FOREST AND STREAM. 
to the spot and secured him without the least trouble, for he lay ex- 
hausted and famishing, and, like a well bred setter, retrieved him to 
my master. *• By thnnder I" said he <• ’tls a quail. And yet It can’t be a 
quail. But stni he bus all the marks of a laud bird-yes, ’tls a genuine 
quail. But where did he come from Is the mystery, for Ms said quails 
can only fly while they hold their breath. ” At last It was admitted by 
allou board that our new-comer was a quail. I placed him In a cage 
and nursed him with all of my skill, but on the second morning of hls 
Incarceration I found him cold In dea'h, the vital spark having depari- 
ed during the previous night. The death of my little voyager, and at 
once my pet, caused me to mourn, as I had laid all my piaus to take 
him homo and Americanize him In the old Bay State. 
The advent and death of the bird created a forecastle panic on board 
as it was looked upon as a harbinger of death by the old and soperatl- 
oiis sailors. For days the principal topic of conversation In watches 
on deck and watches below was of ghosts, hobgobllnB, dying Dutchmen, 
YVlll-o’-the-Wleps, Flnlauders and the like. '‘’Twos a bad sign, and 
something is going to happen," said an o d canvas-back, bearing a look 
of n large amount of suppressed wisdom held for future use. Some- 
thing did happen. We arrived home us America all well ou the first 
of the following Joiy. On the fourth I dined with a convivial party, 
when I related the story of my quail, and, naturally enough, the party 
were unbelievers, and one rose to hls feet aud moved that with full 
glasses and stauding we sing » Robinson Cruso. " 
Hundreds of times I have related this quail story, aud as many times 
my audience were unbelievers. Yes, for forty years I have been Jeered 
and Joked for my quail story, but, with all tho opposition In those years 
X have never for a moment doubted that the bird was a genuine quail! 
And now, in conclusion, although at a late day, I must give thanks to 
Mr. Everts, of Vermont, for unrolling the mystery and making clear In 
my mind os the brilliant sun at noonday that mine was a mlgTatory 
qua11, Cyrus Liboum. 
A LITTLE AUK ON SHORE. 
„ Fort Hamilton, Jan.Jil, ms. 
Editor Forest and Stream : 
About ten days ago Mr. Bell, of this place, sent me a little auk (Jf*-- 
gulwi alle) which hud been captured under the following peculiar cir- 
cumstances. 
Mr. Bell’s little son was playing in a large open field In th« village, 
when he uoiiced a singular looking bird on the ground attempting to 
fly. It would flutter along for a short distance and then fall, as though 
hurt or exhausted. The boy, after a short chase, managed to throw 
hls hut over it. He took It home to hls father who, after looking over 
Wilson s Ornithology, found It lo be a little aak. 
The bird was placed In a cage and fed upon suet and chopped c'ams 
When placed In a tub of water It swum round and round, constantly 
dipping its bill In the water. Its poslllon when standing was nearly 
erect, the body thrown slightly forward aud the weight resting on ihe 
toes. It lived about a week after Its capture and seemed to bo dolug 
well, when one morning it was found dead In Its cage. The cause of 
Its death Is unknown, but It was supposed the cat had frightened It to 
death by springing at it, as on two occasions before the cat had made 
the attempt and the bird had shown great terror at the sight of the ani- 
mal. Mr. Bell politely sent It to me. I carefully sklnued aud prepared 
It for stn (ling, but could uot discover that the bird was lojured In any 
way. it was a valuable addition to my cabinet, as they are rare birds 
about hero, or anywhere else I.believe. 
How tho bird came to be In such a place as a grass field half a mile 
from the nearest beach I cannot Imagine, except that It had attempted 
to fly across LoDg Island, aud becoming fatigued had descended to the 
earth. Its small wings and heavy body seem to favor this hypothesis 
It might have been driven on shore by a violent gale, but I do Dot re 
collect any recent storm. De Laqnel B bri E b . 
