320 



FOREST AND STREAM' 



of the willow grouse. The rook grouse is intermediate in 

 size between the white-tailed and willow ptarmigan, its 

 plumage in summer is black and yellow barred, and in winter 

 it is white, except the black rectricea (tail feathers), and aline 

 of the same color through the eye. 



The largest of our ptarmigan, and a bird which affords no 

 little sport to the residents of Newfoundland and the Fur 

 Countries is the willow grouse (Lagopua albus). This species is 

 abundant in the British Possessions east of the Rocky Mount- 

 ains, but only occurs in the United States as an accidental 

 visitant. One instance is on record of its having been captured 

 in Massachusetts, but it is possible that this may have been an 

 escaped bird. 



The Hudson Bay region seems to be a favorite locality with 

 this bird, and Hearne says that they are enormously abundant 

 there, and that he has seen as many as four hundred in a flock. 

 Their food in summer oonsists chiefly of berries, but in winter 

 they feed almost entirely on the buds of the willow, birch and 

 alder. The change of plumage in this species, as in the other 

 two, takes place very gradually, and the summer garb is 

 usually not completely assumed before June. It is hardly 

 necessary to say that both the summer and -winter dresses are 

 admirably adapted to the circumstances of the ptarmigan's 

 life, and are in the highest degree protective. The narratives 

 of Arctic travelers all bear witness to the difficulty of dis- 

 covering the birds -when the ground is covered with snow, and 

 even when they alight among the willows it is often difficult 

 to distinguish them from the masses of snow which cling to 

 the branches. In Newfoundland this species is hunted almost 

 altogether with dogs, but in the Fur Countries, where they 

 are eo abundant, they can generally be found without the aid 

 of a canine assistant. Many of these birds arc shipped in a 

 frozen state from St. John's to England, though happily this 

 has not yet been done as a matter of business. 

 (To be continued.') 



EARBONES, OR BRAIN IVORY OF 

 FISHES. 



TCHTHYOLOGIST3 and fish-culturists. when investigat- 

 ing the anatomy, physiology, and habits of the various 

 kinds of fishes, sea or freshwater, have paid hitherto but very 

 little, and not sufficient attention, to the auditory powers of 

 these water animals. 



Fishes, especially deep-sea, live under circumstances so very 

 far removed from human ken that it is almost impossible to 

 gain a definite knowledge of what they do in the depths of 

 the ocean. I think, therefore, that we fish culturists should 

 begin to study the earbones of fishes as helps to ascertain 

 their habits. 



I acknowledge with gratitude that I owe this suggestion to 

 Oapt. P. Jackson, of the " Oasis," Barnstaple, who, when wo 

 were there oa an official inquiry, most kindly presented me 

 with a most beautiful collection of the earbones of fishes, 

 "brain ivory," aB he most appropriately calls them. 



"We must, in considering this matter, go back one step. 

 Mammals, birds, etc., live in the air, and they receive im- 

 pressions of sound by means of the vibrations of the air ; fish, 

 on tho contrary, live in the water, and through that medium, 

 therefore, receive any impressions of sound. Accordingly, 

 we find that the great Creator has given to animals, whether 

 aquatic or terrestrial, an ear admirably suited for the con- 

 ditions under which they live. Our own ear, for instance, 

 is highly complicated. Sound causes a very delicate mem- 

 brane called the tympanum to vibrate. These vibrations are 

 communicated by means of three small bones ; sLrange to say, 

 these boneB resemble objects in daily use among ourselves. 

 The first bone is called the malleus, or hammer, the second 

 the incus, or anvil, and the third the stapes, or stirrup. The 

 sounds are collected by means of the external ear, and in 

 connection with this extenal ear there are muscles under the 

 skin; but these muscles are not much used by ourselves, 

 though it is possible that if we took a baby, and taught him 

 to use the muscles of the ears, that after a time he might be 

 enabled to cock his ears in a doglike manner. . The muscles 

 that move the ears can be seen in full work in such animals 

 as the horse. 



The eye of the horse is crepuscular, or semi-nocturnal, and 

 all coachmen will tell you that horses go better at night than 

 in the day. During daytime they trust principally to the 

 care, and horses in a listening mood may be observed with 

 one ear cocked forward, the other backward. To creatures 

 such as fishes, external ears would be of no use, but would be 

 a hindranoe and obstruction ; nevertheless they have bones in 

 the ears, and these of a beautiful character. 



