AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 449 



Is tTie reason, as I have often explained to farmers' wives, why 

 young chicl:ens do not desire food until some hours have elapsed 

 after their birth; thousands of young chickens are annually de- 

 stroyed by poultry-raisers, who make them eat too soon, and thus 

 counteract this wonderful provision of God. 



At different periods of their growth, salmon-fry are known by 

 ■different names — when one year old they are called penk; 

 when they go to sea at two years old, smelt; and after their 

 return to fresh water, salmon. They live about ten years. I 

 think I can discover the age of any fish at any time within six 

 years, and also the age of oysters. Food is rarely found in the 

 stomachs of salmon when caught, from the fact that fright causes 

 them to disgorge the contents before they are safely landed. 



Salmon-fry will weigh, when five months old, four pounds; ten 

 months, eight pounds; sixteen months, fifteen pounds; showing 

 that fish attain their growth far more rapidly than terrestrial ani- 

 mals. The brain-bones of the salmon are peculiar — they are con- 

 cave on one side, and convex on the other, with serrated edges, 

 highly enameled, equal, in fact, to the human tooth; comparative 

 anatomists consider them a part of the organ of hearing, but I 

 really do not. 



There is, in all probability, nearly if not quite as much nour- 

 ishment in salmon as there is in beef, weight for weight; and 

 when you take into consideration its soft and flexible fibre, you 

 would naturally suppose that it was more digestible- If you 

 visit our fisheries, you will find robust, hale and hearty men, 

 with handsome, healthy women for their wives,. and large families 

 of children, entirely free from tubercular and scrofulous diseases, 

 which may, in my opinion, be attributed to the fact that the flesh 

 of fish contains iodine, a substance never found in the flesh of 

 animals, or the food they eat. Iodine belongs to the electro- 

 negative supporters of combustion, and is an irritant poison, but 

 administered through the medium of fish, it will be found of great 

 eervice in many forms of glandular disease. 



The Eel {Murcena JinguUla). — In one of my ponds I placed a 

 stock of three thousand eels, weighing from six ounces to two 

 pounds each, and endeavored to study their habits. During the 



[Am. Inst.] 29 



