424 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No. 120. 



extreme south, where crawfish were abundant, it did 

 not hibernate; so that he considered hibernation to 

 be the result of lack of food, rather than of tempera- 

 ture. Mr. Goode, in discussing this paper, regarded 

 hibernation as purely a matter of physical cause and 

 effect, holding that the hibernation or non-hibernation 

 of the black bass in a given latitude depended entirely 

 upon the temperature of the warmer retreats accessi- 

 ble to the fish. Black bass always hibernate in shal- 

 low bodies of water in cold climates. 



Mr. Fred. Mather, in a paper on smelt-hatching, 

 gave an account of some experiments in hatching the 

 smelt Osmerus mordax, which seemed to indicate 

 that quiet, almost stagnant water, and the presence 

 of slime and fungus, were beneficial rather than det- 

 rimental to the proper and rapid development of the 

 eggs. 



Mr. F. W. True read a paper on the porpoise fish- 

 ery of Cape Hatteras. This fishery was regarded as 

 in its infancy in this country, and capable of great 

 development if the animal could be taken in suffi- 

 cient quantities to secure the introduction of its oil 

 and leather into the markets. The company re- 

 cently formed at Cape Hatteras by a party of Phila- 

 delphia capitalists hoped to utilize the meat of the 

 porpoise for food. It is estimated, that, at the close 

 of the present season, not less than four thousand 

 porpoises would have been captured by this company. 

 Mr. Goode thought, that, if the flesh could in some 

 way be divested of its oily taste, it might be a very 

 palatable article of food. He had while in London, 

 in 1883, tasted some whale-flesh (put up in Norway 

 in hermetically sealed cans), and spoke of its resem- 

 blance in flavor to beef a la mode. The oil he con- 

 sidered superior, for lubricating-purposes, to any other 

 animal oil, but thought that its present high price 

 would prevent it from coming into general use. He 

 also said that in Europe boots made from porpoise 

 leather were held in high esteem, and cost from 

 fifteen to twenty dollars a pair. He considered the 

 leather as most desirable for belting and lacing pur- 

 poses. Mr. Lyman expressed his belief that the 

 products of the porpoise fishery might be made of 

 considerable commercial value, provided the animal 

 could be taken in sufficient quantities. 



Mr. Frank N. Clark gave some results of artificial 

 propagation and planting of white-fish in the Great 

 Lakes. * 



Mr. A. Nelson Cheney submitted a paper entitled 

 ' Does transplanting affect the food or game qualities 

 of certain fishes ? ' This was followed by a paper by 

 Mr. J. S. Yan Cleef, on ' How to restore our trout- 

 streams.' 



Dr. Tarleton H. Bean exhibited a nearly complete 

 series of salmon and trout of North America, showed 

 a species of Oncorhyncus, Salmo, and Salvelinus. 

 He said that the species could be, for the most part, 

 very well identified by a single character. In the 

 genus Oncorhyncus, O. chouicha might be known by 

 its very large number of branchiostegal rays, and 

 the numerous pyloric coeca; O. nerka, by its large 

 number of gill-rakers, usually about forty; while 

 none of the other species have more than twenty- 



seven. O. kisutch has but few pyloric coeca, — sev- 

 enty to eighty. O. gorbuscha has very small scales; 

 so much smaller than any other species of this genus, 

 that this character alone will suffice to distinguish it. 

 O. keta, the last species, resembles O. chouicha in 

 most respects, but has a smaller number of branchi- 

 ostegal rays. 



The species of Salmo are easily divided into two 

 groups, one of which has hyoid teeth, the other hav- 

 ing none. Of the first group there are two small- 

 scaled species, — S. Gairdneri; and its fresh-water 

 form irideus, in which the scales are never in more 

 than a hundred and fifty longitudinal rows. The 

 small-scaled form S. spilurus, with its offshoot S. 

 pleuriticus, has sometimes as many as two hundred 

 scales in the longitudinal series. The group with 

 hyoid teeth includes Clark's trout, S. purpuratus, 

 with its varieties, Bouvieri, stomias, and Henshawi. 



The species of Salvelinus divide themselves into 

 two great groups, the first of which has a tooth- 

 bearing crest on the vomer. This is represented 

 by namaycush and its variety siscowet. All of the 

 other Salvelini are red-spotted, and have no crest on 

 the vomer. These are again divided into two great 

 classes, one having hyoid teeth, and the other having 

 none. The Salvelini with hyoid teeth are oquassa, 

 naresi (which is a near relative of oquassa), arcturus 

 (the most northerly salmonoid known), malma, the 

 Pacific red-spotted char, and salvelinus (which has 

 been introduced into New England from Bavaria). 

 The group without hyoid teeth includes fontinalis, 

 known in the searim condition as immaculatus, and 

 in its northern habitat varying into hudsonicus of 

 Suckley. It is a giant in this genus, reaching a 

 weight of fifteen pounds. This Labrador form has 

 a larger number of gill-rakers than the common fon- 

 tinalis, and theie seem to be fewer tubes in the lat- 

 eral line; so that we may be obliged to consider it as 

 a species distinct from fontinalis. The last species 

 of this group is S. stagnalis, a Greenland species, 

 which reaches a large size, and is distinguished by its 

 greatly elongate form. 



The three species recently introduced from Europe 

 into America are Salvelinus salvelinus (already men- 

 tioned), Salmo levenensis (the Loch Leven trout of 

 southern Scotland and northern England), and Salmo 

 fario (the river-trout of central and northern Europe 

 and England). 



The species of Salvelinus, both eastern and west- 

 ern, attain their greatest development in the north- 

 ern portion of their habitat. Thus the S. malma of 

 the west coast is represented in the national museum 

 by examples more than two feet in length from 

 Alaska ; and the Labrador form of the eastern brook- 

 trout bears more resemblance in size to a Maine 

 salmon than to any thing else. Another noticeable 

 fact about our salmonoids is that almost all of the 

 western forms are black-spotted, while all but one of 

 the indigenous eastern forms are red-spotted. 



Col. McDonald, in a discussion of the ' Objective 

 points in fish-culture,' presented an argument for a 

 more extended application of the methods of scientific 

 research, showing how exceedingly valuable to fish- 



