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Mr. Putnam mentioned a curious fact relative to a singular 

 mortality Avhicli occurred to a stock of this fish, together with 

 that of the yellow joerch and of the Chinese gold fish, which 

 had accumulated, in a small pond without outlet, in the grounds 

 of Mr. Charles F. Putnam, in North Salem. Late in the 

 Spring of 1853, these several kinds of fishes were found dying, 

 to an extent that in a few wxeks only a few breams were sur- 

 vivors of the entire colony. A solitary eel, inhabiting the 

 same pond, and which had attained to the weight of four 

 pounds, perished with the rest. The shell fish, (Uniones, 

 Anadontas, &c.,) likewise died. The chair corroborated this 

 account, his attention having been drawn to the fact by Mr. E. 

 Putnam, at the time. But it was not until some time after- 

 wards, when too late to make any proper observations, that it 

 occurred to him that perhaps the presence of some parasitical 

 algse attacking the internal tissues of the lungs or gills, or even 

 of the flesh itself, was the probable cause of the mysterious 

 disease. He showed that the Confervacese sometimes attacked 

 animal tissues ; these aquatic plants being similar in water 

 to the mouldiness and moulds on the earth or in the atmos- 

 phere. A Mr. Goodsir, in the A ?inals of Naliiral History, 

 IX. 336, mentions such an instance in gold fish, which oc- 

 curred in Edinburgh. Certain fungi also attack the stomach, the 

 lungs. &c. of man and of animals. See Ray Society^ s Report 

 for 1845. The chair also quoted the instance of the late 

 Theodore Morgan, of this city, who told him of a small fish, 

 which he once saw in one of the little streams of the great 

 pasture, on whose head was a tuft of threads like a feather, and 

 which resembled mouldiness. This appendage made the fish 

 seem quite exhausted, and he perceived also, how thin and ema- 

 ciated and weak in its motions it was. Dr. Lindley, in his 

 "Vegetable Kingdom," tells us that this is of very common 

 occurrence, and that the plant which thus attacks fishes is the 

 Achlya prolifera. The chair would direct the attention of 

 members to this phenomenon, that if it should occur to them 



ESSEX INST. PROCEED. 19. 



