1880.] Scientific News. 549 
the French, to South America, and was afterward French Consul 
in divers parts of the southern hemisphere. While at the Cape of 
Good Hope he wrote a “Memoire sur les Poissons de l'Afrique 
Australe.” When he returned to Europe and began to put his 
voluminous scientific notes in order, he made the disheartening 
discovery that while he had been temporarily disabled, his servant 
ad been for more than a month in the habit of using the sheets 
of paper on which he had bestowed so much time and labor to 
light the fires. He disposed of the remainder of his notes and 
drawings to Prof. Lacordaire, and about 1862 arrived in Mel- 
bourne, where he has since resided. Count Castelnau was an ac- 
tive member of the Zodlogical and Acclimatization Society of 
Victoria. He contributed several valuable papers on the fishes of 
His large work in six volumes on his exploration of South 
America, is one of the most valuable authorities upon the interior 
of Brazil, Bolivia and Peru. 
— Mr. Seth Green says in a letter to the Zribune: “TI am in- 
formed by Mr. McPherson, a fish dealer at Sackett’s Harbor, that 
over five hundred shad, weighing from two and one-half to four 
pounds each, were taken in white fish nets set in deep water, off 
Sackett’s Harbor, in Lake Ontario, during last summer. Their 
stomachs were full of the common food of the lake, showing that 
they feed in the lake, and the chances are that they never have 
been to salt water, and that we have added a new fish to the 
waters of the lake. I have opened thousands of shad taken in the 
udson, Connecticut and Potomac rivers, and hardly ever find 
anything in their stomachs. I think they have become land- 
locked, and will make Lake Ontario their home.” 
—A Baltimore Naturalists’ Field Club has been recently 
organized, with its headquarters at the University. Prof. Martin 
1S its president. The object of the club is to study the fauna, 
flora and geology of the neighborhood of Baltimore, to make 
collections illustrative of the above objects, and to accumulate 
ata for an accurate map of the region, which shall be of use to 
all students of its natural history. Sections have been organized 
in botany, vertebrate land animals, invertebrate land animals, 
aquatic animals, geology and physical geography. It is proposed 
to make weekly excursions on Saturdays, and to hold monthly 
Meetings at the university, 
— Dr, Theodore Gill has now charge of the fish department of 
the Chicago Field, and Mr, W. H. Ballou of the natural history 
department, In a late number Dr, Gill published an important 
article on the nomenclature of the fishes mentioned in popular 
American books on fishing. 
