FOREST AND STREAM. 



341 



rmsed to place them in some of the Southern rivers m this 

 Province, but as none of the Council could go, or, perhaps, 

 knew the rivers so well as myself, I volunteered to see the 

 work done. Not an hour was to be lost when 1 took it in 

 hand I had some ice made at once, and setting Tremain, 

 nne of my workmen, to make the necessary appliances in 



uuu , J , .; t „„ „«? — :iu ~,,r n « nn innQ rartrn Tne 



his trap ready ; and next morning we started bright and 

 early for the mountain streams. Fortunately the weather 

 turned bitterly cold, and by dint of constant attention and 

 an abundant use of ice and cold water, I kept the ova in 

 the primest and healthiest condition. Besides my sport- 

 ing triend, Mr. R. Kirkwood, I had requested my manager 

 at Matamata, M*. Williams, and Mr. Chitty, of the Armed 

 Constabulary, to be ready to lend a hand. This latter 

 gentleman, besides being a true sportsman, is a most ex- 

 cellent officer, whom I hope to see shortly get the promo- 

 tion he well merits. Besides these, I had pressed into the 

 service O'Neill, an A.C., well up in salmon, Bob, one of 

 jny own Maoris, and Turner, a fine specimen of the half- 

 caste. My little party were a hearty lot, and went at it con 

 amove. We had two day's real hard work but very pleasant 

 nevertheless. Up in the morning early, with the help of 

 good horseflesh, cushions of elastic fern to prevent vibra- 

 tion, ice, water, and bundles of fern to keep out the heat, 

 we conveyed our ova over long distances and rough roads 

 as tenderly as though we were conveying delicate children. 

 Fortunately, the sun considerately kept well behind the 

 clouds, while the bright moonlight of the clear cold 

 nights served us admirably. During these two days and 

 nights, with two meals a day, and very little time for 

 eleep— though what we had was sound enough, as you 

 may fancy — we got through an amount of work which 

 pleased me greatly. Nothing could be finer than the esprit 

 of the whole party. I do not know when I enjoyed any- 

 thing more. The enemies we had to fear were wild ducks, 

 shags, and eels. The apparatus I had provided to defend 

 our little protegees t>ora their attacks was very simple, and 

 I hope may be effective. It consisted of twelve sets of 

 boxes and jg> vers— boxes three feet long and nine inches 

 broad, with a ledge running round each. The covers 

 were of two boards same length, nailed together; ridge- 

 board fashion, with each end closed by wire netting of 

 half-inch mesh. A keen sportsman like you will not think 

 me tedious if I describe how we made our plants. The 

 streams were high, and the water intensely cold. Taking 

 off our boots and coats, rolling up trousers and shirt- 

 sleeves, Kirkwood made a smooth bottom, and spread 

 some sand and pebbles in the box, while I prepared the 

 ova, which is like semi-transparent red peas. Scattering 

 the ova among the sand and pebbles in the box, I held it 

 on the bottom of the stream at about two feet deep, to pro- 

 vide against the stream falling and leaving our plant high 

 and dry, which, of course, would have ruined the whole 

 thing. Kirkwood had the cover ready, and placing it 

 firmly on the box, I held it down, while he piled over it 

 heavy boulders to keep it in position. Both now set to 

 work to make a little breakwater of boulders and shingle 

 up stream, to defend our little ark from the rapid current, 

 and, scattering a further supply of ova among the shingle 

 to give a double chance to the experiment, the operation 

 was complete. In one stream we had a great fright. We 

 had just got the ark into position, I holding it firmly 

 down, while Kirkwood was piling boulders over it, when 

 he suddenly called out, "Here's a big trout— a regular 

 monster." I could not let go, as the whole thing would 

 have been adrift. " Nonsense," said I ; " why, I only put 

 salmon trout into this stream a year ago, and they can't 

 have developed into monsters already." "Look for your- 

 self, then," he roared out, and sure enough there was a 

 monster, but, instead of a trout, a black, hideous eel, four 

 feet long, rubbing his slippery sides against Bob's naked 

 legs, and waiting, like a gobemouche, for our poor little ova. 

 ''Seize him, Bob" 1 shouted ; "grab him behind the fins." 

 This he did in a twinkling, but the ugly reptile glided out 

 of his hands, like a slippery eel as he was, and we saw him 

 no more,— giving me a proof of the value of the little ark3 

 I had provided tor the ova. I didn't feel easy about that 

 eel, however, until, at night, on relating the circumstance, 

 Chitty declared his days were numbered, for he would 

 have him next night. I hope he got him. Some of the 

 pomts we chose were charming. One took my fancy par- 

 ticularly. We had started before breakfast, "and, after a 

 drive and a tedious tramp on foot, we reached the stream. 

