342 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



the lower layers. The moose occurs also both in these and 

 in the upper layers. 



CUKIOUS FISH. 



Considerable interest has been excited by the announce- 

 ment of the capture, by Seth Green, equally famous as fisher- 

 man and pisciculturist, of a huge fish in Chautauqua Lake, 

 which the newspapers of the interior of New York find it dif- 

 ficult to classify. They describe it as six feet in length, and 

 weighing 134 pounds; as having one back and three belly 

 fins, a head of remarkable construction, a mouth opening far 

 back, and wide enough to receive a nail cask. The inside of 

 the mouth is said to be covered with a sj^ecies of coarse hair, 

 resembling the small feathers or down of an ostrich. Pro- 

 jecting from the upper jaw is a species of shovel blade, which 

 it is thouofht must have been intended for throwinsc food into 

 the mouth. As the fish has no teeth, it was supposed to sub- 

 sist upon animalculoe or other substances floating in the water. 



The notices proceed further to state that there is no fish 

 described as belongrins; to the lakes at all resembline: the one 

 referred to ; and what it is, and how it got into the lake, are 

 questions extremely puzzling. But the solution of the mys- 

 tery seems to be exceedingly simple. The fish is nothing 

 more than the well-known paddle-fish of the Mississippi basin, 

 or the Polyodon folium of naturalists an ally of the stur- 

 geon, and a species of great interest, being much sought after 

 by foreign museums on account of its zoological and paleon- 

 tological relationships. It is, however, quite abundant in the 

 Mississippi and Ohio, being sometimes captured in consider- 

 able numbers, though not very often of the size of Seth 

 Green's specimen. 



The occurrence of the fish in Chautauqua Lake is not par- 

 ticularly remarkable, as that is one of the sources of the Al- 

 leghany River, from which it could readily enter the lake. 



THE CLASSES OF VERTEBRATES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP. 



At the meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, held 

 in New York on the 28th of October, 1873, Professor Gill made 

 a communication on the number and characteristics of the 

 classes of Vertebrates, and their various degrees of relation- 

 ship. 



