FOREST AND STREAM. 


Blatural History. 
44Tae PropuctTion oF Hyprip Fisu.—We observe that 
experimental attempts are now being made by some pisci- 
culturists to produce a hybrid, or more properly, a cross 
between the salmon and brook trout. It is quite probable 
that such a mixture may form a desirable addition to our 
already varied stock of native fishes, partaking perhaps of 
the fine edible qualities of both the migratory and the lacus- 
trine species. Mr. Wilmot, the celebrated Canadian fish- 
culturist, produced at his works at New Castle, Ontario, as 
long ago as 1868, a most successful result by impregnating 
the eggs of a female salmon-trout with the milt of a male 
grilse. (The grilse, although not a fully matured salmon, 
possesses the powers of fecundation.) The cross thus ob- 
tained is of the most promising kind. They may not pro- 
pagate, but if they can be artificially bred in sufficient num 
bers, the improvement is a material one, and the addition 
to our supply of fish food quite important. We have the 
testimony of Prof. Von Seibold and Dr. Gunther for the 
superiority as table food of barren fishes of the salmon fam- 
ily. Their flavor. is excellent, and their flesh more easily 
cured than that of the true Salmonide. ; 
That fish do interbreed in a natural state and without arti- 
ficial inducement, is abundantly proved by the fact that a 
friend of the writer, (a thorough and venerable angler,) took 
a trout four years ago at the outlet of the Piseco lake, Adi- 
rondacks, which was marked in every respect like an ordi- 
nary brook trout, but had the distinctive forked tail of the 
““Jaker,” or indigenous salmon trout. It was six inches long. 
Now the lakers are never found at the outlet, and are seldom 
taken weighing much less than a pound, certainly not of the 
diminutive size of six inehes long; while the brook trout are 
found in the lakes. This could not have been a young 
laker, for it had the spots, marks and fins of the brook trout. 
Tt seems to be an authentic case of hybridity. 
ae 
The Trepang, or Beche de Mer, a favorite food of the 
Chinese is found in quantity in the islands of New Cale- 
donia. The fishing for this curious creature is in the hands 
of a few individuals. The trepang varies in length between 
a few inches and a yard; is like a fat, ugly worm, two or 
three inches thick, with hardly any interior arrangements. 
Its capture is an easy matter in Bualabio, in fine weather, 
and the best quality is sold in Noumea, on the mainland, for 
£80 per ton. But in China the price is more than double, 
for in the China seas the trepang fishing is a matter of skill, 
patience, and courage. In the months of October and No- 
vember, the Malays equip thousands of junks for the gather- 
ing of these hideous zoophytes on the treacherous coasts, 
where they have to dive or to drag at great depths in order 
to get at their prey. 

ne beetles 
It is at Ouen, in the Australasian group of islands, that 
the huge shells called by the French dbenities (baptismal fonts) 
are found, specimens of which may be often seen in gardens 
in the United States. It is difficult to procure a perfect 
specimen, because the larger valve is always deeply imbedded 
in the corals, with which in the long run it becomes incor- 
porated. The inhabitant of this huge shell usually keeps the 
upper valve open, feeding on everything that the waters bear 
to him; but occasionally, either at the approach of danger, 
or that he may seize his prey, he clashes the two valves so 
violently one against the other that the noise may be heard 
from afar, andis like that of a heavy stone flung upon a hard 
rock. It is not pleasant to contemplate the result of putting 
one’s foot by accident into the toothed apertures which lie 
hidden so harmlessly among the corals. 
pt ee 
Prof. »Agassiz’s establishment at Penikese Island may be 
considered a ‘‘ primary school” compared with the Baird’s 
University at Peak’s Island, in Portland harbor, Maine, for 
to the latter place are flocking the most eminent professors 
of natural history in the country, and the scientific opera- 
tions are of the most elaborate character. The United 
States government has placed a revenue cutter and a tug at 
Prof. Baird’s disposal, and you can imagine what good use 
he will make of them. A large house has been fitted up on 
the island fora laboratory, with every convenience for pre- 
serving, assorting and describing the specimens collected. 
