Vol. viir. 



J MattingleYj Cormorants in Relation to Fishes. 23 



from sharp spines. Another good point regarding them is 

 that they love to capture the succulent but non-sporting 

 lamprey, that enemy to some of our best fishes, especially the 

 fresh-water varieties, such as the Murray " cod " and blackfish. 

 The lamprey is an eel-like fish which is provided with a suctorial 

 mouth devoid of teeth, with which it is able to attach itself to 

 a fish, and by rotating its harsh tongue it makes a hole in the 

 skin of a fish, through which it sucks out its life's-blood. 

 Lampreys are more plentiful than is generally supposed, and are 

 called eels by persons unacquainted with their structure. It is 

 not an uncommon error for such persons to make when they 

 announce that they had captured eels in the River Murray, in 

 which stream none, up to the present, have been found to exist. 

 The great fighting capacity of a trout constitutes the chief 

 pleasure to fly-fishermen, and if these fish lost this characteristic 

 trout-fishing would lose most of its charms, and would be but a 

 mediocre sport. If the weaklings of the trout were allowed to 

 propagate their species these fish would become decadent, and 

 would eventually evolve into sluggish and slow-moving 

 creatures if their natural enemies, which eliminate the least fit 

 to live, were destroyed. It is simply the application of the well- 

 known law of disuse inheritance causing deterioration and 

 atrophy in the structure. This is instanced in the flightless, 

 inactive birds of New Zealand, which for centuries past, on 

 account of having no ground enemies to cause them to fly up 

 off the ground out of danger, have gradually lost the power of 

 flight, and have become decadent, and are thus consequently 

 disappearing, never to return. In our wisdom, therefore, let us 

 prevent, as far as we can, the decadence of our fishes, allowing 

 nature to use its aids to this desirable end, and by so doing the 

 now despised and outcast Cormorants will be relegated to their 

 proper sphere of usefulness. 



Observations on the Finch as Foster^Parent to the 



Cuckoo. 



By C. F. Cole, Melbourne. 



At a recent meeting of the Bird Observers' Club one of the 

 members mentioned that he had on several occasions last 

 season found young Cuckoos dead in the nests of the Red- 

 browed Finch {yEgintha temporalis), and wished to know if any 

 other member could throw any light upon the subject, and 

 whether it were possible that the Finches, upon finding they 

 had brought forth strange progeny, had poisoned them by 

 giving them some special food.* This theory carries no weight 



* T, H. Tregallas, E7mi, vol. vii., p. 187. 



