POPULAR MISCELLANY, 



427 



just at the time they are ready to spawn. 

 They average three and a half pounds in 

 weight, though some are taken weighing ten 

 to eighteen pounds. Sturgeon average fifty 

 pounds, but occasionally one is caught that 

 weighs a hundred pounds or over. Fish 

 differ greatly in rapidity of growth. Some 

 grow in one, two, or three years to a definite 

 size, and then growth seems to be arrested. 

 Such fish are short-lived. Other kinds, 

 which slowly and steadily increase in size, 

 attain a great age. Pike have been known 

 to be over a hundred years old. There is 

 some confusion as to the names pike and 

 pickerel. In England, where there is but 

 one species of Esoz, a young pike is called a 

 pickerel. The pike of our Great Lakes is 

 the true pike (E. lucius). The pickerel (E. 

 reticulatus) is more common in small lakes 

 and ponds. An easy way to distinguish them 

 is to look at the gill-covers. If they are en- 

 tirely covered with scales, it is a pickerel ; 

 but, if the lower half of the opercula is bare 

 of scales, it is a pike. 



Karen Funeral- Weddings. Among the 

 Shan Karens of Farther India, funerals are 

 made the occasions of grand wedding fes- 

 tivals, in which all the marriageable young 

 men and women of the village are prvileged 

 to participate. As it is not always conven- 

 ient to hold these interesting ceremonies 

 at the exact time when a villager may die, 

 it is customary to deposit the corpse of the 

 deceased in some temporary resting-place, 

 or to burn it and preserve the ashes till 

 the times and the marriage-market are more 

 favorable to giving it obsequies worthy of 

 its former estate. Consequently, six months, 

 or a year, or more, may frequently pass be- 

 fore the memory of the dead Karen re- 

 ceives the honor which is its due. When 

 a good time for weddings comes, the re- 

 mains are taken from their temporary rest- 

 ing-place and set upon a platform or mat 

 which has been prepared for them, and the 

 eligible bachelors and marriageable young 

 women of the neighborhood having been 

 invited to come and compete in a marrying- 

 match, arrange themselves, dressed in their 

 gayest, in two choirs on opposite sides of 

 them. The "funeral service" is then be- 

 gun with a chorus of the men celebrating 

 the beauties of the Karen maidens in gen- 



eral. The girls respond in their drawling 

 falsetto, "calmly accepting the eulogy of 

 their graces." These overtures are usually 

 set pieces, handed down from antiquity, or 

 taken and translated from some popular 

 Burmese play. Next, the bachelors, each 

 in his turn, beginning usually, for the sake 

 of peace, with the most muscular one, " de- 

 liver themselves of love-stricken solos," di- 

 rected by name to the several damsels whom 

 they have chosen ; if one of them is rejected, 

 he waits till his turn comes again, and ad- 

 dresses, if he sees fit, some other girl. The 

 girls receive the proposals in perfect self- 

 possession, and respond to them in phrases 

 like those with which they have been ad- 

 dressed, the models of which have come 

 down from the old times. All the praise 

 the maiden has received, she appropriates 

 as only her just due, and continuing, she 

 declares that it is a shameful thing not to 

 be married, but that it is worse to be di- 

 vorced afterward, " to be like a dress that 

 has been washed," but that she will do what 

 she is bid. If the girl rejects the address, 

 she may do so in a tone indicating that she 

 does not consider she has been praised 

 enough, or with some such indirect phrase 

 as " Come to me when the full moon ap- 

 pears on the first day of the month ; come 

 dressed in clothes that have never been 

 stitched. Dress and come before you wake. 

 Eat your rice before it is cooked, and come 

 before daylight." Rejections, however, sel- 

 dom occur, except when some young man 

 makes a mistake and applies to a girl who 

 is known to be reserving herself for another. 

 The " funeral service " goes on in this way 

 till it is plain that no more alliances can be 

 made, when it is closed, all the crockery 

 that belonged to the deceased is broken, 

 and the body is permanently buried. The 

 matches thus made are binding, and no 

 other way of making them is in favor ; and, 

 if any preliminary private courting takes 

 place, it is subsidiary to the funereal occa- 

 sion. 



Steel-Iron. Professor M. Keil has pro- 

 duced a composite material of iron and 

 steel in which the valuable qualities of the 

 two substances are combined, and the com- 

 bination is made available for a variety of 

 uses. The principle of his process is ex- 