Photographs are taken, drawings made and colored from 
the living objects. A 
—— 
The director of Central Park menagerie reports as fol- 
lows the number of animals on April Ist, of the last three 
years. 
1871. 1872. 1873. 
Quadripeds ws ses sanene esse akceaes 89 =: 102 199 
BINS reer ele elise skins. Rateiole eromiocienaieks 143° «208 ~— 347 
IEC UHLOS = Sy sels eisepetesispeiatencie Sa hai toee 14 11 35 
~ Births during the last year: 2 lions, 1 leopard, 2 pumas, 
1camel aud1 hyena, the last-named animal being (as 1s 
supposed) the first of the species born in the United 
States. A : 
ae, a 
THe Huemut.—The Earl of .Derby received a specimen 
of this animal from Port Famine, in the Straits of Magel- 
lan, described and figured in the Proc. Zool. Soc. 1849, p. 
64, t. XII, as cervus leucotis, and now in the Derby Museum 
at Liverpool. Mr. Bates has sent to the British Museum 
amale and female of the Huemul, which were obtained by 
Don Enrique Simpson in a valley of the Cordilleras, lat. 
468. These have been described, the horns of the male 
figured, and the history of the animal given in detail under 
the name of Huwamela leucotis. 
The animal, like all the American deer, differs from 
the stags of the Old World in having no tarsal gland. 
Eg ee 
Bualabio, one of the most beautiful of the islands of New 
Caledonia, is entirely forsaken by the natives on account of 
the mosquitoes, 
Sish Culture. 
R. Henry Tagg, of ‘‘Ingham Springs,” sends us a des- 
cription of his trout and salmon farm near New Hope, 
Bucks county, Pennsylvania. It was commenced in the sum- 
mer of 1870, and affords another illustration of the fact that 
the propagation of fish is an established industry, and if 
carried on with reasonable intelligence and care, will pay 
largely on the investment. He writes: 
“The spring, which is one of the largest in the State, and 
admirably situated for the purpose of fish culture, having 
ne other waters or streams near it to affect its purity, or 
cause its inundation, flows from under a large walnut 
tree, through a depression or ravine in the land made by the 
wash of the water, at the rate of eighty barrels per minute, 
with a temperature winter or summer, of fifty degrees. To 
contract the flow of watera dam nine feet high has been 
thrown across the ravine, giving a good fall to the hatching 
house and ponds to which it is conducted by terra cotta 
pipes six and twelve inches in diameter. 
The hatching house is built of stone fifty-five feet long, 
thirty-five wide and seventeen to gable-peak. Into this 
house is conducted six inches of water emptying into a filter- 
ing box, and thence along a trough the entire length of the 
building; this trough being tapped at intervals, supplies 
other troughs nine feet long, twenty-eight inches wide 
divided in the center along their length, making a pair each 
thirteen and a half inches in the clear, in which the spawn 
is placed. These troughs empty into others set below them 
of same length, thirty-three inches wide, called nurseries, 
into which the fry are placed after hatching to remain until 
suficiently strong to be placed in the primary ponds thirty- 
four feet long, four feet wide immediately outside of the 
house and through which the water from the nurseries passes. 
The fish are kept in these ponds until late fall, growing in 
size under careful feeding from three to five inches in length. 
They are then placed in ponds sixty by ten feet, and three 
feet deep, to remain until the ensuing fall, again to be 
changed into ponds one hundred by fifteen feet in size, 
and five feet deep. These ponds have attached to them 
spawning races forty feet long by four feet wide, 
supplied with water direct from the spring, which passes 
over gravel placed on course wire screens. The fish 
under the influence of the propagating instinct swim up these 
races and deposit their eggs on the gravel, which, falling 
through the wire screens, lodge on other finer screens placed 
directly under, thus enabling the spawn to be collected with- 
out handling or disturbing the fish. The eggs are then car- 
ried to the hatching house and placed in the first mentioned 
troughs to hatch. This process is accomplished in about 
fifty days. The water is well filtered before passing over 
the eggs, so that any fibre or dirt may not come in contact 
with them. A steady pure stream is made to pass over 
them until hatched. 