John Hunter, with his usual sagacity, examined into this 

 subject. He writes: "The organ of hearing in fishes is 

 placed on the sides of the skull, or cavity which cantatas the 

 brain, but the skull makes no part of it, as it does in the 

 quadruped and bird, the organ being a distinct and detached 

 part. It varies much in the different genera of fishes, but in 

 all it consists of three curved tubes which unite one with 

 another. The whole organ is composed of a kind of carti- 

 laginous substance, and in some fishes is crusted 07er with a 

 thin lamella to keep it from collapsing. The canals terminate 

 in a cavity, in which cavity there is a bone or bones. In 

 some there are two bones, as in the cod. The Jack has two 

 cavities. We find in one of them two bones and in the other 

 one." 



Let us now examine the beautiful preparations made with 

 so much care by our friend Capt. Jackson, of Barnstaple. 

 These ootoliteB, or ear-bones of fishes may, I think, at once 

 be classified, and I place together in order of size— First , the 

 bones of the cod. Secondly, those of the hake. Thirdly, 

 those of the haddock. Fourthly, those of the whiting. 

 Fifth, those of the conger. Sixth, those of the burbot 

 Seventh, those of the sole. Eighth, those of the gurnard. 

 Ninth, those of the smelt or sparling. Tenth, those of the 

 Silmon. Eleventh, those of the trout. They all seem to be 

 composed of a substance whioh Captain Jackson properly 

 cfils osseous ivory, or brain ivory, but they differ much in 

 shape and appearance. For instance, the ootolite of the 

 conger is exactly the shape of a small sole ; it is an inch and 

 two-eighths in length and three-eighths in width. The cod's 

 bone is as nearly as possible the size of a common horsebean 

 split, the hone is curved upon itself, reminding us of a cater- 

 pillar in progression. The haddock and whiting are much 



the same as the cod, but narrower. The ear-bone of the con- 

 ger is small, thin, and glass-like. The turbot's ears are the 

 shape of a haliotis or V onus's ear shell, but deeply dentated at 

 the margins. Sole'B ears remind one, on a small scale, of the 

 cowrie shell, as used as money by some of the tribes in Af- 

 rica. Gurnard's ears are saucer-shaped. Pilchard's ears con, 

 sist of a bone folded on itself, very like a shrimp after boiling, 

 only white. Salmon's ears, strange to say, consist of two 

 parts. I can liken them to nothing better than a young 

 salmon, with the umbilical sac attached, just come out of tho 

 egg. Trouts' ears arc of a somewhat 'similar shape, only 

 smaller. I am of firm opinion that if Captain Jackson will 

 continue bis inquiries, it will be of immense practical use to 

 all fishermen. No one knows better than the herring fishers 

 of Loch Fyne that herrings are greatly effected by noiBe, 

 I give samples of the witnesses' evidence : — " The herrings 

 are retarded in their progress by trawls. The noise is of 

 more consequence than the nets; the herrings, as soon as the 

 boat is struck, go away. The fisherman strikes the gunwale 

 of his boat on dark nights to see where the herrings are." 

 Another witness described the noise made by the fishermen to 

 the hammering in a Glasgow Bhip building yard. Witnesses 

 told us that the fish were kept away by the firing of the 

 Volunteer Artillery. 



The first general'obscrvation that I draw from Captain Jack- 

 son's specimens are, that the floating fish have different 

 ootclites to flat fish, and the flat fish have different ears to 

 mid-water fish, such as salmon, etc. In studying the econ- 

 omy of the ocean, the evidence of the fish themselves is of 

 the highest importance. I wish, therefore, to advise our 

 friends to study the ear-bones of fishes. It is only nesessary 

 to boil the head carefully, and " the brain ivory," so called, 

 may be discovered. This brain ivory, Mr. Searle aptly ob- 

 serves, is very like very strong porcelain, such as used by the 

 dentists for artificial teeth. This porcelain is made into the 

 shape of the teeth, burned in a very strong heat, and has 

 superseded all kinds of ivory.— Frank liuckland in Land and 

 Water. 



In no fish are the ear-bones more conspicuous or strikingly 

 beautiful than in the sheepohead of our interior lakes (haploi- 

 donotut.) To most persons they are known as " lucky stones' 

 and are prized as pocket pieces, being often carried for years 

 to insure good luck. They are shaped something like a 

 tamarind seed, and have the appearance of milk quartz.— 

 Ed. F. & S. 



Biros of Dominica, and St. Vincent.— The collections in 

 ornithology made in these islands by our correspondent, Mr. 

 Fred A. Ober, have been submitted to Mr. Geo. N. Lawrence, 

 the eminent ornithologist of this city, and the new species 

 discovered have been described by that gentleman, mostly in 

 the Annals of the New York Academy of Science, and have 

 been duly noticed in the columns of Forest and Stbeam. 

 The complete result of Mr. Ober's explorations, however, 

 have only just been published, and we have to thank Mr. 

