19 



like the mule, and they resemble the patient and much-abused 

 mule in being sterile. The cross between the buffalo and the 

 domestic cow is fertile but is hardy. 



Mr. Mather did not approve of bastardizing fish further 

 than to see what could be done as a scientific curiosity. He 

 had used the milt of the alewife on shad eggs, when no male 

 shad were at hand, hoping that a fish of some kind might re- 

 sult from eggs that would otherwise be wasted, but that was 

 as far as he would plead guilty to bringing any living thing 

 into the world with the bar sinister on its escutcheon. Nature 

 has placed a barrier between the crossing of the brook and 

 lake trout of Eastern America by fixing the spawning time 

 of the former in the day and the latter at night. There is 

 throughout all nature, an abhorrence of miscegenation, and a 

 law that if it is practiced, its fruits shall not perpetuate the 

 crime. If this were not so, there would be no such thing as 

 species, or even genera, for the late Seth Green claimed to have 

 crossed a shad with a striped bass. I do not believe such a 

 cross to be possible, any more than you can cross a dog and a 

 cat, two animals nearer alike in structure than the fishes 

 named. 



Dr. Bean had examined specimens which were said to be 

 a cross between the California or Chinook, salmon, and the 

 brook trout, sent to the Smithsonian Institution by Mr. Green, 

 but could find no difference between them and other fish sent 

 by Mr. Green, which he claimed were the progeny of the 

 rainbow and brook trouts. Possibly Mr. Green made a mis- 

 take. 



Mr. Mather called attention to the fact that Mr. Green 

 claimed his hybrids to be fertile, and that specimens had been 

 exhibited at Mr. Blackford's on the opening of the trout sea- 

 son in New York, labelled from }{ to ^ blood of brook and 

 lake trout. Just which species was alleged to predominate in 

 these crosses was not remembered, perhaps Mr. Blackford 

 might furnish the information from the newspaper chips con- 

 cerning his annual displays, of which he has a full line. Dr. 

 Bean has declared hybrids between the trouts and the sal- 



