106 DUBLIN NATXTEAX HISTOKY SOCIETY. 



nourishment, the latter pines away ; nay, so comfortable does the newt make 

 herself, that, not content with living by herself, she contrives to bring up a little 

 family. Often have I been told of the man who got rid of a mamma newt and 

 six young ones by the following recipe, which 1 am assured is infallible: — The 

 patient must abstain from all fluids for four and twenty hours, and eat only salt 

 meats — at the expiration of this time, being very thirsty, he must go and lie 

 open-mouthed over a running stream, the noisier the better, when the newts, 

 dying of thirst, and hearing the music oHhe water, cannot resist the tempta- 

 tion, but come forth to drink, and, of course, you take care they do not get back 

 again. The dry ask, in addition to this evil character, is also supposed to be 

 endowed with the power of the evil eye, children and cows exposed to its gaze 

 wasting away. The Rev. J. Graves writes to me, that in Kilkenny it is looked 

 on as " a devil's beast," and, as such, burnt. But, to compensate in some mea- 

 sure for its evil qualities, the dry ask is said in Dublin to bear in it a charm. 

 Any one desirous of the power of curing scalds or burns, has only to apply their 

 tongue along the dry ask's belly to obtain the power of curing these ailments by 

 the touch of this organ. In the Queen's County it is also used to cure disease, 

 but in a different manner ; being put into an iron pot under the patient's bed, it 

 is said to effect a certain cure, though of what disease 1 am not quite clear. Of 

 the other species of newts I have not been able personally to find any trace. 

 The warty newt (T. cristatus) rests solely on Mr. Templeton's authority. It is 

 an inhabitant of every part of England, and might naturally have been expected 

 to be found in Ireland; it may, perhaps, yet be found in the western wilds, 

 where Mr. Thompson has, from description only, recorded the palmated newt 

 (L. palmipes), which has been found both in England and Scotland. It is re- 

 corded in the Catalogue of your Museum, but of the locality where it is said to 

 be obtained I cannot find any record. ()ther points of interest relating to the 

 economy of these animals, many of them bearing on Mr. Higginbottom's paper, 

 I hope at some future period to lay before you, when I have made further expe- 

 riments. 



FISHES. 



APRIL 7, 1854. 



ON THE ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF THE OVA OF THE SALMON, AND THE 

 PROGRESS OF THE EXPERIMENTS NOW CARRYING ON. BY J. FFENNELL, ESQ., 

 INSPECTING COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 



Mr. Ffennell said at the last monthly meeting of the Society he was una- 

 voidably absent on public duty, and he had now but very recently returned from 

 London, whither he had been hastily summoned. He was, therefore, not so 

 fully prepared as he could have desired on the subject, and he regretted much 

 that he had not been able to collect, so far, sufficient material to render any pa- 

 per of the kind of importance ; in fact, the experiments were not yet forward 

 enough to give the full statistics he had from time to time been collecting from 

 the parties who were, in different parts of the country, employed in such opera- 

 tions, and he would, as the season advanced, submit to the Society the progress 

 made by them in those experiments. In whatever light this subject may be con- 

 sidered, it was one of vast importance, in a national point of view, and in the 

 great value of its commercial tendency, and, therefore, valuable as to its eco- 

 nomy, and its practical utility to man. In Ireland these experiments were new 

 and novel, and no knowledge had yet been obtained as to the results of their prac- 

 tical usefulness. He felt the necessity of bringing those inquiries before the So- 

 ciety, as those who were engaged in the experiments were practical men, without 

 scientific knowledge, and, therefore, laboured under the difficulty of not being able 



