390 OTHER FISH AND GAME 



periments by Mr. Charles A. Strowger, of IS^ine-Mile 

 Point, Monroe County, N. Y., have proved that the 

 burbot is capable of being so salted and dried as to 

 be practically undistinguishable from salt codfish. 



The European burbot has been termed both Lota 

 vulgaris and Molva lota. Charles Kingsley, in the 

 chapter of his Prose Idylls devoted to the Fens, thus 

 describes him : " There lingers in the Cam, and a few- 

 other rivers of northeastern Europe, that curious fish, 

 the eel-pout or burbot {Molva lota). Now, he is utter- 

 ly distinct from any other fresh-water fish of Europe. 

 His nearest ally is the ling {Molva vulgaris) ; a deep- 

 sea fish, even as his ancestors have been. Originally 

 a deep-sea form, he has found his way up the rivers, 

 even to Cambridge, and there remains. The rivers by 

 which he came up, the land through which he passed, 

 ages and ages since, have been all swept away ; and 

 he has never found his way back to his native salt- 

 water, but lives on in a strange land, degraded in 

 form, dwindling in numbers, and now fast dying out. 

 The explanation may be strange ; but it is the only 

 one which I can offer to explain the fact — which is itself 

 much more strange — of the burbot being found in the 

 Fen rivers." Because of my lack of Canon Kingsley's 

 opportunities for the investigation knd study of this 

 theory, I am not prepared to challenge its correctness. 

 But its analogy to the spurious claims on behalf of 

 the ouananiche and its fresh -water habitat, already 

 referred to, will occur to many who are conversant 

 with these latter, and I ver^' much doubt if the accom- 

 plished Canon, when he advanced it, was aware of the 

 fact that the burbot lives and thrives to so remark- 