 Lawrence for two pamphlets— one, "A Catalogue of the 

 Birds of St. Vincent," and the other of the "Birds of Do- 

 minica." Both papers are replete with interesting matter, 

 containing not only the results of the study of the ornitholo- 

 gist, but also the notes of the collector made on the spot. 



Of the birds of St. Vincent, fifty-nine species of which are 

 mentioned in the catalogue, six new ones have recently been 

 described by the author of this paper, besides several new 

 varieties. The catalogue of the Dominica birds gives about 

 the same number of species found as at St. Vincent, but there 

 are several birds inhabiting each of these islands which do 

 not occur on the other. Perhaps the rarest bird in the whole 

 list is the Imperial Parrot (Olirysotis augmta), of which several 

 specimens were secured ; other parrots and several rare hum- 

 miug birds were noted and seemed. One striking feature of 

 these islands is the entire absence of birds of the woodpecker 

 family, although, as Mr. Ober remarks, all the conditions fa- 

 vorable to their existence would seem to obtain. Neither are 

 there any squirrels, although the woods produce thousands 

 of nut and seed producing trees. 



These papers will be read with eagerness by all ornitholo- 

 gists, and the notes which are furnished by the collector are 

 of great value. The territory explored is but little known, 

 and Mr. Ober's letters (soon to appear io these columns), nar- 

 rating his travels and labors, will prove of the greatest interest 

 to our readers. 



We understand that this indefatigable worker is not alto- 

 gether satisfied with the material that he has collected, and 

 that he proposes to visit these islands again for the purpose of 

 completing his collections. 



a Boston savant who recalls to mind some notable attempts to 

 grow kid gloves, described by Max Adeler, who furnished a 

 Boston paper with an outline of the scheme as follows : 



" We are engaged now in developing a scheme for growing 

 kid gloves upon the original animal. Our old friend Darwin 

 teaches us that you can do almost anything with breed by 

 judicious selection, and we are convinced that, with little care, 

 it will be possible to produce a beast whose skin, when 

 stripped off, will make a seamless kid glove. Our first ex- 

 periments are with lizards. A lizard has four legs find a tail. 

 Now we believe, that eventually the off fore-leg can be de- 

 veloped into a thumb, while the three other legs and a tail 

 can be arranged as fingers. We are crossing lizards with 

 short tails with those with long legs, and we are now looking 

 around for a variety of lizard with a button or two on his 

 neck, for the purpose of breeding it in with the others, whoso 

 eyes will answer for button-holes. The ultimato result 

 promises !o be startling. It will break up the old glove trade 

 and drive Jouvin to suicide. Thus it is that human ingenuity 

 advances human civilization." 



The foregoing ideas indicate a state of scientific progress 

 which is very gratifying. The frog scheme dwindles into in- 

 significance. 



' l v 



The Grasshopper Moving South,— A recent letter from 

 Panama informs us that the grasshopper plague has reached 

 Columbia, and that great distress has ensued from the damage 

 done. The locust, which has ruined the crops of so many 

 years in the West, has, we think, never been known to occur 

 so far south, 3nd if the animal referred to in the advices is 

 the true Oahptenus spretus, his presence in Columbia calls for 

 a word of explanation from entomologists. The locality visited 

 by this calamity is the fertile valley of Cauca, one of the 

 most populous portions of the district. The injury done by 

 the inBect is summed up as follows : All growing crops have 

 been completely ruined— sugar-cane, corn, wheat in the upper 

 portion of the valley, and all sorts of grasses— so that the cat- 

 tle cannot subsist, except in a half starving condition. The 

 prices of provisions are exorbitantly high, and as the Bugar 

 estates and large haciendas have suspended work, the poor are 

 unable to purchase the necessaries of life. The government, 

 with a view to furnishing them with means of support, is 

 pushing the construction of the Cauca Valley Railroad, which 

 will give employment to thousands. 



Science News.— While each month that goes by sees the 

 death of some newspaper or periodical, there are constantly 

 appearing courageous individuals who do not fear to enter the 

 journalistic field and to father weak yet hopeful offspring, 

 which, after a Bhort struggle, perish through inanition and 

 give place to others of their kind. A better fate than this, 

 and a long and prosperous existence is what we hope for the 

 Science News, a fortnightly journal of science, whose first num- 

 ber appeared November 1. It is edited— and, knowing the 

 gentlemen who have it in charge, we can say ably edited— by 

 Messrs. W. C. Wyckoff and Ernest Ingersoll, and is published 

 iu Salem, Mass., by Mr. S. E, Cassino, of the Naturalist's 



Ltnnkan Society.— The meeting of October 20 was char- 

 acterized by the election of four new members, and by the 

 reading of three very interesting papers by Mr. Merriam, Mr. 

