G. NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 311 



any kind, and it is therefore somewhat difficult to determine 

 of what their sustenance consists. On the 11th of April, how- 

 ever, Mr. Elwood R. Norny, of Philadelphia, while attending 

 his shad and bass fishery at the head of Delaware Bay, near 

 Fort Penn, noticed that one of the shad was unusually dis- 

 tended, and on opening it found the stomach crammed to re- 

 pletion with a small crustacean, which from his description is 

 probably a species of Mysis. Dr. Leidy also records an in- 

 stance where a shad taken in Delaware Bay, in the fall, had 

 several fish in its stomach. 



FISH LIVING IN DRIED MUD. 



Mr. Dareste, in a paper presented to the Academy of Sci- 

 ences of Paris upon the fishes of the family of jSymbranchides, 

 refers to a species which was collected in Siam by Bocourt, 

 the well-known traveler. This author remarks that his at- 

 tention was first called to the fish while crossing a wide plain 

 by seeing a native forcing into the ground a long iron rod, 

 with a kind of harpoon at the end of it. After several essays 

 the rod was drawn out with one of these fish impaled upon 

 its hooks. The fish was alive, but appeared to be stupid, and 

 very sluggish in its movements. The traveler ascertained 

 that during part of the year the waters covered this plain for 

 several months ; and that, as they receded, these fish collect- 

 ed in the shallow basins, where the water remained longest 

 on the surface ; and as this evaporated, the fish buried them- 

 selves in the mud, to remain until the next inundation. G B, 

 October 20, 1873,878. 



THE "NERFLING" FISH. 



Among the fishes more recently suggested as suitable for 

 introduction into fish-ponds is one known as the "aland" or 

 " nerfling." Its usual size is about twelve inches, but it some- 

 times attains the length of eighteen or twenty, with a weight 

 of six pounds. The typical species is colored very much like 

 the ordinary chubs and minnows of American waters. A red- 

 dish variety, Cyprinus orfus of Linnaeus, with colors as bril- 

 liant as those of the gold-fish, has been cultivated for a long 

 time in Bavaria, where it is known as " orfee." 



The species is now in great request as an ornamental fish 

 for ponds, in consequence of its habit of swimming in schools 



