PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 65 



Mediterranean and the I^ortli Sea, npper Germany not excepted. This 

 fact incontestably i^roves that these birds cross this distance in one un- 

 interrupted flight, and during- one short spring night, viz, in to 10 

 houi^s, which gives a rate of locomotion of 40 geographical miles per 

 hour. Wonderful, incomprehensible, I admit, but still remaining a fact. 

 The slow clumsy Eoyston Crow {Corvus comix) crosses from here due 

 west* over to England, at a rate of 27 geographical miles an hour, and 

 results of 25 miles have been furnished by the semi-domesticated Carrier- 

 pigeon. The distance from the north of Africa to Heligoland is equiva- 

 lent to that from Newfoundland to Iceland, and therefore no objection 

 whatever can be raised against your birds crossing over to us direct. 



All this with plenty of evidence, and a gxeat many points besides, is 

 ready in manuscript sufficient to cover from fifty to sixty pages octavo 

 print, and by the end of May I shall be ready for the press altogether. 



I greatly count on your lenience, my dear sir, whilst allowing my pen 

 to run on at such an unpardonable length, but perceiving from your 

 contribution that you, like myself, have studied the grand tbeme of the 

 migration in nature, which is quite a different matter froui all learned 

 treatises thereon worked out by the lamp of the studio, my hobby felt 

 so comfortable in your genial company that it bolted oft* with this un- 

 resisting tide. 



Begging once more to pardon my having ventured on your time and 

 patience at such uni)ardonable length, in more or less objectionable 

 English thereto, 



I remain, dear sir, yours, very truly, 



H. GATKE. 



DESCRIPTION OF AliEPOCEl'irAliUS BAIR»II, A NEW SPECIES OF FISH 

 FRO-U THE BEEP-SEA FAUBTA OS" THE WESTERN ATLANTIC. 



By G. HUO'WN GOODE aiad TAKI.ET01V II. BEAN. 



The National Museum has recently received from Mr. Christian John- 

 son, of the schooner WiUiam Thompson of Gloucester, a single speci- 

 men of an un described species of Alepocephalus taken on the Grand 

 Banks, at a depth of 200 fathoms. The only other Imown represent- 

 ative of this genus is the Alepocephalus rostratus Risso, a member of the 



* Dnriug the fall tliis liue of migration, so far as it comes under observation here, 

 day or night, is from due east to west, sometimes perhaps with the declination of a 

 point to the south. 