The fish when hatched have attached to them a sack 
whieh it brings into the world out of its parent egg. This 
sack supports them for some forty days, when they are fed 
on blood until sufficiently strong to eat finely chopped meat, 
which is increased in coarseness as they grow older and 
larger. The per centage of eggs hatched under ordinary 
care is over ninety, and of those that arrive at maturity is 
not less than seventy-five, while in the wild state the per- 
centage is five and two. 
A distinctive feature of this farm is the raising of salmon. 
It has been beld by pisciculturists that migratory fish would 
not live without being able to return to salt water. The 
experiment was started in April, 1871, when 4000 eggs were 
purchased of 8. Wilmot, Newcastle, Canada. The result 
of the hatching was ninety-two per centage, and the fish 
are now eight and twelve inches in length, and remarkably 
healthly. The Messrs. Thompson & Tagg are so sanguine 
of success in acclimating the salmon to fresh water, that they 
are building a breast for a lake to cover some twelve acres 
with water, and having in some portions a depth of twenty- 
two feet, which they intend stocking with salmon and trout. 
They will this fall experiment in making a hybrid of the 
salmon and trout, which if they succeed will give a new 
variety of food fish well adapted to stocking fresh waters. 
The stock of fish now in the various ponds embraces all the 
various sizes from three inches in length, to twenty inches, 
and number many thousands. The different sizes are kept 
separated as much as possible, as the large devour the 
small. ‘They are regularly fed on offal meat procured from. 
the large meat-packers, the cost of which is the handling 
and freight. The fish can be disposed of in any amount in 
New York markets at seventy-five cents to one dollar per 
pound. The supply has never yet been equal to the demand. 
The ova of the salmon and trout, after fecundation, and 
when the embryo has become sufficiently developed to stand 
handling, can be carried (packed in damp moss) by express 
long distances with reasonable expectation of success in 
hatching. 


—Mr. Buckland seems to cast some doubts as to the old 
story of the surfeit of salmon on the part of apprentices 
and servants in former times. He seems to think that their 
nicety of stomach arose from the fact that the servants were 
fed on fish which were either dead or dying, then salted 
and dried, and that they rebelled against this diet. 
——_>——_ 
—At lake Lucerne, good trout can be caught, but according 
to the account of a recent English fisherman, the large fish 
were only to be had when fished for at night. 
tee has 
—The sturgeon of the Caspian Sea, attains the enormous 
weight of 2500 pounds, the roe weighing alone 800 pounds. 

: Ghe Ziennel. 
HERE seems to have arisen quite a scare in the neigh- 
berhood of Newtown, Long Island,from what is stated to 
be the attacks of wild dogs. Some years ago a number of 
Siberian bloodhounds were brought into the country by a 
German family, and those animals not having been cared 
for, took to the woods, and are said to have lapsed into the 
ferocity of wild animals. In the vicinity of Jamaica they 
have attacked many persons. A hunting party is to be or 
ganized who will make an attempt to exterminate the pack. 
eel en Ee 
Grace Greenwood can talk ‘“‘dog,” and do it charmingly. 
She is in Kansas, at Fort Hays, and though she writes some 
little about the officers, devotes no end of attention to the 
many dogs. See how nicely she describes ‘‘Hod,” a hunting 
dog: ‘‘He is the gentle playmate, the humble slave of the 
beloved children of the household, but in society rather 
blunt and blundering, lacking in delicate tact. It is best not 
to be too familiar with him as his friendship is a little over- 
powering. He imagines that you cannot have too much 
spotted pointer. He leaps up on you and crushes your frills, 
and licks right and left, and collides with you in door-ways, 
and backs up against you, and sits down on you, and thrashes 
you with his tail.” Nowa lady who can stand this kind of 
rough fondling and not abuse the dog, is not only the para- 
gon of her sex, but a canopholist to boot, which is about the 
highest praise we can give her. 
