212 



The Ottawa Naturalist. [February 



of this portrait, for all Mr. Billings's early associations were con- 

 nected with Ottawa, the fossils contained in its rocks were the first 

 objects of his scientific study, and, although much of his work was 

 afterwards done in Montreal, the collections to which his time was 

 devoted have come ba.ck to be preserved here. 



Billing-s was one of a remarkable triumvirate connected with 

 its initiation and early work of the Canadian Geological Survey, 

 all well in the van of scientific progress at the time, but each 

 working along his own lines. Logan and Hunt were his asso- 

 ciates, but his scientific eminence was less recognised in Canada 

 because his work was less obviously connected with the economic 

 problems that the Survey had set itself to solve. His audience 

 was not so much in the little Canada of that day as in the studies 

 and laboratories of Europe and the United States. 



The accuracy of his observations is evidenced by the per- 

 manence of his reputation among those palaeontologists of a later 

 generation that has arisen since his day. It is not often that, 

 nearlv twenty-five years after the death of a man whose time was 

 devoted to purely scientific pursuits, interest in his life and work 

 have been maintained in such a way as to render a memorial like 

 this possible, and I may therefore close by again congratulating 

 both those who initiated and those who have aided by subscribing 

 towards the production of this portrait. 



POWERS OF ADAPTATION IN FISHES. 



By Professor Edward E. Prince, Dominion Commissioner of Fisheries. 



Ottawa. 



Fishes are frequently classed as fresh-water species and 

 marine species, but there are many which occupy a kind of 

 neutral position, and have the habit of spending part of their 

 time in fresh water and part in the sea. The salmon, sea-trout, 

 smelt, striped bass, sturgeon, shad, &c., are familiar examples, 

 many of them being anadromous, and ascending into fresh water 

 for spawning purposes, while a few are catadromous, like the eel, 

 and deposit their spawn in the sea. The power of adaptation 



