22 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



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1 [The Production of Hybrid Fish. — We observe that 

 experimental attempts are now being made by some pisci- 

 culturists to produce a hybrid, or more properly, a cross 

 between the salmon and brook trout. It is quite probable 

 that such a mixture may form a desirable addition to our 

 already varied stock of native fishes, partaking perhaps of 

 the fine edible qualities of both the migratory and the lacus- 

 trine species. Mr. Wilmot, the celebrated Canadian fish- 

 culturist, produced at his works at New Castle, Ontario, as 

 long ago as 1868, a most successful result by impregnating 

 the eggs of a female salmon-trout with the milt of a male 

 grilse. (The grilse, although not a fully matured salmon, 

 possesses the powers of fecundation.) The cross thus ob- 

 tained is of the most promising kind. They may not pro- 

 pagate, but if they can be artificially bred in sufficient num 

 bers, the improvement is a material one, and the addition 

 to our supply of fish food quite important. "We have the 

 testimony of Prof. Yon Seibold and Dr. Gunther for the 

 superiority as table food of barren fishes of the salmon fam- 

 ily. Their flavor is excellent, and their flesh more easily 

 cured than that of the true Salmonidse. 



That fish do interbreed in a natural state and without arti- 

 ficial inducement, is abundantly proved by the fact that a 

 friend of the writer, (a thorough and venerable angler,) took 

 a trout four years ago at the outlet of the Piseco lake, Adi- 

 rondacks, which was marked in every respect like an ordi- 

 nary brook trout, but had the distinctive forked tail of the 

 ' ' laker, " or indigenous salmon trout. It was six inches long. 

 Now the lakers are never found at the outlet, and are seldom 

 taken weighing much less than a pound, certainly not of the 

 diminutive size of six inehes long; while the brook trout arc 

 found in the lakes. This could not have been a young 

 laker, for it had the spots, marks and fins of the brook trout. 

 It seems to be an authentic case of hybridity. 



The Trepang, or Beche de Mer, a favorite food of the 

 Chinese is found in quantity in the islands of New Cale- 

 donia. The fishing for this curious creature is in the hands 

 of a few individuals. The trepang varies in length between 

 a few inches and a yard; is like a fat, ugly worm, two or 

 three inches thick, with hardly any interior arrangements. 

 Its capture is an easy matter in Bualabio, in fine weather, 

 and the best quality is sold in Noumea, on the mainland, for 

 £80 per ton. But in China the price is more than double, 

 for in the China seas the trepang fishing is a matter of skill, 

 patience, and courage. In the months of October and No- 

 vember, the Malays equip thousands of junks for the gather- 

 ing of these hideous zoophytes on the treacherous coasts, 

 where they have to dive or to drag at great depths in order 

 to get at their prey. 



It is at Ouen, in the Australasian group of islands, that 

 the huge shells called by the French benities (baptismal fonts) 

 are found, specimens of which may be often seen in gardens 

 in the United States. It is difficult to procure a perfect 

 specimen, because the larger valve is always deeply imbedded 

 in the corals, with which in the long run it becomes incor- 

 porated. The inhabitant of this huge shell usually keeps the 

 upper valve open, feeding on everything that the waters bear 

 to him; but occasionally, either at the approach of danger, 

 or that he may seize his prey, he clashes the two valves so 

 violently one against the other that the noise may be heard 

 from afar, and is like that of a heavy stone flung upon a hard 

 rock. It is not pleasant to contemplate the result of putting 

 one's foot by accident into the toothed apertures which lie 

 hidden so harmlessly among the corals. 



4 



Prof. Agassiz's establishment at Penikese Island may be 

 considered a " primary school" compared with the Baird's 

 University at Peak's Island, in Portland harbor, Maine, for 

 to the latter place are flocking the most eminent professors 

 of natural history in the country, and the scientific opera- 

 tions are of the most elaborate character. The United 

 States government has placed a revenue cutter and a tug at 

 Prof. Baird's disposal, and you can imagine what good use 

 he will make of them. A large house has been fitted up on 

 the island for a laboratory, with every convenience for pre- 

 serving, assorting and describing the specimens collected. 