 We had completed our preparations, and in two minutes 

 more our plant would have been made, when a loud voice, 

 in broad Scotch, hailed me with, "Hey, mon, ye manna 

 pit the sawmon in there ; that place is foo' o' eels ; the 

 Maori chiels catch bushels o' 'eni." Looking up I said, 

 "My good man, what do you know about salmun ?" "Eh, 

 mon; 1 cam frae Blair Athol, an' I ken a' aboot sawmon ; 

 dinna pit 'em there. I can show ye a muckle better shot. 

 Come wi' me and I'll show it the noo." The old man was 

 so earnest that, though I was anxious to put them under 

 water without delay— for the sun on this last morning was 

 coming out hot, and our ice had just run out— that I at 

 once put up my ova and told the old man to lead the way 

 to a better place. Slowly we toiled up the hill, carrying 

 our traps as best we could, and, mounting our trap, our 

 conductor taking a short-cut. When the trap could go no 

 farther we alighted, and trudged after him in the broiling 

 sun. At length I began to feel hungry and angry, for i 

 feared the ova would hatch before 1 could get them under 

 water. "Bide a' wee, bide a' wee, mon, yonner it is." 

 There was nothing for it but to keep moving. At last he 

 led us down to the stream — and a very charming spot it 

 was. "Ah, now," said I, "I shall forgive you," for I felt 

 the old man knew the ground better than I. We quickly 

 and joyfully made our plant, and, sitting down on a huge 

 moss grown rock in mid-stream, round which the clear 

 cold water rippled and dashed with sweet and cheery 

 music, 1 could not help saying to my companion, "V^iTat 

 rare sport some of those who come after us will have in 

 this glorious spot, if our little friends do their duty and 

 grow into big fishes." I am no sportsman, but had i been 

 an artist I would have sketched the scene with myself and 

 Bob sitting on the grey old stone with our legs dangling m 

 the clear cold water as it rippled by. Gathering up our 

 traps we turned joyfully homewards, for we noticed that 

 the ova were already hatching, coming out of their shell as 

 we put them in the water. The King Maoris, and, indeed, 

 everybody, were delighted with oux work — the former 

 greeting us with "Kapai te hamona ; ail same as the tin" — 

 meaning, that salmon was very good, being like salmor 

 preserved in tins, which they appreciate highly. I ought 



to 3ay that at every stream where I made a plant, I posted 

 up a notice in Maori and English requesting everyone not 

 to disturb the ova, so that in a few years there might be 

 abundance of food for both Maori and European. And 

 now our work was done. • We had been enabled to place 

 this salmon ova in ten streams falling into the rivers 

 Thames, Piako. Waikato, and Waipa, iu the hope that, by 

 God's blessing, this "king of fishes " may, in coming time, 

 increase and multiply, so that abundance of food may be 

 provided for poor as well as rich, for — 

 All things living He doth feed, 

 His fall hand supplies their need. 

 Pardon this long, but I hope not tiresome story, and be- 

 lieve me— Yours truly, 4I J. C. Firth. 

 "Auckland, N. Z., Nov. 16, 1875." 



Carp for our Waters. — We mentioned in our last issue 

 the fact that the steamer Leipzig was due at Baltimore hav- 

 ing on board a consignment of carp for the fishery estab- 

 lishment at Dmid Hill Park, Baltimore. The steamer has 

 since arrived, and we find in the Baltimore Sun the follow- 

 ing account of the fish:— 



Mr. Rudolph Hessel, an eminent pisiculturist, brought to 

 Baltimore yesterday, by the steamship Leipzig, 44 live carp, 

 out of 200 with which he started from Europe, 156 dying 

 on the voyage. These fish were brought to this country at 

 the instance of Major Thomas B. Ferguson, Maryland fish 

 commissioner, and were ordered by Spencer F. Baird IT. 8. 

 fish commissioner. The importation includes several vari- 

 eties of the carp family, and came from ponds bordering on 

 the Danube, in Hungary. On shipboard they were kept in 

 large tanks, and were frequently supplied with fresh water. 

