584 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 589. 



They are unaccountable to all of them. 

 " They are not ant hills or animal burrows, 

 and were not made by Indians." 



I think the explanation is very simple and 

 easily verified. The memories of the observers 

 will confirm it. They are the marks of up- 

 rooted trees. They appear in every part of 

 our country where there are forests and where 

 they have disappeared. They are more nu- 

 merous in certain light soils and in swamps 

 and sometimes in overflowed lands. 



Trees blown down in gales turn up a large 

 mass of earth, which as the tree and roots 

 decay settle into low, generally oblong, 'knolls' 

 or mounds. On the New England farm 

 where I spent my boyhood was an old pasture 

 that had many such mounds. It had been 

 timbered with hemlock and some hard wood, 

 which had been cut down and burned up to 

 make ' a clearing.' A crop or two had been 

 taken from it, but the soil was too thin and 

 poor to pay for cultivating. It was given over 

 to pasturage. I recognized their character 

 from seeing them in process of formation in 

 the adjoining woods. One autumn a tornado 

 passed over the farm, cutting a swath through 

 the forests. Every tree of any size in its path 

 was either overturned or broken oS. A few 

 years ago I visited the old place. A new 

 woods had grown up, but the track of the 

 tornado could be traced by the little hillocks. 



I lived at one time for some years in the 

 pine woods of Mississippi, near the central 

 part of the state, and there witnessed the 

 formation of such mounds. It was more 

 rapid than at the north. The annual fires in 

 a year or two burned up the pitchy tree and 

 roots and the mound was soon rounded up. 



On the prairies of Iowa, where trees never 

 grew, there are no such mounds. On the 

 flood plains of the rivers that are usually 

 timbered they occur, and in the vaUey of the 

 Mississippi where I reside I have met with 

 much larger ones than those of the uplands, 

 large trees and a soft soil. I think, therefore, 

 that this solution is very obvious and satis- 

 factory. 



P. J. Farnsworth. 



Clinton, Iowa. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES. 

 THE PISH GENUS ALABES OR CHEILOBRANCHUS. 



Nearly a century ago (in 1817) a group of 

 eel-like fishes was named ' les Alahes' by 

 Cuvier in his ' Eegne Animal' (II., 235). All 

 the information given was that they, like the 

 Synbranchi, had a single undivided branchial 

 aperture under the throat, well-marked pec- 

 torals with a small concave disk between them, 

 a small operculum, three branchiostegal rays, 

 pointed teeth, and intestines like those of the 

 Synbranchi. Only one small species from 

 India (' la mer des Indes ') was referred to, 

 but left unnamed. 



This species ever since has remained un- 

 noticed and unnamed till recently. In 

 March, 1906, the concluding part of an article 

 (' Le genre Alabes de Cuvier ') by Leon 

 Vaillant, published in the Nouvelles Archives 

 du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle (4), VII., 

 145-158, was received, which throws some light 

 on the subject. Vaillant identifies the genus 

 with Cheilohranchus of Richardson. The 

 alleged disk is so superficial that only a trace 

 exists in some individuals and not at all in 

 others, the so-called pectorals are rayless and 

 approximately in the place of ventrals of 

 many jugular fishes, the dorsal and anal are 

 rayless, and the caudal has eight or nine 

 (' huit ou neuf ') articulated rays and is in- 

 serted around the margin of a hypural plate; 

 there are intermaxillaries with imbricating 

 ascending posterior processes and behind them 

 small supramaxillaries ; the teeth are com- 

 pressed and blunt. 



Such a combination of characters indicates 

 a very peculiar type certainly not closely re- 

 lated to Syribranchus ; Vaillant fully recog- 

 nizes this and suggests (p. 156) that the genus 

 is most nearly related to the Blennioidea and 

 especially the Blenniidae. The latter view is 

 very questionable, but not enough has been 

 made known to permit an authoritative opin- 

 ion to be formed. Vaillant has overlooked a 

 couple of references including important or 

 original data. 



Henri Cloquet (' H. C) contributed to the 

 ' Supplement ' (p. 99) of the first volume of 

 the ' Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles,' an 

 article on 'Alabes, Alabes (Ichtyol)' defining 