 Photographs are taken, drawings made and colored from 

 the living objects. 



* 



The director of Central Park menagerie reports as fol- 

 lows the number of animals on April 1st, of the last three 

 years. 



1871. 1872. 1873. 



Quadrupeds 89 102 199 



Birds 143 208 347 



Eeptiles 14 11 35 



_ Births during the last year: 2 lions, 1 leopard, 2 pumas, 

 1 camel aud 1 hyena, the last-named animal being ( as is 

 supposed) the first of the species born in the United 



States. 



♦— 



The Htjemul. — The Earl of Derby received a specimen 

 of this animal from Port Famine, in the Straits of Magel- 

 lan, described and figured in the Proc. Zool. Soc. 1849, p. 

 64, t. xii., as cervus leucotis, and now in the Derby Museum 

 at Liverpool. Mr. Bates has sent to the British Museum 

 a male and female of the Huemul, which were obtained by 

 Don Enrique Simpson in a valley of the Cordilleras, lat. 

 46.S. These have been described, the horns of the male 

 figured, and the history of the animal given in detail under 

 the name of Huamela leucotis. 



The animal, like all the American deer, differs from 

 the stags of the Old World in having no tarsal gland. 



♦ 



Bualabio, one of the most beautiful of the islands of New 

 Caledonia, is entirely forsaken by the natives on account of 

 the mosquitoes. 



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MR. Henry Tagg, of "Ingham Springs," sends us a des- 

 cription of his trout and salmon farm near New Hope, 

 Bucks county, Pennsylvania. It was commenced in the sum- 

 mer of 1870, and affords another illustration of the fact that 

 the propagation of fish is an established industry, and if 

 carried on with reasonable intelligence and care, will pay 

 largely on the investment. He writes : 



"The spring, which is one of the largest in the State, and 

 admirably situated for the purpose of fish culture, having 

 no other waters or streams near it to affect its purity, or 

 cause its inundation, flows from under a large walnut 

 tree, through a depression or ravine in the land made by the 

 wash of the water, at the rate of eighty barrels per minute, 

 with a temperature winter or summer, of fifty degrees. To 

 contract the flow of water a dam nine feet high has been 

 thrown across the ravine, giving a good fall to the hatching 

 house and ponds to which it is conducted by terra cotta 

 pipes six and twelve inches in diameter. 



The hatching house is built of stone fifty-five feet long, 

 thirty-five wide and seventeen to gable-peak. Into this 

 house is conducted six inches of water emptying into a filter- 

 ing box, and thence along a trough the entire length of the 

 building; this trough being tapped at intervals, supplies 

 other troughs nine feet long, twenty-eight inches wide 

 divided in the center along their length, making a pair each 

 thirteen and a half inches in the clear, in which the spawn 

 is placed. These troughs empty into others set below them 

 of same length, thirty-three inches wide, called nurseries, 

 into which the fry are placed after hatching to remain until 

 suficiently strong to be placed in the primary ponds thirty- 

 four feet long, four feet wide immediately outside of the 

 house and through which the water from the nurseries passes. 

 The fish are kept in these ponds until late fall, growing in 

 size under careful feeding from three to five inches in length. 

 They are then placed in ponds sixty by ten feet, and three 

 feet deep, to remain until the ensuing fall, again to be 

 changed into ponds one hundred by fifteen feet in size, 

 and five feet deep. These ponds have attached to them 

 spawning races forty feet long by four feet wide, 

 supplied with water direct from the spring, which passes 

 over gravel placed on course wire screens. The fish 

 under the influence of the propagating instinct swim up these 

 races and deposit their eggs on the gravel, which, falling 

 through the wire screens, lodge on other finer screens placed 

 directly under, thus enabling the spawn to be collected with- 

 out handling or disturbing the fish. The eggs are then car- 

 ried to the hatching house and placed in the first mentioned 

 troughs to hatch. This process is accomplished in about 

 fifty days. The water is well filtered before passing over 

 the eggs, so that any fibre or dirt may not come in contact 

 with them. A steady pure stream is made to pass over 

 them until hatched. 