—We have received Dr. A. E. Foote’s Monthly Bulletin of 
the Naturalists' Agency of Philadelphia. Dr. Foote adver- 
tises a large list of minerals, birds’ eggs and other specimens, 
as well as many scientific publications, especially those of the 
U. 8. Government. 
A New Chimera. -Under the name Chimara plumbea 
Prof. Gill has recently described before the Philosophical So- 
ciety of Washington, a new fish to American waters. Of 
this ancient group, the Chimreroids, but few species now ex- 
ist, aud the discovery of a new one is a fact of high interest. 
The specimen upon which this species is based was caught 
near La Havre Bank, about 250 miles southeast of Halifax. 
The specific name plumbea is in allusion to its color. 
The American Prehistoric Man.— To Professor Edward 
D. Cope is due the discovery of the oldest traces of man in 
America. It is not yet quite fixed by geologists whether the 
western hemisphere is positively older than the eastern world. 
Certain low hills in Canada, not very far from the lakes, 
were, according to Lycll, asserted to be of the earliest forma- 
tion. This discovery, then, of Professor Copes, may be of 
the most valuable character. In 1877, in a lake basin of 
Oregon, mingled with strange fossils of animals, these traces of 
men were found, Flint implements were brought to light in 
abundance, in a deposit of sand and ashes, mixed with 
the bones of gigantic extinct llamas, horses, sloths, birds aud 
flr.hes. As a paleontologist, Professor Copes labors are of the 
most distinguished character, and his name must always be 
associated with these wonderful discoveries. 
California Quail Wanted.— Our correspondent, “G. N. 
B , who writes us from Latrobe, Pa., asks us where he can 
obtain California quail for breeding purposes. We should 
have reejmmeuded Reiche, of Chatham street ; ho failing, we 
know not to whom “ G. N. B." should apply. Will the party 
referred to iu our correspondent’s note below, please send us 
his address? “ G. N. B." says : 
soLe^ari V ( in C ni S0 T .V? 16 ag0 in Forbst AND Stream that 
Ca?ifo?n V , , md , been 8UCCessful rising a brood of 
£ 1 had a pair, but lost the cock bird. The 
the oi r* \ es , s ?’ but of course, having noco k with her, 
jwt bfttub : Wuuld lik,: totr y u “gain this year, but 
1, fii and °I b f 8 ,md * mv e been unable to find 
is? °i , v eu r 0f , . Kock y Mountain. Will you please 
nond wif l h hOn df ^rt° f 1 u ltJ P ari y iQ 0llio . that I may corres 
E*n, d r ™ J- ’ M d p i‘. rh , a P L 8 s-curc a ojek from him. My 
paper containing the mticle has been mislaid. 
All Sorts. — Editor Forest and Stream— Salem Jan 15 
I recently mounted a fine snipe (G. mlsonii), shot by Mr R 
Nelson, of Peabody, about New Years. This is tho latest I over 
knew about here, though others have been taken almost as 
late. The bird was in good order and fine feather. A harle- 
quin duck was recently shot off Tinkers Island. This is rare. 
1 wish some one would inform me why the little auks (At. alle) 
are so pleuty this winter. They are not so as a rule, except 
by severe weather. I am now handling some fine black tail 
deer heads and antlers, and some fine prong-horned antelopes 
from Kansas and Colorado. I also saw at a friend’s house 
recently some beautiful specimens of Western natural produc- 
tions, including a beautiful work-box for a lady, covered on 
the outside with minerals of thirty-five different kinds, all from 
Colorado, and also saw fine samples of petrified wood and nuts, 
and some agatized wood, said to be harder than petrified. 
Teal. 
[In a petrifaction, the organic matter may be replaced either 
by carbonate of lime or silica. If by silica, the resulting rock 
will of course be the harder of the two. — E d.] 
