30 ox THE RESUSCITATION OP FROZEN FISH. 



disposed, I could without difficulty, have knocked her down with my stick. 



I do not know if this trait in the character of the Linnet has been recorded: 

 it was new to nie, and it delighted me much, 



Fordinghridge, Hants, February Srd., 1851. 



ON THE EESITSCITATION OF FEOZEN FISH. 



TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATURALIST. 



Sir, 



In that useful and valuable Magazine, "The Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History," for the month of November, 1850, appears a 

 note on the ''Resuscitation of Frozen Fish," by Professor 0. P. Hubbard; and 

 the January number, for 1851, of the same Magazine, contains another note 

 by P, L. Simmonds, Esq., on the same subject. That this is no new or 

 uncommon occurrence, the following quotations from the "rientleman's Magazine" 

 for 1807 will shew: — The writer, a Dr. Young, says, "While in North America, 

 I think it was about the year 1757 or 1758, I came to the knowledge of a 

 very odd phenomenon, which I am not sure is generally known to naturalists. 

 The fiict is as follows, namely: — If fish are taken alive out from below the 

 ice, in lake or river, during an intense frost, and thrown upon the ice, or 

 among the snow, so as to freeze immediately; although they are seemingly 

 dead, and so stiff as to break short upon trying to bend them, yet you may 

 bring them to life again, or rather into a state in which they will perform 

 all their animal motions, as perfectly as before they were frozen; the supposition 

 is, they are not dead, but the functions of life are only suspended; and this 

 is done by putting them into cold water. When I was told the fact at Albany, 

 originally a Dutch settlement, I was rather incredulous, and enquired among 

 the Dutch people separately, and found that they all agreed in the same story; 

 however it was not long before I had ocular demonstration of it. Some of 

 the Mohawk Indians brought some fish to Albany to sell; they were caught 

 in the Oneida lake. The woman of the house, in which I was quartered, 

 bought a bunch of them, and hung them up inside of the chimney. I soon 

 observed those fishes that were next the fire, began to move first, then those 

 in the middle of the bunch, and those on the outside last of all. The Indians 

 were three or four days on their journey before they arrived at Albany. The 

 Dutch people say you may keep fish frozen and seemingly dead, not only a few 

 days, but weeks; and when you want to bring them to life, put them into 

 cold water, or into an air where it barely thaws, for, if they are put into 

 warm water, or brought into too hot an air, they will putrefy." Dr. Young 

 again says, "I have been told by a gentlemen from Switzerland, that it is a 

 custom in that country, in changing fish from one pond or lake to another, 

 to put them into a tub of water, and when the water is frozen, they then 

 transport them in the greatest safety, without being beaten or bruised one 

 against the other, or against the side of the vessel." 