 Pearsall and Mr. N. T. Lawrence. That of Mr. Merriam was 

 on habits of the yellow-bellied wood pecker, Sphyrapicus varius, 

 taken in Lewis County, N. Y. He said that in this locality 

 they far outnumbered all other species of their kind. They 

 gratify their taste for noise by drumming on tiu roofs, leaders 

 and like resonant substances, and appeared to take great de*- 

 light in it. Each has its own particular place, which is fre- 

 quented at all timeB of the day. They would go to these 

 places, and, after striking it in quick succession for a moment 

 or two, would stop and listen to the dying vibrations. The 

 females join in this amusement, but not so extensively as tho 

 males. By the middle of May all this is ended, and the duties 

 of incubation occupy their time. They denude trees of their 

 bark, which mischief has been attributed to the porcupine and 

 the larger woodpecker. They feed on the inner bark of trees, 

 cutting a circular hole and drinking the sap as it runs out ; but 

 they Qse these planes afterward as a trap for unwary insects, 

 which come to the punctured places to drink and gut caught 

 in the exudations, and afford a fine feast for them. This 

 drinking of the sap was corroborated by Messrs. Pearsall and 

 Huyler. Mr. Pearsall, in his paper entitled " Notes on Grand 

 Menan," spoke of the early nesting of birds there the present 

 season. June 3, Found most of them well advanced ; nests 

 and egg, however, were taken from the yellow-bellied fly- 

 catcher, E. nepCdonax flaainmtrh, black-throated, magnolia, 

 and black-capped warblers, Btndrm-a usruletcem, striata, and 

 maculosa. The peculiar accumulation of gum on the edge of 

 the hole inhabited by the red-bellied nut-hatch, Bilta nova- 

 boracensta, probably placed there by the feet, to which jt 

 sticks, when the bird is running up and down the pi 

 Puffins' eggs were taken on the Seal Islands, which is about 

 their most southern breeding limit. Mr. Herriek also stated 

 that he had found it there, but that it had been accidentally 

 left out of his list of the " Birds of Grand Menan." The ques- 

 tion of thesouthernmostbrcedinghabitat of Leach e's petrel, Cy- 

 mac/iorrea leucorrhoa, was discussed in this connection, and it 

 was strongly maintained that they would yet be found breed- 

 ing on Long Island. Their habits are so quiet, and as they 

 only approach their nests at night, they would only be ob- 

 served by a very close search. Ab an instance, Mr. Pearsall 

 said he took a nest from under the stone forming the lower 

 step to the lighthouse at the Seal Islands, N. B. Both 

 Leache's and Wilson's petrels are found all summer in Long 

 Island Sound. Mr. Lawrence spoke of a visit to the Schoodic 

 Lakes in Maine in June of this year, and also noted the early 

 nesting of birds, and of the apparent scarcity Of birds in the 

 heavy timber. The Indians, he said, were scandalously rob- 

 bintr the loons' nests wherever they could he found, and 

 rapidly driving them hack to the most unfrequented parts of 

 the State. Franklin Benner, Beci 



The peculiar features of Science ITem are to be the prompt 

 publication of scientific news and information on current 

 scientific literature ; there is also a correspondents' column, in 

 which, under the heading Notes and Queries, much valuable 

 information will no doubt be collected. 



This new venture in scientific literature has our best wishes. 



Kid Glove Culture.— What we wrote the other week 

 about certain efforts being made in Minnesota to raise a breed 

 of long-legged frogs for market, has attracted the attention of 



The "Rook" Bass of Bear Lake.— The Weekly Terri- 

 torial Enterprise, of Virginia City, Nevada, describes a fossil 

 fish which i6 on exhibition iu that city, it is of a rich um- 

 ber brown, and unless closely inspected, is liable t 

 taken for a painting or drawing. The fish is exactly one 

 foot in length by four and a half inches iu width in the widest 

 part, and in shape closely resembles the common perch. It 

 has one dorsal fin, which is spread to its full width. There 

 iB no second dorsal flu, nor is any ventral fin shown. The 

 anal fiu is spread and runs all the way back to the caudal fin 

 or tail, which is forked and beautifully spread. These fins 

 are as perfect as could be drawn by any artist. Every bone, 

 large and small, in and connected with the vertebra? is perfect 

 and beautifully delineated. The gills are also handsomely 

 shown, and the eye is quite lifelike, both the dark and the 

 white parts being" well preserved. The fossil appears to be 

 that of the whole and perfect fish so compressed that all ex- 

 cept the back-bone resembles a drawing. The back-bone in 

 the only part raised above the general surface ot the stone, 

 and it stands out to about what would be the natural size of 



