42 Notice of the appearance of Fish and Inzards. 
on his farm, leads me to communicate to you a most singu- 
e instance of the sd pb! playful aberrations of nature 
m those laws, which she had prescribed for herself, and 
olor whose influence, she most usually, and most wisely 
operates. 
In the course of the last summer I Santi a we to be 
cut of large dimensions, on a line o farm r Cam- 
bridge : the line was a plane, ten feet ate the level of the 
neighboring river, and at least one mile from it, at the near~ 
eit point of the line; a portion of the ditch being done, the 
work was interrupted by rain for ten or twelve veo ; when 
the work was resumed, on examining the performance, I dis- 
covered that the rain water which had filled the. ditch, ~ 
recently cut, contained hundreds of fish, consisting of tw 
kinds of perch which are common in our waters the “sun 
perch,” and the “jack perch ;” the usual size of the former 
is from six to twelve inches, t the latter varies from ten to fif- 
teen inches tongs ; those in the ditch were from four to seven 
es: by what possible means could. thew fish have been 
transported so far from their native waters? There is no wa- 
ter communication on the surface, to conduct them there ; 
the elevation and extent of the plane, in regard to the rivers, 
utterly prohibit the idea; the eggs, if placed there by a wa- 
ter-spout, could not have suffered so rapid a transmigration ; 
no such phenomena had been observed, and the adjacency 
of the line to the dwelling, would have rendered the occur- 
rence, impossible, without notice 
Already has the theory of Descijtin and the pee 
cal generation of Trembley and Spalanzani encroache B 
the animal dignity, in propagating it by cuttings fronts = 
parent stock; yet, that animal life should spring y from a for 
tuitous concourse of lifeless atoms, assisted by the concur- 
rent agency of putrefaction, a suitable element, a suitable 
temperature, or other such circumstances, apparently adap- 
ted to its nascent existence, is a heterodox opinion which I 
should be averse to entertain. 
A similar RerEence a few years ago, | witnessed on the 
same farm ; in a very large ditch, cut on lower lands, on a 
line equally ciienuiiécted with any river, pond, or re ar. 
face-water, there were, under very similar circumsta 
a perch, which afforded fine angling to my Silden. 
a diary whie eep, I have entered, that several of 
rhode frieterired as much as twelve inches in length, and that 
