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Aug. 24, 1871] 
NATURE 
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little difficulty in steering a Bill safely through all the perils of 
Select Committees of both Houses of Parliament. That Bill, 
however, was shorn of its fair proportions ; and although it went 
into the House a Bill for the Protection of Indigenous Animals, 
it came out an Act for the Preservation of Sea-Fowl. The sea- 
fowl had borne their testimony to the success of the Act so far, 
and it was something to have to say that within the last year the 
numbers of sea-fowl that had bred en the Yorkshire coast were, 
at least, three times as many as they were two years ago. That 
success was a great benefit, at the same time, to those who made 
their living by sea-fowl, because purveyors of feathers and eggs 
had found that the Sea-Fowl Act had actually very largely in- 
creased not only their profits, but their supply, in the same way 
as the improvement of the Salmon Acts had restored the salmon 
to rivers from which it had been almost extirpated. The com- 
mittee, therefore, finding there was a unanimous verdict in favour 
of the Act regarding sea-fowl, strongly recommended the As- 
sociation to endeavour to extend the Act in two ways. This 
they proposed to do next session by introducing amending 
clauses. One object to be aimed at was to extend the Act toall 
wading birds and all web-footed birds good for human food. It 
was desirable to protect the sandpipers, the plovers, the lap- 
wings, and the whole of the duck tribe, which were being rapidly 
exterminated. Having succeeded in that, the committee should 
next endeayour to have British law on the subject assimilated to 
the sternly restrictive laws of every other civilised country, except 
Holland, Greece, and Turkey—those three being the only 
countries in the world professing to be civilised which had not 
a close-time for all creatures. 
OrNITHOLOGY. —Prof. Duns, D.D., New College, Edinburgh, 
read a paper Ox the Rarer Raptorial Birds of Scotland; the four 
following propositions were stated:—1. That species occur in 
pairs, often at long intervals, in localities where they have long 
since ceased to breed, but where they have been at one time 
mot; uncommon. 2. The geographical range ef stragglers 
\ seems to widen with the lapse of time. 3. Certain species 
have greatly increased in recent times over wide districts where 
they were comparatively rare. 4. Year by year the raptorial 
birds of Scotland are becoming fewer. These positions were 
all treated of in the paper, which, not giving specific charac- 
teristics or descriptive details, yet pointed out all the chief 
sources of information and enumerated all the localities. R. 
Sibbald’s list in ‘‘Scetia Ilustrata,” 1684, and the many that 
intervened between it and the author’s ewn lists collected during 
the last thirty years, were all referred to, and the conclusion 
come to was that mest of the larger raptorial birds were rapidly 
disappearing from Scotland, and that even the smaller forms 
which were very common in the southern and central districts 
were yearly becoming rarer.¥¢The author also expressed his 
belief that both the farmer and the game preserver would lose 
much when between them they succeeded in destroying all the 
hawks and ewls. 
IcTHYoLoGY.—A paper was communicated by Colonel Play- 
fair, H.B.M. Consul-General at Algiers, Ox the Hydrographical 
System and the Fresh Water Fish of Algeria. After describing 
certain interesting features in the physical configuration of the 
country, the paper went on to state that in the rivers lowing to 
the Mediterranean there were sixteen species of fish, only three 
of which were common to the whole region, one being the 
‘common eel. There were eleven species peculiar to the littoral 
of Algeria, among which was a small trout. The common gold 
fish, which was very common, was not a native of Algeria, but 
was supposed to have been introduced by the caprice of a certain 
Sultan many centuries ago. It was new, however, universal in 
the streams. The plateau had only afforded seven species, one 
of them being the same as a South African species. In the 
Sahara there were some peculiar species. The upper part 
afforded two species, one being the common eel, and in the 
lower region two species were found in the salt lakes, and had 
been frequently ejected by the Artesian wells. It had been cen- 
cluded that these latter species inhabited a vast subterranean sea 
occupying the bottom of the Sahara depression. The question 
had been asked why they were not destitute of eyes, but it was 
to be remembered that their underground life was simply an 
episode in the voyages they made between one well and another. 
When they reached a well they were either forced up or by | 
instinct came to the surface. Owing to the shortness of the | 
rivers and their being extremely rapid in their upper portion, the 
physical conditions were not such as would admit of the intro- | 

duction into them of the true salmon with any prospect of 
success. 
