226 



FOREST AND STEEAM. 



vertebrate remains found in this country have passed through 

 my hands, I atn willing to assume full responsibility for my 

 presentation of the subject. 



For our present knowledge of the extinct Mammals, Birds 

 and Reptiles of North America, science is especially indebted 

 toLeidy, -whose careful, conscientious work has laid a secure 

 foundation for our vertebrate ^palaeontology. The energy of 

 Cope has brought to notice many strange forms, and greatly 

 enlarged our kterature. Agassiz, Owen, Wyman, Baird, 

 Hitchcock, Deane, Emmons, Lea, Allen, Gibbes, Jefferson, 

 DeKay, and Harlan, deserve honorable mention in the history 

 of this branch of science. The South American extinct verte- 

 brates have been described by Lund, Owen, Burmeister, Ger- 

 vais, Huxley, Flower, Desmarest, Aymard, Pictet, and N.odot. 

 DarWin and Wallace have likewise contributed valuable infor- 

 mation on this subject, as they have on nearly all forms of 

 life. 



In this long history of ancient life I have said nothing of 

 what Life itself really is. And for the best of reasons, because 

 1 know nothing. Here at present our ignorance is dense, and 

 yet we need not despair. Light, Heat, Electricity, and Magnet- 

 ism, Chemical Affinity and Motion, are now considered differ- 

 ent forms of the same force ; and the opinion is rapidly gain- 

 ing ground that Life, or vital force, is only another phase of 

 the same power. Possibly the great mystery of Life may thus 

 be solved but whether it be or not, a true faith in Science ad- 

 mits no limit to its search for Truth. 



S$it §>tu>m. 



OFFICE OF FISH COMMISSIONERS, 

 STATE OF MINNESOTA. 



St. Paul, Minn., Oct. 17, isn. 

 jEditok foeest ane Stkbam : 



I want to tell you otanice little trip Dr. Sweeny, our other State 

 Fish Commissioner, ana myself nad in visiting the fish hatcheries of 

 Illinois and Michigan. 



"We left St. Haul October 1, and with the kind oourtesy of the West 

 Wisconsin and North Western Kallroad we were hurled over the best 

 and smoothest road I ever traveled on. We were dropped off at Elgin, 

 Illinois, where we were met by a dear friend, Dr. W. A. Pratt, Pish 

 Commissioner, and a beautUul carriage, and were soon driven to a 

 beautiful residence, about two miles Irom Elgin. It then being too 

 ttark to distinguish the beauties of the grounds, we were entertained 

 magnillcertly by onr friend and family. In the morning we rose bright 

 and early, and visited the State Fishery and its beautiful surroundings, 

 and I tell you it is not to be sneezed at. It is the best place I have 

 seen for the purpose it is assigned. After tiring ourselves in that 

 romantic glen, our friend, Dr. W. A. P., suggested accompanying ns to 

 the alien igan hatchery. At Niles, we were met by that good and jolly 

 gentleman, George Jerome, Superintendent of Fisheries, and in the 

 name beautiful style as before were soon landed at the handsome resi- 

 dence and grounds of our kind friends, where we were received in 

 hospitable style by the family, and in a short time we were as old 

 friends. After pat taking of the luxuries awaiting us, we were sliowu 

 over the City of Mies, which certainly exceeded my expectations. The 

 State Fishery being about six mUes from Niles, the visit was post- 

 poned until the next day. After being shown the sights, it was moved 

 and carried that we return to our friend's residence, where we 

 sojourned for the night. I think any one could make himself happy in 

 George Jerome's company. He is the lolliest and best natured man I 

 ever met, and a thorough fish man. In fact I found all the fish men ex- 

 ceedingly courteous ana ever ready to converse on the latest and best 

 labor-saving Improvements in hatching fish, and the best adapted for 

 the different waters. On the whole, I had as pleasant and successful a 

 trip as I ever had in my life. I think I will let loose, as I am tired and 

 expect I will tax your time too much to read it. Yours, most respect- 

 fully, William Golcher, Fish Commissioner. 



P. 8.— I forgot to mention our visit to the Michigan Hatchery. It is 

 a beautiful place, nicely laid out, and well stocked with all kinds of 

 flsheB. I think the batchers supercede them all, and the superintendent 

 most experienced in the business. W- G. 



We have no doubt that Brother William had a most de- 

 lightful trip. For his edification, we may state, with full con- 

 sciousness of our powers of discernment and knowledge of 

 human character, as well as by the testimony of Professor 

 Agassiz, that the courtesy, attributes and general qualifica- 

 tions which William so much admires in the fishermen he 

 met is due to the brain power obtained by the phosphorus 

 contained in the fish. — Ed. 