A White Opossom.— Our frequent contributor, Mr. W. Vie, 
of St. Louis, informs us of the presentation recently of a 
white opossum with piuk eye3 to the Zoological Society of St. 
Louis. 
Not a Turbot.— A correspondent from Fall River, Mass, 
sends us'J a neatly drawn sketch of a flat fish, which he de- 
scribes as follows : 
“ When I first caught ttis fish I thought he was as wido as 
was long, which was Dot confirmed by measurement. Color, 
lie spotted side very dark, a rubber black, with irregular white 
spots, both in size aod shape. He was transparent, so that 
the bones were clearly discernible; the other side white ns 
snow. The fins looked like ice formed from sprmg water. 
The mouth opened very large ; he would close it with a qhick 
snap." ^ 
The inquiry is made of us “ whether it is a turbot ?’’ We 
do not think from the description and size, 12 by 8 inches, 
that it is by any manner of means a rare fish. It is probably 
sand flounder, or daylight, window pine or water flounder— 
the Lophopsetla maculata. The American turbot is as yet 
non inventus. 
Gophers and the Levees. — The gopher is a serious prob- 
lem in Mississippi. He honey-combs the levees with his net- 
work of holse aud passages, and one-half the breaks in the 
levees are traceable to his mischief. A bit of civil engineer- 
ing on his part, the projection of a new tunnel, or the excava- 
tion of a new and more spacious domicile for the advent of 
his bride and mother-in-law, may bring the destruction of the 
floods upon square miles of fruitful lands. The safety of 
crops, property and lives all depends upon the caprice of a 
burrowing varmint. 
The Oolaohan.— Through the kindness of S. R. Throck- 
morton, one of the Fish Commissioners of Cal., I was shown 
a candle fish (the Indian name is “Ochalan") that had just 
been brought from Nass River, near Cook’s Inlet. The fish 
was about seven inches long, and resembles somewhat the N. 
E. Coast smelt, but more delicate in form and appearance! 
being longer and more slim, has a sharp nose and is covered 
with very fine scales of a bright silver color. I should judge 
by this dried specimen that they must be a fish of great 
beauty and symmetry. They use this fish for fuel and for light 
it being full of oil. They come in in shoals so thick that 
they take them out -in masses with a sort of split-shovel 
They are now taking oil from them and shipping it in large 
quantities as an article of commerce. These fish are said to 
he of the most delicate flavor and will fairly melt iu your 
mouth. Smoked and dried they are said to excel any herring 
known. Now there is a fish for you that will keep you warm 
and furnish you light aud the very best kind of food. 
San Francisco , Cal., Feb. 7, 1878. B. B. P. 
[The spelling of this fish is not yet quite positively deter- 
mined. It is called both Ochalan and Oolachan. At the 
Centennial quite a number of specimens were exhibited. Tho 
oil from this fish was remarkably clear and sweet. The dried 
fish seemed wonderfully fat. We have heard that to cap- 
ture them the Indians use a flat bit of thiu board, into which 
sharp nails have been driven. When a shoal of fish is ap- 
proached, the Indians, by striking into the fish, impale them, 
and thus catch large quantities. — E d.] 
Animals IIeceivkd at Philadelphia Zoological Gardens for 
WE kK Ending Feb. 12. 1-7S — Two 'possums, Didtlphysrirginiana, pre- 
sented; two red-shouldered hawks, But<o lineal**, presented ; one 
eland, Oreoseauna, purchased ; one siren, Siren lacertina, presented. 
Arthur E. Brown, Gen'l. Supt. 
vadhind, eJfJarni mid (finrden. 
THIS DEPARTMENT IS EDITED BY W. J. DAVIDSON, BEO. N. Y. 
HORTICULTURAL SOOIETY. 
THE CROSSING OF LILIES. 
