134 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



MORTAIilTir OF ITr'C"I.OUI> RIVEK SAr.ltI01V IIV 1881. 

 By LIVIlVGSTO^r STONE. 



[Extracted from letters dated July 10 and 12, 1881.] 



The McCloud Eiver salmon are dying in vast quantities from some 

 unknown cause. The affected fish have this peculiarity, flamely, that 

 they appear on the exterior to be perfectly healthy fish. There are no 

 parasites in the gills, no fungus on the bodies, no emaciation or any 

 mark whatever on the outside to distinguish them from perfectly healthy 

 fish. I secured and dissected one a day or two ago. The inside of the 

 mouth and the gills seemed perfectly healthy and normal ; the heart 

 and liver seemed nearly as usual, but the alimentary canal and stomach 

 were very much congested with extremely dark blood. You remember, 

 without doubt, the small organ, of a deep red color, that lies at the 

 lower extremity of the pyloric appendages. In the fish that I examined 

 this organ was of an abnormal size, being three times as large, perhaps 

 four times as large, as in a healthy fish, and of a dark, unwholesome 

 color. I should say that this extraordinary enlargement of the spleen 

 (as we call the organ here) was a sufficient cause for death. I will ex- 

 amine more as soon as I can get some. 



TSE FISH-EATINO €0\rS OF PROVINCE TOWN, MASSACHUSETTS. 



By ISAAC HIWCKLEY. 

 [Extract from a letter dated July 20, 1881.] 



Captain Atwood has kindly given me facts in respect to fish-eaiiing 

 cows. Prior to the passage of the Massachusetts statute forbidding 

 owners of cows to allow them to roam at will (which statute was enacted 

 to protect directly the beach-grass which checked the drifting of sand), 

 the cows flocked to the shore while the fishermen were cleaning their 

 catch. These cows sought with avidity the entrails and swallowed them. 

 They seemed willing to eat the heads also, but lacked the ability to re- 

 duce their bulk sufficiently to allow of this. A species of ling or blenny,. 

 weighing three jjounds or more, and discarded by the fishermen, was 

 freely eaten also by the cows. Cows when first arriving at Province- 

 town from the rural districts refused fish; but their owners, by adding 

 minced fish to their cows' rations, soon taught the cows to imitate their 

 neighbors in respect to eating entrails. 



At this time the thirty -three cows, constituting the whole of Province- 

 town's stock, being " kept up," have forgotten or never learned the fish- 

 eating practice. 