N. B. — When William was hurled over the best and 

 smoothest road, etc., he must have felt like a cricket-ball de- 

 livered by a Powers or Talbot. 



Growth of Tkotjt.— The venerable Dr. Garlick kaB beeu 

 pleased to send us the following communication with regard 

 to Mr. Hasbroucks' "seven-inch trout:" 



Bkdkord, Ohio, Oct. 14, 1877. 

 Editor Forest and Stream: 



A word on the "rapid growth of trout." You may rely upon It that 

 no young fry of the brook trout ever made such a growth aa stated in 

 your lact paper. That seven-inch trout I have no doubt was probably 

 three years old, and I should not be surprised If he were a five-year-old 

 It tnat rascal did lime the stream, a "remnant was sared," no doobt, 

 and the trout seen In that stream on the 30th of September were 

 natives of that stream. I have hatched and reared many thousands of 

 brook irout, aud I do not think I ever had a yearling trout that 

 measured over three inches in length. Our trout were always kept in 

 small spring pools until the yolk sac was absorbed, and they were then 

 placed in our upper and smallest of the three ponds, where they re- 

 mained one year, when they were run out into the second and larger 

 pond by means of a sluice, and the following year tliey were run Into 

 the third ana largest pond, and by these means I could always know 

 the exact Mze of all the trout we had. 



TiOJt grow very slowly until thoy are two years old. In this respect 

 tht-y are unlike many other kinds of fish, some of which arrive at ma- 

 turity in a year. 



To wuat a wonderful magnitude bas the discovery of artificial breed- 

 ing of fish arrived. It surprises me to read the accounts of the 

 hatcheries. Though I did predict it, in the first paper I read, many 

 years since, stilt It surprises me, and yet how many unimproved place 

 there are. How many fanners have nice places, which, with a little 

 expense, could have at all times all the fresh fish needed. Wishing 

 you a) i the success you deserve, I am yours truly, t. Garlick, 



7 



v Stockikg the Streaks of New Hampshire.— The Man- 

 chester Mirror of Oct. 20th, says : 



Since the first of May last 2,000 landlocked salmon have 

 been put into Tri-Echo Lake, in Milton; 1.000 iuto Lovewell's 

 Pond, in Wakefield. The following ponds, lakes and rivers 

 have been stocked with black bass, averaging thirty-six to 

 each pond, and weighing on an average three-quarters of a 

 pound each : Policy Pond, Salem; Wash Pond, Hampstead; 

 Province Pond, Wakefield and Effingham ; Ayer's Pond, Bar- 

 rington; Jones Pond, Raymond; Pennichuck Pond, Merri- 

 mack ; Reservoir, Kittery Navy Yard ; Ooehefio River, Roch- 

 ester ; Silver Lake, Madison ; Chocorua Lake, Tarn worth ; 

 Coles Pond, Somersworth; New Durham River, New Dur- 

 ham ; Half Moon Pond, Alton ; Reed's Pond, Merrimac ; 

 Mendum's Pond, Barrington and Nottingham ; White Pond, 

 Tamworth; Pawl uckaway Pond, Nottingham; Carpenter's 

 Pond, Epping; Harvey Pond, North wood; Suncook Pond, 

 Notthwood ; Pinkbam's Pond, Barnstead ; Suncook Pood, 

 Barnstead; Reservoir Pond, Middletown; Great Ossipee Lake, 

 Ossipee. Reserving some of the best lakes and ponds for 

 land-locked salmon, trout, white perch and pike perch, which 

 we intend to introduce during the fall, winter and spring. 



Yours respectfully, Luther Hayes. 



South Milton, iV. H., Oct. 10, 1877. 



,^^».„, 



Shad in Lake Ontario. —Syracuse papers of the lGth in- 

 stant are congratulating Mr. Seth Green upon accumulating 

 evidence of his success in cultivating shad in Lake Ontario. 

 Very recently, a fine male shad, weighing 5^ pounds, was 

 caught in a gill net six or seven miles out in Lake Ontario, off 

 Port Ontario, at the mouth of Salmon River. The fish is 

 the largest of its kind yet caught in the lake, and is one of 

 those placed in its waters by Mr Green in the year 1872. The 

 attempt to introduce the fish in fresh water was an experi- 

 ment. It is now no longer in the list of experiments, but a 

 matter of certainty. The fish. have been caught at various 

 points on the lake ever since the fry were put in, and appear 

 to grow as rapidly and possess all the qualities of the shad 

 that are caught in salt water. 



Mr. Green now intends to go on with the work of sup- 

 plying the lake with a large quantity of shad by liberating 



fry. 



_^„. . 



—The Minnesota State Hatchery House at St. Paul, but re- 

 cently completed, has now 250,000 salmon eggs on J, he trays, 

 which are apparently doing well. The eggs areforMcLeod 

 River, California. 



