536 Prof. T. R. Jones — Destruction of Marine Animals. 



covered or laid bare the beach for 15 rods. It is stated also, that 

 previous to the rise a white squall on the lake gathered into a high 

 water-spout, which swept rapidly to the east. A rumbling sound 

 was heard coming from the water. Fish came to the surface of the 

 lake in great numbers, and bubbles of gas rose rapidly and exploded. 

 It was supposed there might be a submarine earthquake" {Newspaper, 

 1872). 



IV. 1. Hurricanes, as storm- workers, kill fish under certain cir- 

 cumstances ; and a water-spout sometimes whisks a shoal out of 

 shallow water and distributes them elsewhere as a " rain of fish." 



2. Storms kill multitudes of fishes, molluscs, etc., either by beating 

 them to death or by burying them in sand and shingle. Brady, 

 Crosskey, and Eobertson say (PalceontograpJi. Sac. Monograph of the 

 Post-Tertiary Entomostraca, 1874, p. 82), "After every great storm 

 there is probably some change in the habitats of the mollusca." 



3. A great storm in March or April, 1874, killed millions of 

 Oysters at Arcachon, on the coast of France {Neivspaper). 



4. The late A. Leith Adams described in 1868 (Quart, journ. Geol. 

 Soc. vol. xxiv. Y>' 303), the result of a heavy gale setting up the Bay 

 of Fundy, into Anderson's Cove, and thence into a small narrow- 

 necked lagoon, on 26th September, 1867, driving before it myriads 

 of small fishes and killing them by violence, beating, bruising, 

 smashing, and sufi'ocating such quantities that they lay a foot thick on 

 the banks. " With the exception of a few Mackerel and New York 

 Flounder (Plaiessa plana), this vast host belonged to one species, 

 the Clupea elongata, or American Herring, and [the fishes] averaged 

 about six inches in length." After some further observations on the 

 enormous quantity of fishes, the peculiarities of the scene, and the 

 efiects of the storm, the author proceeds to observe, " To the geolo- 

 gist such accidents as the above cannot be otherwise than intensely 

 suggestive. Here we have the Devonian and earlier Palasozoic 

 rocks covered with Glacial Drift, now being overspread by a marine 

 deposit in which enormous quantities of one species of Fish, in every 

 possible state of integrity and mutilation, are mixed up with Mussels 

 and other recent shells, Crustacea of large dimensions, tests of 

 Echini and other Eadiata, Annelids, Plants, etc., etc. The majestic 

 tidal wave, as it rushes up the Bay of Fundy, will soon cover up 

 these remains ; and in the far distant future mayhap some geologist 

 may speculate on the causes that brought about this wholesale 

 destruction of so many Fish, just as we are lost in wonder and 

 astonishment how and by what manner of means such-like pheno- 

 mena took place in many instances among the Devonian and Car- 

 boniferous systems of this and other continents." 



V. Fishes may be suffocated for want of oxygen when massed 

 together in frightened shoals, — as they are in nets, — also when 

 burrowing in sand and mud and accidentally buried by other sands 

 and mud. 



1. In the "Geologist," vol. ii. 1859, p. 216, is the following 

 extract from a paper entitled " A Week in Gaspe," by Dr. J. W. 

 Dawson, in the " Canadian Naturalist." 



