254 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
cries over their feeding grounds, usually in shallow, rocky places, 
the sailors were warned during fog, of their approach to such 
localities, and thus enabled to act accordingly. Of the reason- 
ableness of the first mentioned plea we have ample evidence in our 
own country, since, on more than one occasion, the crops in Utah 
have been saved, by means of the immense flocks of gulls, which 
came to the rescue from their different abodes on the Great Salt 
Lake, and other bodies of water of the central basin. The result 
of the enactment is just beginning to make itself manifest in a 
greatly increased abundance of sea-fowl on the English coast, 
where they are said to be many times more numerous than hereto- 
fore, and to be much more tame, coming close to the fishermen 
while cleaning their fish, almost as familiarly as domestic fowl; 
swimming freely among the boats within reach of the hands and 
enjoying a gratifying immunity from disturbance. It is even as- 
serted by some, that before the passage of the act, they were 
much tamer on Sunday, seeming to be aware that by the customs 
of society, and the restriction in regard to the use of guns, they 
were safer on that day than any other. 
IDENTITY OF THE AMERICAN AND European Bison. — Professor 
Brandt of St. Petersburg, in a recent paper, renews the expres- 
sion of his opinion in regard to the identity of the American and 
European Bison, both of them in his view being the lineal descend- 
ants of the fossil Bison of a noW extinct form. The only appreci- 
able differences between the American and European races, 
according to Professor Brandt, are in the much larger mane and 
‘the more developed beard of the American animal, a characteristic, 
which, in view of similar differences in the manes of lions in differ- 
ent regions, not otherwise distinguishable, he considers of little 
importance. It may be proper, however, to say that a careful 
comparison of the crania of the two forms, exhibits differences of 
a much more tangible character; the relationships of the nasal 
bones not agreeing at all, and the muzzle of the American animal 
being much broader than that of its European Congener. Ac- 
cording to Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins also, while the tail of the 
American Bison has the hairs close pressed, with a bushy tuft at 
the end only, that of the European animal is full and rather bushy 
from the root, being much the same difference as that existing be- 
tween the tails of the American Mule or Black-tailed Deer (Cer- 
vus macrotis), and our common eastern Virginia Deer. — ,* x 