— Why does not Livingston. Stone, Esq., send some of the 



celebrated gamy aud toothsome McLeod or red-banded trout 



of California to the East for propagating purposes ? Those 



who know, declare that they will thrive and prove a valued 



acquisition to our catalogue of edible game fish. 

 —~ »#. — . 



Mullet prom the Sandwich Islands. — Mr. Redding, the 

 Eish Commissioner of California, recently obtained from the 

 Sandwich Islands some specimens of the mullet-fish known 

 there as the Awa. They have been put in Ike sloughs near 

 Bridgeport. _ 



Salmon in Ohio.— A correspondent informs us that a Cali- 

 fornia salmon was caught in the Big Miami River on the 18th 

 of this month which weighed five pounds. It is believed to 

 be, the progeny from the 125,000 of the same species which 

 were deposited in the same river four years ago. 



%ntnml ^jtetorg. 



NEW VERTEBRATE FOSSILS. 



IN a paper recently publisked, Prof. Marsh of Yale College, 

 gives us further results of bis explorations in the West, 

 aud describes a number of new genera and species of Verte- 

 brates. The forms referred to are all from the Rocky Moun- 

 tain region, and several of them are from the beds generally 

 known as Cretaceous No. 1, but now regarded by our author 

 as the equivalent of the Wealden of Europe.. It is an interest- 

 ing and suggestive fact that these beds have been gone over 

 many times by professional explorers, all of whom have united 

 in pronouncing them barren of vertebrate fossil remains. 



The animals described in the paper to which we refer, in- 

 clude Mammals, Birds, Reptiles and Pishes, and we shall 

 briefly refer to some of the more interesting forms. Heliobatis 

 radians belongs to the group of Rays, of which the familiar 

 stingray and ''cow fish " are well known examples. The most 

 peculiar point about this species is that it apparently inhabited 

 freshwater, and is described as a "land-locked ray." It bears 

 a considerable resemblance to a ray from the ML Lebanon de- 

 posits of Syria, described by Egerton under the generic name 

 of Cyclobatis. It differs fronyke latter, however, in having 

 a greater number of radiating digits, and in the possession of 

 a number of dermal defensive tubercles which are wanting in 

 Cyclobatis. Diplosaunis felix is a crocodilian from the newly 

 discovered Wealden beds of Colorado, and is of great import- 

 ance, as it supplies a "missing link" between the more ancient 

 Teliosaurian type and the modern genus Urocodilus, Diplo- 

 saurm had the head somewhat like that of the modern Croco- 

 diles, but its vertebrae were of the old biconcave shape. Prom 

 the Pliocene lake basin east of the Mountains a true crocodile, 

 O. Solaris, is described, the first known from these beds. It 

 is interesting as furnishing a good indication of the climate of 

 the region during Pliocene time. 



The Dinosaurs, agroup of somewhat bird-like reptiles, -were 

 very abundant in the Rocky Mountain region during a consid- 

 erable portion of Mesozoic time, and these Wealden beds, to 

 which we have already referred, have yielded recently several 

 remarkable genera. One of tkese, Titanosaurus, was noticed 

 some time sinee in Eorest and Stream, and in the present 



articles we are furnished with a description of another new 

 genus, Wanosaurus, differing widely from the former. While 

 Titanosaurus far exceeded in size any terrestrial mammal of 

 Which we have any knowledge. Nanosawrus was very small, 

 NT. Victor, the largest of the two species, being about as large 

 as a fox, while A. Agilis did not exceed in its dimensions a 

 cat. The bones of these animals were hollow and the walls 

 very thin. The crowns of the teeth seem to be compressed, 

 and they are inserted in distinct sockets. The former has the 

 characteristic thin trochanter. 



A bird about the size of a small duck is described by Prof. 

 Marsh under the name of Graculavus leutus. Until the dis- 

 covery of this specimen Cretaceous birds were known only 

 from Kansas and from the Atlantic coast. This form, however, 

 comes to us from Texas. The specimens on which this species 

 is founded differs widely from the similar parts in the Odon- 

 tornithe, and is, therefore, referred provisionally to the genus 

 Graculavus. 



Besides the animals already referred to the present paper 

 contains the announcement of the discovery of three gigantic 

 Edentates, one, Moropus distam.s,ivom the Miocene of Oregon; 

 the other two, M. series and M. elatusirom. the Lower Pliocene 

 of Nebraska. These animals are quite different from any 

 edentates hitherto known and form a new family, tke Moropo- 

 didm, M. distans was about the size of a tapir, while M. 

 lalm was as large as a rhinoceros. The characters of these 

 trange animals seem to point to the African Ant-bear (Orye- 

 eropus) as their nearest living relative. The other mammals 

 enumerated in this interesting catalogue we must pass over 

 very hastily. They include a new rodent, Allomys, apparently 

 allied to the flymg squirrels from the Miocene of Oregon, two 

 new species of Bison from the Lower Pliocene of Kansas and 

 Nebraska; a new genus of tapiroid mammals from the 

 Miocene of the Atlantic coast and the West ; and a new genus 

 of rhinoceros from the Upper Eocene of the Rocky Mountains. 