M R. FRANCIS PARKMAN is famous as a horticulturist 
ns well as an historian. In a new number of the •* Bul- 
let in of the Bussey Institution " — of which he was formerly 
Professor of Horticulture— he has uow given tho history of 
his “ Hybridization of Lilies," carried ou for ten or a d..zeu 
years. He began by crossing two superb Japanese Lilies, L. 
speciosum and L. auraium. The first year he failed ; the sec- 
ond year brought one splendid succe-s ; for it gave us that 
superb lily, twelve and even fourteen inches from tip to tip 
of the exteuded petals, which, when sent to England, aston- 
ished the horticultural world, and which there received the 
nume of Park man's Lily (sLilium Parkmnnni). Toe other 
results obtained in this aud the succeeding operations, were of 
little or no practical value, but were as surprising as the Park- 
man Lily is magnificent. 
We expect offspring to take after both parents, a hybrid to 
inherit somewhat equally the characters of the two species 
that compose it. That was the case with the Parkman Lily, • 
which has the fragrance and form of L. auraium and the 
brilliant color of the best races of L. speciosum. But tins 
was the result in only one case outof more than fifty. Every 
other seed that germioated and lived to bloom produced Bow- 
ers exactly like those of tho female parent, L. speciosum 
uut they were hybrids nevertheless. Mr. Parkman took all 
the necessary pr .caution to prevent access of own pollen • 
and the seedlings showed the blood of the male parent in their 
stems, though not in the blossom ; for these were mottled 
in the manuer characteristic of L. auratum. Though the 
male parent showed for so little iu the first generation, there 
wus reason to hope it might be impressed on the second. So 
, ' ,r k,nrtn * erl, lized several of these hybrids with the pol- 
fprtUiinu au ^f um ' precisely as their female parent had bee* 
result was a very little seed set, hut enough 
e ‘ 8 u l 0r l « n youn « bulhs - of these, when they 
b „ °“® d ’ A ° e .. bore a dower combining the features of both 
Ec Of £ iSLS. " UoWers “ ot diatlnguiahablo Irom 
Was this inveterate habit of taking after the mother only, or 
mam y a peculmmy of these two species, or was it a charac- 
ter of Liliesgenera ly ? lo settle that question, Mr I’.uk- 
man orossed L. u mb, Hat urn with the pollen of L auratum 
Ihe progeny wus not to be distinguished from L auratum 
yet showed its hyhridity in the imperfect condition of the 
stamen 8 of many of the blossoms, nnd in the abortion of the 
pistil of some of them. Next lie crossed L. longi/torum with 
the pollen of a deep red variety of L. speciosum 'Seeds wro 
abuiidantly formed ; but the plauia raised from them produced 
the flowers of the female parent, unchanged, the pure w lute 
being without tint or spot Some of these lie now crossed 
w ' lb ■ aurntum ’ ’ n some instances successfully ; but in the 
offspring neither L. speciosum , their grandfather, nor /,. aura- 
turn, their father, had produced any effect whatever on the 
pure white of their petals; yet the anthers lmd beeu uffected, 
taking a chocolule tinge from the father; and us before m my 
of the flowers were now tried in the third generation, with 
pollen both of L. auratum and L. speciosum ; but not ouo 
would bear seed. 
Moreover our American Lilium superfmm was fertilized 
under every precaution, wilh the pollen of six foreign species! 
seeds were abundamly produced in some instances, though in 
many the pods contained only chaff ; several hundred bulbs 
were raised, hut when these came to bloom, not a single flower 
of them all was distinguishable from that of the pure L. 
superbum. Nor in this case was there any mnrk of ihe male 
parent to be found in the stem, or leaves, or bulhs. All- this 
is very curious indeed. We knew that offspring might lake 
a great deal more after one parent than Ihe oilier. But that 
the female rex should be so prepotent in T.ilies, is a quite un- 
expected result. That in so many cases the influence of tho 
male parent should be imperceptible is most wonderful. 
Prof. Asa Gbay. 