 The rough weather the steamer encountered and the water, 

 it is thought, were fatal to so many of the fish. Major Fer- 

 guson had the 44 survivors, some of which are of full size, 

 taken at once to the carp ponds prepared near Crow's Nest, 

 Druid Hill Park. The fish resemble the mullet in appear- 

 ance, and are prized as a food fish, taking rank with black 

 bass, trout, etc. They are vegetable feeders. The United 

 States fish commissioner has recognized the fishery at Druid 

 Hill Park as especially adapted for hatching carp. Should 

 they thrive, it is thought they will breed next spring. Two 

 importations of carp, of an inferior kind, were made in 1875, 

 twenty-two of which died on the voyage from hot weather 

 All but eight subsequently died, and from these several 

 thousand have been hatched, and will be distributed to the 

 ponds throughout the State next year. They attain a weight 

 of twelve or fifteen pounds when full grown, and are of a 

 rich gold color. The ctrp is considered valuable for stock- 

 ing ponds, because of its rapid growth and increase in num- 

 bers. Much interest is manifested in the success of their 

 propagation. 



[Our Washington correspondent referred to this matter 

 in his letter last week. — Ek.] 



■♦*♦- 



Shad in Lake Champlain — A correspondent, whose 

 letter has been mislaid, sometime since asked us the ques- 

 tion whether shad had ever been placed in Lake Cham- 

 plain. Mr. Seth Green informs us that shad had been 

 placed in that Lake, but. gives us no dates. 



— Thirty thousand young salmon trout from Lake Michi- 

 gan were placed in the Alabama river at Montgomery a lew 

 days ago. The fish were about an inch long, and a few 

 weeks old and quite lively. 



frtntzl j§istarg. 



ADDRESS OF A. R. WALLACE BEFORE 

 THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 



RISE AND PROGRESS OF MODERN VIEWS AS TO THE ANTIQUITY 

 AND ORIGIN OF MAN. 



Continued. 



THE next example is that of the ancient mounds and 

 earthworks of the North American continent, the 

 bearing of which is even more significant. Over the 

 greater part of the extensive Mississippi Valley four well 

 marked classes of these earthworks occur. Some are 

 camps or works of defense, situated on bluffs, promonto- 

 ries, or isolated hills; others are vast inclosures in the 

 plains and lowlands, often of geometric forms, and having 

 attached to them roadways or avenues often miles in 

 length; a third are mounds corresponding to our tumuli, 

 often seventy to ninety feet high, and some of these cover- 

 ing acres of ground; while a fourth group consist of repre- 

 sentations of various animals modelled in relief on a gi- 

 gantic scale, and occurring chiefly in an area somewhat to 

 the northwest of the other classes, in the plains of Wis- 

 consin. 



The first class — the camps or fortified inclosures — re- 

 semble in general features the ancieut camps of our own 

 land, but far surpass them in extent. Fort Hill, in Ohio, is 

 surrounded by a wall and a ditch a mile and a half in 

 length, part of the way cut through solid rock. Artificial 

 reservoirs for water were made within it, while at one ex- 

 tremity on a more elevated point a keep is constructed 

 with its separate defenses and water-reservoirs. Another, 

 called Clark's Work; in the Scioto Valley, which seems to 

 have been a fortification, incloses an area of 127 acres, the 

 embankments measuring three miles in length, and con- 

 taining not less than three million cubic feet of earth. This 

 area incloses numerous sacrificial mounds and symmetrical 

 earthworks, in which many interesting relics and works of 

 art have been found. 



The second class — the sacred inclosures — may be com- 

 pared for extent and arrangement with Avebury or Car- 

 nak, but are in some respects even more remarkable. One 

 of these at Newark, Ohio, covers an area of several miles 

 with its connected groups or circles, octagons, squares, 

 ellipses, and avenues, on a grand scale, and formed by em- 

 bankments from twenty to thirty feet in *ight ? Other 



similar works occur in different parts of Ohio, and by ac- 

 curate survey it is found not only that the circles are true, 

 though some of them are one-third of a mile in diameter, 

 but that other figures are truly square, each side being 

 over 1,000 feet long; and what is still more important, the 

 dimensions of some of these geometrical figures rn differ- 

 ent parts of the country and seventy miles apart are 

 identical. Now this proves the use, by the builders of 

 these works, of some standard measures of length, while 

 the accuracy of the squares, circles, and in a less degree of 

 the octagonal figures, shows a considerable knowledge of 

 rudimentary geometry, and some means of measuring an- 

 gles. The difficulty of drawing such figures on a large 

 scale is much greater than anyone would imagine who had 

 not tried it, and the accuracy of these is far beyond what 

 is necessary to satisfy the eye. We must therefore impute 

 to these people the wish to make these figures as accurate as 

 possible, and this wish is a greater proof of habitual skill 

 and intellectual advancement than even the ability to draw 

 such figures. If, then, we take into account this ability 

 and this love of geometrical truth, and further consider 

 the dense population and civil organization, implied by the 

 construction of such extensive systematic works, we must 

 allow that these people had reached the earlier stages of a 

 civilization of which no traces existed among the savage 

 tribes who alone occupied the country when first visited by 

 Europeans. 