 This last discovery is of unusual interest, as it is the oldest 

 known rhinoceros, and enables us to trace the direct lino 

 further back into the past than we had before been able to. 



Altogether the paper before us is one of great value, and 

 contains more important announcements than are often found 

 in a publication of this character. 



A REMARKABLE RAT'S NEST. 



Mr. A. W. Chase, in a recent letter to one of the editors of 

 the American Journal of Science, gives the following account 

 of the habits of the California wood rat, Neotoma no doubt: 



While on the northern coast, I noticed a fact in natural his- 

 tory, to me quite curious, regarding the habits of the so-called 

 wood rat. I am not sufficiently versed in such matters to 

 give you the name of this interesting creature. It is a little 

 larger than an ordinary Norway rat, dark brown in color, 

 with large lustrous eyes, and a tail covered with thin hairs. 

 This creature builds its nest in the woods, sometimes on the 

 ground; more frequently on the lower branches of trees. 

 They accumulate a surprising quantity of dried twigs, which 

 they interlace to form a dome-shaped structure, otien ten or 

 twelve feet high and six or eight feet in diameter. Openings 

 in the mass lead to the centre, where is found the nest, con- 

 sisting of the finely divided inner bark of trees, dried grass, 

 etc- But it is to the peculiar thievish propensity of this little 

 creature that I wish to cail attention. To make my story in- 

 telligible, I would first stale lhat I am partial owner of some 

 property on the Oregon Coast, on which a saw-mill had been 

 placed, but which, owing to various causes, has never been in 

 operation. On this property was a dwelling house for the 

 hamis, in which, on work being discontinued, was stored a 

 quantity of stuff— tools, packing for the engine, and six or 

 seven kega of large spikes; in the closets, knives, forks, spoons, 

 etc. A large cooking stove was left in one of the rooms. 



This house was left uninhabited for two years, and, being 

 at some distance from the little settlement, it was frequently 

 broken into by tramps who sought a shelter for the night. 

 When I entered this house I was astonished to see an im- 

 mense rat's nest on the empty stove. On examining this nest, 

 Which was about five feet in height, and occupied the whole 

 top of the stove (a large range), 1 found the outside to be 

 composed entirely of spikes, all laid with symmetry, so as to 

 present the points of the nails outward. In the centre of this 

 mass was the nest, composed of finely divided fibres of the 

 hemp packing. Interlaced with the spikes we found the fol- 

 lowing : About three dozen knives, forks and spoons, all the 

 butcher knives, three in number, a large carving knife, fork 

 and steel, several large plugs of tobacco ; the outer casing of 

 a silver wiitcli was disponed in one part of the pile, the glass 

 of the same watch in another, and the works iu still another ; 

 an old purse containing some silver, matches and tobacco ; 

 nearly all the small • tools from the tool closets, among them 

 several large augers. Altogether it was a very curious mix- 

 ture of different articles, all of which must have been trans- 

 ported some distance, as they were originally stored in differ- 

 ent parts of the house. 



The ingenuity and skill displayed in the construction of 

 this nest, and the curious taste for articles of iron, many of 

 them* heavy, for component parts, struck me with surprise. 

 The articles of value were, I think, stolen from the men who 

 had broken into the house for temporary lodging. I have 

 preserved a sketch of this iron-clad nest, which i think unique 

 in natural history. 



Many curious facts have since been related to me concern- 

 ing the habits of this little creature. A miner told me the 

 following : He once, during the mining excitement in Sisky- 

 iou County, became, in California parlance, "dead broke," 

 aud applied for and obtained employment in a mining Camp, 

 where the owner's hands and all slept in the same cabin. 

 Shortly after his arrival small articles commenced to disap- 

 pear ; if a whole plug of tobacco were left on the table it 

 would be gone in the morning. Finally a bag, containing one 

 hundred dollars or more in gold dust, was taken from a small 

 table at the head of a bunk, in which one of the proprietors 

 of the claim slept. Suspicion fell on the new comer, and he 

 would perhaps have fared hardly, for with those rough niineis 

 punishment is short and sharp ; but just in time a large rat's 

 nest was discovered in the garret of the cabin, and in it was 

 found the niiB8ing money, as well as the tobacco and other 

 articles supposed to have been stolen. 



These same wood rats are among the greatest pests of our. 