Editor Forest and Stream : The above article, published in 
the American Agriculturist, is of great interest lo all whohavo 
experimented in this way, or who wieli to see the varieties of 
this lovely class of plants multiplied, I have for a uumber of 
years tried the same experiments with that class of plants, and 
have raised a great number of hybrids from L. speciosum, 
some of them very beautiful, having very large flowers and 
rich coloring, but all of them were L. speciosum. There is one 
having a flower as large as a Lilium auratum, the color dark 
scarlet, edged with white ; it flowered for the first lime last 
summer. Another one grew to the height of eight feet, 
straight as an arrow, bearing thirty-one flowers on a siDglo 
stem, the bulb not very large at the time it sent up its flower- 
ing stalk; but this fall the bulb is very large. I presume it 
must be crossed with a Lilium superbum, indicated by its 
straight habit and numerous flowers ; the color is the same as 
Lilium speciosum rubrum. One of my hybrids bus a huff- 
colored ground, spotted with deep pink, the petals very broad 
aud greatly reflexed, the flower largo ; has the shape of L. 
tigrinum. Some hybrids of Lilium speciosum have very small 
flowers, about the size of Lilium martagon ; some have large 
spreading white flowers. It would take considerable time to 
mention all of them, but if there 6hould he any person who is 
interested in that class of plants they are welcome to come 
and see them. I have also hybrids of L auratum , hut thev 
keep to the mother plant as a general thing. Some have pure 
white flowers, some with a yellow band; the flower in most 
S art resembles Lilium auratum. I have raised seedlings of 
ilium lorigijlorum, but without any graiilying result. I 
would advise those who try to hybridize lilies to experiment 
wilh L. longijlarurn takesima, which has not so much honey 
coming through the pistil. 1 have never got Lilium broicnii to 
seed yet, and have raised seedlings from L. martagon, but 
without any difference from the mother plant. I liuve one 
good hybrid of Lilium tigrinum ; both male aod female can he 
seen in this plunt; it bus the flower of Lilium tigrinum, the 
petal broad and bright colored, their base while, with the 
leaves and growth of Lilium bulbiforum. Last summer it hud 
eleven flowers ou one sla k, seeded freely, and had smull bulb- 
lets in the uxil of the leaves. There is one also that bus the 
appearance of the mother plant, with Iloweis about the size of 
L. tcnuifuliusi. Of Lilium bulbiforum I have au endless variety, 
some of them very beautiful. Every seed will produce a 
variety, and some of them could, without difficulty, he sepa- 
rated from the mother plnut. 1 have expended a great amount 
of labor ou lAlium superbum without any success. The 
flowers I have tried to hybridize have fonjied blank seed. The 
seedlings of Lilium canadensc differ very little from the 
mother plant. My seedlings of L. UumboUltii aud L. Wash- 
ingtsmiunum have not flowered yet. I will here remark that 
1 have not had so much difficulty in getting lilies to seed us to 
get the 6eed to grow. I aui trying from year to year to find 
out how to mauage them. Some of the so ds i re very tender, 
particularly that of Lilium tigrinum. 1 advise those who wish 
to raise seedlings, to sow the Seed as soon as ripe iu seed-paus 
und put them in a dry cellar, aud ke<p them thereuntil March, 
or till the mother plain commences io giow. Remove them 
to a cool part of the- green-hous , and do uot water them too 
much. Those who have not got a gricn-bou-e should have a 
frame in the garden, covered wi ll s»slics, having the glass 
painted ; raise them a little, so ibat the hot air will escape. 
8 .me of them will flower the third summer. The best soil to 
use is loose, sandy loam. Seeds of American lilies can be 
sown in frames iu the garden, it the frames are filled with dry 
leaves over the toil during tho winter. 1 will be most happy 
to see or correspond with uny one interc t;d ia this badly Lse.l 
cla.S Of plants. i'KTKR Hanson, 
111) and 121 Nassau 6treet, New York, Room 84. 