Mr. C. W. Peach exhibited some apparently tailless trout 
which had been sent to him by Mr. Colin Hay, distiller, of 
Ardbeg, Islay. They were taken in Lochmaorichen, in Islay. 
That loch was about 1,000 feet above the level of the sea, and 
not above one acre in extent. It was so shallow that a man 
could wade through it, and had a stony bottom, with a few 
weeds. Although it was surrounded by other lochs, these tail- 
less trout were found only in it. The whole of them were 
“* docked,” and Mr. Mackay, a keen sportsman, who has fished 
it often for thirty years, never caught one with a perfect tail. 
They are in excellent condition, being fed on the small crusta- 
ceans which are abundant in the loch. Mr. Peach further stated 
that Mr. Hay was about to add to his kindness by procuring a 
further supply of fish, if possible, from the fry to the adult 
state. He also intended to transport some ef the “docked ” 
trout toa loch at a short distance, in which trout had never 
been taken, and try to rear a steck from them, and see whether 
they would all remain ‘‘tailless. 
Dr. Grierson said that, at the mines of Wanloch-Head, 
Dumfriesshire, and Leadhills, Lanarkshire, there were streams 
coming from the shafts in which trout without tails were fre- 
quently got, as also trout with deficient fins. The fish referred 
to were, moreover, frequently blind. Specimens of these fish 
were to be forwarded to Professors Turner, Traquair, and Dr. 
Giinther for examination. 
Mr. A. G. More exhibited some brown trout taken in salt 
water. It was not, he thought, generally known that the com- 
mon or brown trout of fresh-water streams was an occasional 
visitant to the salt water. The salmon and the sea-trout, and the 
sewin or Welsh sea-trout, descended regularly to the sea after 
they had finished breeding in fresh water; but the common 
brown trout had seldom been observed under the same circum- 
stances, In Scotland Mr, Peach, who had an extensive experience 
and knowledge of marine zoology, assured him that no instance 
of the kind had come under his notice, save once, when he found 
a river-trout in the stomach of a cod-fish. Possibly that trout 
was captured in salt water, but it might have been dropped by a 
cormorant, or have been swept down the river ima flood either 
weak or possibly already dead. Inthe west of Ireland—in the 
counties of Donegal, Sligo, Limerick, and Kerry, Mr. More 
had ascertained, partly through others and partly from his 
own observation, that the  river-trout spontaneously frequented 
the salt water at the mouths of the rivers. The brown trout 
captured in salt water differed from: their usual condition in hay- 
ing brighter and more silvery. scales, something like those of the 
young salmon in the smolt condition. Mr. More would like it 
to be ascertained if these trout were brown trout ‘‘pure and 
simple,” or hybrids. 
Prof, Duns exhibited a specimen of the spiny shark, Echino- 
vhinus spinosus, Blain, which had been taken at Earlsferry, near 
Elie, Fifeshire, in the February of this year. He also mentioned 
that a specimen had also been taken in January 1867 near Boness, 
Linlithgowshire. 
Dr, C. Liitken described a new genus of fish belonging to the 
family of the sea-devils, allied to, and, in fact, almost interme- 
diate between the curious genus Melanocetus discovered some 
years since by Mr. Johnson at Madeira and the monstrous Cera- 
tias, which, until the discovery of Mr. Joknson, was the best 
known example of the Apodal Lophioids. Of the third genus 
of the almost blind apodal deep sea Lophioids, it was strange 
that the Greenland seas should have already possessed a species, 
O. himantolophius, described many years ago by the senior Rein- 
hardt from a mutilated specimen, but which description had been 
almost fergotten by recent icthyologists. Ameng the characters dis- 
tinguishing this genus Gneirodes, there is one both peculiar and 
suggestive, viz., the curious development of the head of the first 
dorsal fin-ray, which, with its tentacles, pigmental spots, &c., 
gave the impression of, as it were, a mimicry of the head, say, 
ofa Nereis, It would not be very wonderful if it were really 
intended to allure other rapacious fishes, and if the old stories 
of the angling prepensities of the ‘‘ fishing frog” were found to 
contain more truth than is generally believed. The new species 
O. eschrichtii was taken at Greenland. 
EntTomoLocy.—Mr, Roland Trimen, F.L.S., F.Z.S., read a 
note ona curious South African grasshopper,* Zrachyfpetra bufo, 
* Methuen’s “‘ Wanderings in the Wilderness,” 2nd edition, 1848, App. 
P- 372, pl. 11., fig. 3- 
