been ascertained that while 

 the salmon will not take the fly, as stated, in the rivers, they 

 will do so in the salt water outside their mouths. We are 

 informed that, this fact having been ascertained within a year 

 or two past, the officers stationed at Fort Disappointment, on 

 the north side of the mouth of the Columbia, have been en- 

 joying rare sport in salmon fishing. The best ground is said 

 to be near the light-house, directly inside the mouth of the 

 river, where they are taken in the spring just previous to 

 their upward migration. The fish are caught here in great 

 numbers, and of such*size (up to forty pounds) as to be very 

 difficult to handle. 



It is also maintained by Mr. Stone that the salmon, when in 

 the upper Sacramento River, will take the fly readily, and 

 are frequently caught with a bait of salmon spawn. 



VENOMOUS FISII IN THE MAURITIUS. 



Europe has a small fish, known as the weaver (Trachinus), 

 which is capable of inflicting a very severe wound by the 

 spines of its dorsal fin; and another form {Thalassophryne) 

 has been described by Dr. Giinther, from Central America, as 

 collected by Captain Dow, in which the dorsal spines are con- 

 structed precisely like the fang of a venomous serpent, with 

 a poison sac, secreting venom at the base, which is injected 

 into the wound made by this animal. A well-known fish of 

 the Mauritius, named Synanceia verrucosa, is said by Dr. Le 

 Juge to be still more dangerous. This possesses thirteen 

 spines in the dorsal fin, each provided at its base with a bag 

 containing poison, and with a pair of deep grooves, along 

 which the poison is guided to the wound. When the fish is 

 seized by the hand, a wound is inflicted into which the poi- 

 son is injected. Fatal results are more or less frequent from 

 handling this fish, although the action of the poison appears 

 to be less rapid than in the case of serpents. 13 A, April 15, 

 1872,151. 



