436 : ZOOLOGY. 
fishes, each about a foot long, on the shore of the lake, which 
without doubt came from the lake itself; but whether they floated — 
there from Lake Utah, or from some one of the rivers that empty 
into the lake, or whether they belong to Great Salt Lake itself, I 
do not know. But I have so much faith in finding fishes and — 
othér lower forms of life in Great Salt Lake itself, that I shall — 
dredge the lake at my earliest opportunity. I observed water — 
birds on the lake in great numbers. — SANBORN ‘Tenney, Williams — 
College, Nov., 1873. a 
[Prof. Tenney has kindly sent to the Academy, portions of one a 
of the fishes mentioned above, and it proved to be a cyprin id a 
altied to the western chubs. It is more probable that this lover of A 
pure water was washed into the lake from some tributary and died ay 
immediately, than that it was ever an inhabitant of the lake. 
There is also a possibility of its having been brought by fish- 7 
catching birds from a distance. It is known that pelicans and. zs 
gulls breed on the island in the lake in immense numbers, and i 
that they take long flights for the purpose of securing their food. — 
—F. W. P.] 
ExcLIsH Sparrows. — The apprehensions I expressed in my 
“Key” lest these birds should molest our native species ag soon 
as they overflowed municipal limits has been verified already. Mr. 
Thomas G. Gentry writes to me :—*“ The sparrows introduced # : 
few years ago in Germantown, Pa., have become quite common in 
the adjoining country, and are driving away the robins, bluebirds 
and sparrows. ‘They increase so rapidly and are so pugnaciom® 
that our smaller native birds are compelled to seek quarters pe 
where.” I did not expect the bad news quite so soon. fiz 
it will not be long before we hear the same complaints from other 
places. I have always been opposed to the introduction 
birds, mainly on this score, but’ also for other reasons. 
no occasion for them in this country; the good they do 1 
stroying certain insects has been overrated. I foresee the 
when it will be deemed advisable to take measures to g% 
the birds, or at least to check their increase.— ELLIOTT C 
A New Grovr or Cyprintp:.—Prof. Cope has recently 
paper in the “ Proceedings of the American Philosophical 50? 
on the Plagopterine, a group of cyprinoid fishes characteris 
the hydrographic basin of western Colorado. The group 
