NOTES AND QUERIES. 



rUnder this Department Heading queries relative to Angling, Ichthyology and Fish Culture, 

 •- will be answered.] 



Our New Departure. 



With the present number the Ameri- 

 can Angler makes a new departure. In 

 this issue is commenced a feature which 

 is trusted will not be without interest 

 to its thousands of readers. It has de- 

 cided to take up the shooting happen- 

 ings of this vicinity and to mention 

 them in its columns in the same man- 

 ner as has been done regarding fish and 

 fishing in the columns designated 

 " Notes and Queries." It is believed that 

 this new feature will commend itself to 

 the American sportsmen so as to meet 

 their approbation. Most certainly the 

 American Angler will do its best to 

 make such mentions popular as well as 

 instructive. 



We notice in a monthly contempo- 

 rary, devoted to all sports, a paragraph 

 which to us seems out of place. It was 

 written anent the recent tournament 

 given at Cincinnati tinder the auspices 

 and management of the Hazard Pow- 

 der Company. The paragraph was 

 worded as follows : " It is my intention 

 to depart very materially from the 

 worm-eaten custom of our worthy con- 

 temporaries. I have stated that scores 

 are not a truthful representation of the 

 actual occurrences." Ah ! indeed ; one 

 may w^ell ask if not, why not ? It is the 

 shooting, and nothing else but the 

 shooting, that makes these tourna- 

 ments. All that goes in connection 

 with these shootings, outside of the 

 actual work done at the traps, is extra- 

 neous. Generalities are all very well. 

 They make pleasant reading. But they 



are of the day only ; ephemeral as the 

 life of the butterfly. But the scores are 

 the records which are kept and filed 

 away for the future. Why was not the 

 truth told, and that truth that the field 

 is so covered, and so ably covered, by 

 the weekly journals devoted to shooting 

 that but little is left to the monthlies. 

 Stale news indeed would it be to a jour- 

 nal that has but a dozen issues a year 

 to compete with such journals as Ameri- 

 can Field, Shooting and Fishing, or 

 Forest and Stream in that particular 

 field. Then why not admit that fact as 

 the American Angler does. Our 

 province is to gather what has taken 

 place during each month of interest to 

 sportsmen, and then place it before the 

 ptiblic in attractive form. It is this 

 course that has made our "Notes and 

 Queries " one of the features of this era. 

 If anything of news comes to us, all 

 right ; but there are many things, both 

 amusing and educational, that arise each 

 month that are passed over by our 

 weekly contemporaries, but which may 

 find proper mention here. 



Man as a Pre=historic Fish. 



In the " Life and Letters of Charles Darwin " 

 are several interesting notes on the subject of 

 breeding by selection. Among them occur the 

 following : 



Writing to Sir Charles Lyell — rapidly be- 

 coming an enthusiastic believer in the views of 

 the author of " Origin of Species," Darwin 

 adds, in a postscript : " Our ancestor was an 

 animal which breathed water, had a swim 

 bladder, a great swimming tail, an imperfect 

 skull, and undoubtedly was an hermaphrodite." 

 Here is a pleasant genealogy for mankind. 