The animal mounds are of comparatively less importance 

 for our present purpose, as they imply a somewhat lower 

 grade of advancement; but the sepulchral and sacrificial 

 mounds exist in vast numbers, and their partial explora- 

 tion has yielded a quantity of articles and works of ait 

 which throw some further light on the peculiarities of 

 this mysterious people. Most of these mounds contain a 

 large concave hearth or basis of burnt clay, of perfectly 

 symmetrical form, on which are found deposited more or 

 less abundant relics, all bearing traces of the action of fire. 

 We are, therefore, only acquainted with such articles as 

 are practically fireproof. These consist of bone and cop- 

 per implements and ornaments, discs and tubes— pearl, shell, 

 and silver beads, more or less injured by the fire— orna- 

 ments cut in mica, ornamented pottery, and numbers of 

 elaborate carvings in stoife, mostly forming pipes for smok- 

 ing. The metallic articles are all formed by hammering, 

 but the execution is very good; plates of mica are found 

 cut into scrolls and circles; the pottery, of which very few 

 remains have been found, is far superior to that of any of 

 the Indian tribes, since Dr. Wilson is of opiuion that they 

 must have been formed on a wheel, as they are often of 

 uniform thickness throughout (sometimes not more than 

 one-sixth of an inch) polished and ornamented with scrolls 

 and figures of birds and flowers in delicate relief. But the 

 most instructive objects are the sculptured stone pipe, rep- 

 resenting not only various easily recognizable animals, but 

 also human heads, so well executed that, they appear to be 

 portraits. Among the animals not only are such native 

 forms as the panther, bear, otter, wolf, beaver, raccoon, 

 heron, crow, turtle, frog, rattlesnake, and many others, 

 well represented, but also the manatee, which perhaps then 

 ascended the Mississippi as it now does the Amazon, and 

 the toucan, which hardly would have been obtained nearer 

 than Mexico. The sculptured heads are especially re- 

 markable, because they present to us the features of an in- 

 tellectual and civilized people. The nose in some is per- 

 fectly straight, and neither prominent nor dilated; the 

 mouth is small and the lips thin; the chin and upper lip 

 are short, contrasting with the ponderous jaw of the mod- 

 ern Indian, while the cheek bones present no marked 

 prominence. Other examples have the nose somewhat 

 projecting at the apex, in a manner quite unlike the fea- 

 tures of any American indigenes, and although there are 

 some which show a much coarser face, it is very difficult to 

 see in any of them that close resemblance to the Indian 

 type which these sculptures are said to exhibit. The few 

 authentic crania from the mounds present corresponding 

 features, being far more symmetrical and better developed 

 in the frontal region than those of any American tribes, 

 although somewhat resembling them in the occipital out- 

 line; while one was described by its discoverer (Mr. W. 

 Marshall Anderson) as "a beautiful skull, worthy of a 

 Greek." 



The antiquity of this remarkable race may perhaps not 

 be very Jgreat as compared with the pre-historic man of 

 Europe, although the opinions of some writers on the sub- 

 ject seem affected by that "parsimony of time" on which 

 the late Sir Charles Lyell so often dilated. The mounds 

 are all overgrown with dense forest, and one of the large 

 trees was estimated to be eight hundred years old, while 

 other observers consider the forest growth to indicate an 

 age of at least one thousand years. But it is well known 

 that it requires several generations of trees to pass away 

 before the growth on a deserted clearing comes to corres- 

 pond with that of the surrounding virgin forest, while this 

 forest, once established, may go on growing for an un- 

 known number of thousands of years. The 800 or 1,000 

 years estimated from the growth of existing vegetation is 

 a minimum which has no bearing whatever on the actual 

 age of these mounds, and we might almost as well attempt 

 to determine the time of the glacial epoch from the age of 

 the pines or oaks which now grow on the moraines. 



The important thing for us, however, is, that when North 

 America was first settled by Europeans, the Indian tribes 

 inhabiting it had no knowledge or tradition of any pre- 

 ceding race of higher civilization than themselves. Yet 

 we find that such a race existed; that they must have been 

 populous, and have lived under some established govern- 

 ment; while tjiere are signs that they practiced agriculture 



