274 BULLETIN OF THE 



pounds, nets, and pots. When compared with the complicated struc- 

 tures on the coast of the United States, these primitive traps hardly 

 deserve the name of pounds. They are mere fences, with an opening 

 near the middle for the pocket, placed across the course travelled by 

 the fishes. The fence is made of rushes tied close together by one 

 end along a line of the required length ; this line is fastened on the 

 bottom by means of stakes, and the buoyancy of the rushes keeps 

 them upright. 



The pot is a short cylinder of open basket-work with one end 

 rounded and closed, and with a gate in the other, like that of the lob- 

 ster-pot, which admits the fishes but prevents their egress. Consid- 

 erable ingenuity is displayed in the structure of these baskets. The 

 warp is of single stems of a smooth, stiff, wiry grass ; the woof is 

 made by wrapping several small stems with split straws, making rolls 

 which are bound to the stems of the warp, on the outside, by passing 

 one of the straws which bind the roll around each stem at its proper 

 distance from each other. The spaces in the warp are determined by 

 the size of the fishes desired ; those in the woof by the strength of the 

 materials. Such traps are used as are lobster-pots. 



The net in common use is a small dip-net with a long handle. 

 Armed with this the Indian glides back and forth along the beach, 

 late in the evening when the hungry siluroids come close to the 

 water's edge to feed, occasionally dropping the net quietly down so as 

 to cut off its retreat and then with a jerk throwing an unwary fish far 

 out of the water. It is said that these nets are also used in fishing 

 by torchlight from balsas. 



Eight species of the genus Orestias were described by Cuvier and 

 Valenciennes (Hist. Nat. d. Poiss., Vol. XVIII, p. 221) as occurring 

 in tins lake. Of these Cuvieri and Humboldti are synonymous, the 

 latter being the young of the former, as shown by Dr. G anther ; Mulleri 

 and luteus are doubtless to be referred to one species ; and, from the 

 variations in proportions exhibited by our specimens, it appears likely 

 that one of the stouter forms of Agassizii served as the type of Jussiei. 

 The description and figure of Agassizii given by Cuv. and Val., from 

 the common form of a half-grown animal, represents the species most 

 accurately; for this reason the name is retained and Jussiei placed 

 as a synonyme. Here also is the place for the 0. Owenii of Giinther. 



