352 THE YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE. 



of the breeding fish and the regress of the .W/K//.V, as the young fry are teelmu-ally termed 

 on their descent to the sea, the supervisors of the county of Oswego, in New York, have suc- 

 ceeded in re-establishing fisheries in the waters of the Salmon River and its tributaries, 

 to the great advantage of the circumjacent regions. From these facts it is clear that, by the 

 extension of similar provisions to any waters wherein sahnnn have formerly existed, bir 

 now extinct, coupled -with measures considerately undertaken for repeopling the breeding 

 streams about their head waters with young fry, all and every one of our eastern Atlantic 

 rivers might be rendered equally prolific with those noble salmon rivers, the St. John, the 

 Miramichi, the llestigonche, the Nepisiquit, and others llowing into the bays of (.'haleurs 

 and Gaspe, and more so than the Foyle, the Tay, the Clyde, the Forth, and other Scottish 

 and Irish rivers, even in their improved condition. 



On the Sterility of many of the Varieties of the Domestic Fowl, and other 



Hybrid Species. 



THE following is a paper recently read before the Boston Society of Natural History, by 

 Dr. KneeL-i nd, of Boston: 



The strange mania which has of late years manifested itself for unnatural crosses in birds 

 and quadrupeds, might, if properly investigated, and with an eye to science rather than to 

 gain, lead to many interesting facts bearing upon hybridity. I do not refer to the imposi- 

 tions passed upon a public always ready to be cheated, but to the real, bond fide crossings of 

 allied and remote species. There was a time when most naturalists believed that all our 

 varieties of domestic stock, as of cattle, sheep, goats, dogs, fowls, &c., were derived, each 

 genus respectively, from a single wild original ; and that man's care, or rather his abuse, 

 had obtained from this the numerous existing varieties. In the present state of our know- 

 ledge, we think we are justified in saying that the varieties of cattle, of the dog, &c., have 

 been produced by the crossing, natural and forced, of several more or less nearly-allied spe- 

 cies ; for instance, who shall dare to decide between the Asiatic buifalo, the European au- 

 rochs, and Cuvier's extinct species, as the undoubted wild original of the varieties of our 

 cattle ? Whence the necessity of reducing all varieties to a single stock, endowed with great 

 powers of variation, especially when there are several wild species, each equally entitled to 

 be considered the original ? It seems to me that the simplest view of the case is the best 

 viz. that, these varieties are the result of the mingling of many species, guided by the 

 wants or caprices of man. In other words, I believe that no one wild original can lay claim> 

 to the origination of the varieties of our cattle, of our sheep, of our goats, of our dogs, of 

 our barn-yard fowls ; and, to carry the opinion to the legitimate consequences, that no one 

 species of man can lay claim to the paternity of all the human varieties. 



The reasons for this opinion have been often stated, and need not be repeated here ; some 

 new observations will only be added in confirmation. And yet, with this belief in the di- 

 versity of origin of our domesticated animals and the human races, it seems to me that 

 hybridilji is a true test of specific difference. It is an axiom with some, that different species will 

 not produce fertile offspring ; and hence, to them, the fact of the production of such offspring 

 proves that the parents belong to the same species. On the contrary, Dr. Morton makes 

 different degrees of hybridity, the offspring being more prolific according to the nearness of 

 the species ; thus making hybridity no test of specific difference. Of these two opposite 

 opinions, I prefer the first. By a hybrid race, I do not understand an offspring prolific for a few 

 generations, and then gradually dying out, or feebly supported by crossing with the original 

 stocks ; but a race capable of propagating itself, without deterioration, or without any :; 

 ance from either of the parent stocks. Such a race, I maintain, the world has never seen, 

 and never will see, under the present laws of animated nature. You may take any part of 

 the animal scale, from a barn-yard monster to a mulatto, and the fact is the same ; they can- 

 not hold their own ; they must and do return to one or the other of the primitive stocks, or 

 must die out, unless crossed by the pure originating blood. 



The subject which suggested these remarks is the sterility and deterioration of some of the 

 highly-bred varieties of our domestic fowls. It has become quite a general source of com- 



