The Migration of fishes. 39 
same day on the same coast at the surface of the sea, and 
repaired to favorable spots to spawn.”* The absurdity of 
these statements renders it unnecessary to criticise them. The 
other testimony is less definite. A Newfoundland fisherman 
remembers to have heard his father say that forty years before 
“he had often seen mackerel in White Bay, come on shore 
like squid, with scales on their eyes, and blind, about Christ- 
mas;”+ and again, a statement quoted from the Rev. John 
Ambrose that “mackerel have been brought up from the 
muddy bottoms of some of our outer coves by persons spear- 
_ing for eels through the ice,’ { which statement is not sup- 
ported by the personal evidence of Mr. Ambrose, being 
merely ai‘hearsaysstory.! And (this istall. “Prot. Hind; ima 
Part II. of the same work,§ remarks confidently, “That the 
mackerel spends the winter months in a torpid condition near 
to the locality where the school first show themselves on the 
, 
coast has already been adverted to;” and again refers to 
“the fact already noticed that it is taken in winters from 
muddy bottoms.” I submit that no such fact has been estab- 
lished, and that Prof. Hind’s generalizations are without 
foundation. There is much better evidence to prove that 
swallows hybernate in the mud of ponds, a theory which has 
had numerous advocates since the time of Gilbert White of 
Selborne. 
(2.) Prof. Hind first quotes from “La Peche et Les Pois- 
sons” of M. de la Blanchere. The statement, printed as it is 
in a single paragraph instead of two, and not given in full, 
conveys the impression that M. de la Blanchere indorses the 
* Part) 1.5 \p. 78: f Part, Diy p.cte. 
+ Observations on the Fishing Grounds of St. Margaret’s Bay, N. S., by Rev. John Ambrose, 
in Proceedings and Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Sciences, 1866-7 
quoted by Hind, op. cit. Part I., p. 79. 
§ Page 10. 