ewe ae 
The Ettrick Shepherd pleasantly tells us the of dogs that 
used to accompany their masters to church, in the pastoral 
district in which he lived—how they lay quiet and patient 
during the whole service, till the last psalm was sung, and 
the minister and congregation stood np for the blessing, 
when their delight at the prospect of immediate emanci- 
pation could no longer be restrained, but expressed itself by 
joyous barking. Often have we witnessed such a scene, 
although we never heard a minister advise the people, as 
Hogg relates, to ‘sit still and cheat the dogs.’ Nor do we 
think they could be easily deceived in such a matter. In 
the pastoral districts of Scotland, the number of dogs 
present during divine service, always very much attracts 
the notice of strangers. Many shepherds come to church 
attended by more than one. It is often almost unavoidable 
for them to do so, because at certain seasons of the year 
they must go to the hill and visit their flocks in the morn™ 
ing; and, if possible, they arrange so as to make part of 
this inspection on the way to church, leaving to the last that 
part of the morning’s work which may be thus accomplished, 
It is not always, however, on account of ‘that the dogs are 
brought. The shepherd likes to be always accompanied 
by his dog, and the dog likes to be with his master. By 
frequently attending his master to church, he acquires a 
habit not easily to be relinquished. He seems to regard 
going to church as a privilege. 
2 ee 
Mav Doe Brrrs.—The recent cases of hydrophobia. in 
this city, says the Baltimore Amwerican, have excited discus- 
sion concerning the nature and origin of this mysterious 
disease which may contribute something of substantial 
value to medical science. We find that a large number of 
intelligent writers are of the opinion that cases of true hy- 
drophobia are exceedingly rare, and those distressing symp- 
toms which affect patients who have been bitten by dogs 
supposed to be rabid are due in a large measure to the influ- 
ence of the imagination upon the nervous system. There 
was a death in this city some time since which would seem 
to confirm this latter hypothesis. A robust man of middle 
age was bitten by a dog, which may or may not have been 
rabid. He professed at first to have no fears, but secretly 
he brooded over the bite and read everything concerning 
hydrophobia that he could find in medical books and ency- 
clopedias. To drown his apprehensions, he drank intoxi- 
cating liquors to excess. Seven weeks after being bitten he 
was taken‘ill. He died on the seventh day after the con- 
vulsions appeared- The child that was bitten by the same dog 
the same time did not go mad, and has continued in perfect 
health to this day. 
There was another case of hydrophobia, however, in 
South Baltimore some two or three years ago, in which the 
imagination could have had no possible influence. A little 
boy about seven years of age was bitten. The little boy 
paid no attention to the bite, it soon healed up, and the cir- 
cumstance was forgotten both by him and his mother, 
Eight months thereafter he was taken with a spasm; a phy- 
sician was summoned, who found that the cicatrix of the 
old bite was inflamed, and that a mark extended from the 
wound to the elbow. The child died in five days; all the 
symptoms of hydrophobia were present, and a number of 
physicians who saw the case were satisfied no other known 
disase could have produced them. 
This case seems to establish the theory that the poison, 
when communicated by the tooth of a rabid dog, is held, as 
it were, ina little vescicle or sac which forms about the 
wound, and that it is not absorbed until this receptacle is 
destroyed by the.assimilating processes of nature. If taken 
up by the blood immediately, hydrophobia would result 
immediately. The fact that the wound becomes sore just 
before madness comes on shows that some disintegrating 
process in the cellular structure must be taking place. Great 
faith should be put in the cutting out and cautenzing of 
the wound, for there can be no doubt but that the poison 
remains there a long time before it is absorbed. 

—+- 
—There are three kinds of hawks used in Persia. The kind 
called the cherkh, a strong and handsome bird, is used to 
chase the antelope. The dogs and bird are slipped simulta- 
neously, and hunt in unison. The hawk attacks the anti- 
lope, striking at his head and eyes, so crippling it that it 
falls an easy victim to the hountls, which could not other- 
wise approach it. Does are principally picked out for sport, 
as the birds may be hurt by the antlers of the buck ante- 
lope. 
————+>"———_. ‘ 
—Dogs are used in France to retrieve the lost balls at the 
Jeu de mail the old game of pall-mall. As they are wooden 
balls the dogs cannot hurt them. 
