626 KEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



by bakeries or breweries iu Carlisle, whose refuse might have got into 

 the river. 



My letter was published by Dr. Hair in the Carlisle Journal of March 

 29 and in the Field newspaper of March 30, and as worded it might 

 have been inferred that I regarded the presence of bakeries and brew- 

 eries as the cause of the disease. This was of course not intended. On 

 April 12th I received two salmon and a trout from J. Dunne, esq., chief 

 constable of Cumberland and WestmOTeland, all of them in a diseased 

 condition. ]Mr. Dunne requested me to make an examination of those 

 fish, and hoped, on public grounds, that I might be able to discover the 

 true nature and cause of the disease. 



As a result of my examination of those fish, I sent a preliminary re- 

 port to ]\rr. Dunne. This report was forwarded to the fishery-inspectors, 

 and was considered of so much importance that it was published in the 

 Times and many of the provincial and local newspapers. Sir Eobert 

 Christison had also very kindly supplied me with a number of specimens 

 from the river Xith, all of them affected with this disease. An exam- 

 ination of these has confirmed me in the opinion expressed in the report 

 above referred to. All these fish had the disease in an advanced stage, 

 being more or less affected about the head, chin, branchiostegal rays, 

 and fins in every instance. One salmon had rubbed the chin till the 

 lower jaw had nearly separated at the symphysis, the skin was rubbed 

 €ff the branchiostegal rays, and the rays broken. A trout had the upper 

 left jaw bare of skin, the bone worn and hanging loosely attached to 

 the cheek, the i>ectoral fin of the left side in rags, and the rays worn to 

 stumps. 



Another salmon had the skin rubbed oft' the nose and crown, and the 

 matted fungus covered the bare parts ; the dorsal fin was quite destroyed, 

 the strong anterior rays being reduced to stumps of half an inch in 

 length, and the remains of the fin bare, bleached, and without mem- 

 brane. Beneath the dorsal fin on each side were spaces extending 3 

 inches forward toward the head, and 2i inches backwards toward the 

 tail, thickly covered with the fungus. Besides these there were other 

 spaces on the sides of the fish from 1 inch to 2 inches in diameter, all 

 covered by the fungus, which gave the fish a spotted appearance. 



This fish appears to have been alive when taken, as the skull and 

 brain had been punctured by the fisherman. The greater part of this 

 fish was cooked ; it was very firm and fat, and the three persons who 

 made a meal of it pronounced it capital. I tasted a portion of the flesh 

 from a part where the fungus covered the skin, and could not detect 

 anything different in the flavor from an ordinary fishmonger's salmon. 



The fungus appears, in the first instance, to attack those parts of the 

 fish that are not covered with scales, as the crown, nose, sides of the 

 head, chin, throat, and the membranous x)arts of the fins. From those 

 parts the fungus extends by vegetative growth (which seems very vig- 

 orous) to those portions of the surface of the body which are covered 