The fish when hatched have attached to them a sack 

 which it brings into the world out of its parent egg. This 

 sack supports them for some forty days, when they are fed 

 on blood until sufficiently strong to eat finely chopped meat, 

 which is increased in coarseness as they grow older and 

 larger. The per centage of eggs hatched under ordinary 

 care is over ninety, and of those that arrive at maturity is 

 not less than seventy-five, while in the wild state the per- 

 centage is five and two. 



A distinctive feature of this farm is the raising of salmon. 

 It has been beld by pisciculturists that migratory fish would 

 not live without being able to return to salt water. The 

 experiment was started, in April, 1871, when 4000 eggs were 

 purchased of S. Wilmot, Newcastle, Canada. The result 

 of the hatching was ninety-two per centage, and the fish 

 are now eight and twelve inches in length, and remarkably 

 healthly. The Messrs. Thompson & Tagg are so sanguine 

 of success in acclimating the salmon to fresh water, that they 

 are building a breast for a lake to cover some twelve acres 

 with water, and having in some portions a depth of twenty- 

 two feet, which they intend stocking with salmon and trout. 

 They will this fall experiment in making a hybrid of the 

 salmon and trout, which if they succeed will give a new 

 variety of food fish well adapted to stocking fresh waters. 

 The stock of fish now in the various ponds embraces all the 

 various sizes from three inches in length, to twenty inches, 

 and number many thousands. The different sizes are kept 

 separated as much as possible, as the large devour the 

 small. They are regularly fed on offal meat procured from 

 the large meat-packers, the cost of which is the handling 

 and freight. The fish can be disposed of in any amount in 

 New York markets at seventy-five cents to one dollar per 

 pound. The supply has never yet been equal to the demand. 

 The ova of the salmon and trout, after fecundation, and 

 when the embryo has become sufficiently developed to stand 

 handling, can be carried (packed in damp moss) by express 

 long distances with reasonable expectation of success in 

 hatching. 



— Mr. Buckland seems to cast some doubts as to the old 

 story of the surfeit of salmon on the part of apprentices 

 and servants in former times. He seems to think that their 

 nicety of stomach arose from the fact that the servants were 

 fed on fish which were either dead or dying, then salted 

 and dried, and that they rebelled against this diet. 

 ♦ 



— At lake Lucerne, good trout can be caught, but according 

 to the account of a recent English fisherman, the large fish 

 were only to be had when fished for at night. 

 ♦ 



— The sturgeon of the Caspian Sea, attains the enormous 

 weigh* of 2500 pounds, the roe weighing alone 800 pounds. 



%e Mmnel 



THERE seems to have arisen quite a scare in the neifih 

 berhood of Newtown, Long Island, from what is statedi 

 be the attacks of wild dogs. Some years ago a number of 

 Siberian bloodhounds were brought into the country h n 

 German family, and those animals not having been car 1 

 for, took to the woods, and are said to have lapsed into tl 

 ferocity of wild animals. In the vicinity of Jamaica thev 

 have attacked many persons. A hunting party is to be or 

 ganized who will make an attempt to exterminate the pad- 



4 



Grace Greenwood can talk "dog," and do it charmino-ly 

 She is in Kansas, at Fort Hays, and though she writes some 

 little about the officers, devotes no end of attention to the 

 many dogs. See how nicely she describes "Hod," a hunting 

 dog: " Pie is the gentle playmate, the humble slave of the 

 beloved children of the household, but in society rather 

 blunt and blundering, lacking in delicate tact. It is best not 

 to be too familiar with him as his friendship is a little over- 

 powering. He imagines that you cannot have too much 

 spotted pointer. He leaps up on you and crushes your frills 

 and licks right and left, and collides with you in door-ways 

 and backs up against you, and sits down on you, and thrashes 

 you with his tail." Now a lady who can stand this kind of 

 rough fondling and not abuse the dog, is not only the para- 

 gon of her sex, but a canopholist to boot, which isvabout the, 

 highest praise we can give her. 

