NATURAL HISTORY. 



219 



least 20 feet long, of a grayish color, his 

 body shaped like an eel, with the same 

 vertical oval tail with rounded end. His 

 body was about 10 inches in diameter, but 

 he differed from an eel in respect to his 

 head, which was flattened across the fore- 

 head, with eyes bulging like a frog's. On 

 each side of his body, back from his head 

 about 2 feet or less, were 2 feelers about 10 

 inches long. About 6 or 7 feet behind 

 them, on his back, was a long fin like a dor- 

 sal fin on a shark. Taken altogether he 

 was a puzzle and I should like to know 

 what he was. He moved with a great show 

 of power, especially when turning around. 

 I have sailed a yacht in the same water 

 more or less every summer since and have 

 never seen or heard of him. I presume he 

 broke out of the weir, as it would not hold 

 him a minute after he got desperate. 



Geo. F. Hogan. 



On receipt of the foregoing letter I wrote 

 Mr. Hogan as follows : 



Your letter is extremely interesting. It 

 is a great loss to science that some of you 

 who saw the remarkable fish you describe 

 did not kill it, and thus enable some scien- 

 tist to study it. It would have been well 

 if you had let the timid man go away while 

 the rest of you staid to see the fish. If you 

 can send me any further particulars re- 

 garding it, I wish you would kindly do so. 



It is impossible to say what the specimen 

 may have been. I should be inclined to 

 think that in the great excitement of the 

 moment his size was to your eyes exagger- 

 ated, and that he is a monster eel with some 

 deformity or abnormal development. 



I also wrote the men named in Mr. 

 Hogan's letter, asking them to send me a 

 description of the monster as they saw him 

 Dr. Warren replied as follows : 



The big fish was in the weir, slashing 

 from one end of it to the other. He 

 seemed to be caueht there.. He probably 

 went in after fish to eat and was trying to 

 get out when we saw him. We did not 

 dare go too near, as I had my niece with 

 me. The fish's body resembled that of a 

 large eel and the motion was the same. 

 He seemed to have one or 2 fins on top 

 of his back, as well as I could see, and I 

 should say he was 40 to 60 feet long. 

 When he was going through the water from 

 one end of the weir to the other he was 

 enough to scare anybody. The water was 

 all foam where he lashed it. 



Dr. Warren, Lynn, Mass. 



NO DANGER OF BELGIAN PEST. 



In January Recreation, page 42, there 



appears a communication from one R. L. 



Montague, of Oroville, California, stating 



that Belgian hares are running wild in 



Butte county and "have increased enor- 

 mously of late years." 



That statement looks much like the 

 old newspaper ciaims that Belgian hares 

 will ruin the farmers and fruit grow- 

 ers of the United States. Though disproved 

 time and time again, these articles still ap- 

 pear. 



Belgian hares will never exist in a wild 

 state in this country, for 2 reasons. First, 

 they are a domestic animal and must de- 

 pend, like other domestic animals, on the 

 protection of man. It would be fully as 

 reasonable to fear that our peaceable domes- 

 tic hen might escape from confinement, in- 

 crease at an enormous rate, and ruin the 

 poor farmers' crops ! The Belgian hare, as 

 now reared by Belgian hare breeders in this 

 country, does not exist in a wild state in 

 any country, being solely a made breed, the 

 result of crossing several distinct species, 

 and upbreeding from them by careful selec- 

 tion. Second, the Belgian hare will cross 

 repeatedly with any native species of rab- 

 bit in North America, as has been frequent- 

 ly proved ; and even if the Belgian hare, 

 on escaping, should develop sufficient in- 

 stinct of self-preservation to survive, it 

 would be bred out in a few generations by 

 crossing with native species, owing to the 

 great preponderance of the latter. Such 

 crossing could only result in a slight bet- 

 terment of a few individuals of the native 

 species, making them possibly a little larger, 

 and their flesh and fur of a better quality. 

 This result, all readers of Recreation will 

 agree, would be most desirable. 



On noticing Mr. Montague's article, I 

 wrote him asking him how many of these 

 Belgian hares he could supply, stating in 

 my letter that I would make it exceedingly 

 profitable for him to capture these wild 

 Belgians and ship them East to me. The 

 gentleman never replied, in spite of the 

 fact that I enclosed a stamped reply enve- 

 lope. That he received my letter is evident, 

 for the time for its return, if undelivered, 

 has long since expired. I also wrote to the 

 postmasters at Chico and Powelton, both 

 in Butte county, California, asking them 

 if there were any wild Belgians in that 

 county. The postmaster at Chico replied, 

 "No wild hares around this section of the 

 country." The postmaster at Powelton, 

 ivlr. C. Henry, replied, "There are no 

 Belgians in this country, none ever having 

 been imported to this section." I also 

 wrote Dr. David Starr Jordan, Chief War- 

 den of the California L. A. S., on the same 

 subject. Under date of January 28, Dr. 

 Jordan wrote, "There 1 as been some fear 

 in California that the Belgian hare would 

 run wild and play the same havoc in cul- 

 tivated fields that its relative does in Aus- 

 tralia. I have, however, not heard of any 

 case of this kind. I will write to friends in 