 » 



The Ettrick Shepherd pleasantly tells us the of dogs that 

 used to accompany their masters to church, in the pastoral 

 district in which he lived — how they lay quiet and patient 

 during the whole service, till the last psalm was sung, and 

 the minister and congregation stood np for the blessing 

 when their delight at the prospect of immediate emanci- 

 pation could no longer be restrained, but expressed itself by 

 joyous barking. Often have we witnessed such a scene, 

 although we never heard a minister advise the people, as 

 Hogg relates, to ' sit still and cheat the dogs. ' Nor do ye 

 think they could be easily deceived in such a matter. In 

 the pastoral districts of Scotland, the number of dogs 

 present during divine service, always very much attracts 

 the notice of strangers. Many shepherds come to church 

 attended by more than one. It is often almost unavoidable 

 for them to do so, because at certain seasons of the year 

 they must go to the hill and visit their flocks in the morn- 

 ing ; and, if possible, they arrange so as to make part of 

 this inspection on the way to church, leaving to the last that 

 part of the morning's work which may be thus accomplished, 

 It is not always, however, on account of that the dogs arc 

 brought. The shepherd likes to be always accompanied 

 by his dog, and the dog likes to be with his master. By 

 frequently attending his master to church, he acquires a 

 habit not easily to be relinquished. He seems to regard 

 going to church as a privilege. 



4 



Mad Dog Bites.— The recent cases of hydrophobia in 

 this city, says the Baltimore American, have excited discus- 

 sion concerning the nature and origin of this mysterious 

 disease which may contribute something of substantial 

 value to medical science. We find that a~ large number of 

 intelligent writers are of the opinion that cases of true hy- 

 drophobia are exceedingly rare, and those distressing symp- 

 toms which affect patients who have been bitten by dogs 

 supposed to be rabid are due in a large measure to the influ- 

 ence of the imagination upon the nervous system. There 

 was a death in this city some time since which would seem 

 to confirm this latter hypothesis. A robust man of middle 

 age was bitten hj a dog, which may or may not have been 

 rabid. He professed at first to have no fears, but secretly 

 he brooded over the bite and read everything concerning 

 hydrophobia that he could find in medical books and ency- 

 clopedias. To drown his apprehensions, he drank intoxi- 

 cating liquors to excess. Seven weeks after being bitten he 

 was taken ill. He died on the seventh day after the con- 

 vulsions appeared- The child that was bitten by the same dog 

 the same time did not go mad, and has continued in perfect 

 health to this day. 



There was another case of hydrophobia, however, in 

 South Baltimore some two or three years ago, in which the 

 imagination could have had no possible influence. A little 

 boy about seven years of age was bitten. The little boy 

 paid no attention to the bite, it soon healed up, and the cir- 

 cumstance was forgotten both by him and his mother. 

 Eight months thereafter he was taken with a spasm; a phy- 

 sician was summoned, who found that the cicatrix of tlie 

 old bite was inflamed, and that a mark extended from the 

 wound to the elbow. The child died in five days; all the 

 symptoms of hydrophobia were present, and a number of 

 physicians who saw the case were satisfied no other known 

 clisase could have produced them. 



This case seems to establish the theory that the poison, 

 when communicated by the tooth of a rabid dog, is held, as 

 it were, in a little vescicle or sac which forms about the 

 wound, and that it is not absorbed until this receptacle is 

 destroyed by the assimilating processes of nature. If taken 

 up by the blood immediately, hydrophobia would result 

 immediately. The fact that the wound becomes sore just 

 before madness comes on shows that some disintegrating 

 process in the cellular structure must be taking place. Great 

 faith should be put in the cutting out and cauterizing of 

 the wound, for there can be no doubt but that the poison 

 remains there a long time before it is absorbed. 



—There are three kinds of hawks used in Persia. The kind 

 called the cherkh, a strong and handsome bird, is used to 

 chase the antelope. The dogs and bird are slipped simulta- 

 neously, and hunt in unison. The hawk attacks the anti- 

 lope, striking at his head and eyes, so crippling it that it 

 falls an easy victim to the hounds, which could not other- 

 wise approach it. Does are principally picked out for sport, 

 as the birds may be hurt by the antlers of the buck ante- 

 lope. 



♦ • 



— Dogs are used in France to retrieve the lost balls at the 

 Jeu de 7?iail the old game of pall-mall. As they are wooden 

 balls the dogs cannot hurt them. 



