4th. That such portions of the glacier as were pushed over the tops of these hills, or through the narrow valleys between them, conformed in some degree to the slope of the surfaces over which they moved.

5th. The erosion effected by the glacier was chiefly in the softer rocks of the country; the harder ones resisting the attritive power of the ice, and preserving with comparatively little change their Pre-glacial outline.

ON THE FOOD AND HABITS OF SOME OF OUR MARINE FISHES.

BY PROFESSOR A. E. VERRILL.

When we consider the great importance and extent of our fisheries, it seems very remarkable that so little reliable information has been recorded concerning the habits, even of our most common and important species of fishes. It is certainly true that the habits of fishes, and especially of marine fishes, are more difficult to observe than those of birds and beasts, but this ought not to be a sufficient excuse at the present day, for the marked neglect of this department of Natural History. The nature of the food of the more abundant species, even including those that are most commonly sold as food, is still very imperfectly known. Observations must be made in great numbers in various localities and at all seasons of the year before we can obtain adequate knowledge of this subject.

During several years past I have improved such opportunities as have occurred to make observations of this kind, and although they are very incomplete, and often isolated, I am induced to present some of the facts thus ascertained, hoping that the attention of others may be directed to the same subject.

While spending a few days at Great Egg Harbor, on the coast of New Jersey, in April of this year, I dissected the stomachs of many specimens of the common fishes, which were at that time being taken in seines in the shallow water of the bay near Beesley's Point. The following were the principal results, in regard to their food. The Striped-bass, or 'Rock' (Roccus lineatus Gill) had its stomach filled with large quantities of shrimp (Cran

gon vulgaris) unmixed with any other food. This shrimp is very abundant on all sandy bottoms in shallow water along the whole coast, from Labrador to Cape Hatteras, and seems to contribute very largely to the food of many of our most valuable fishes.

The White Perch (Merone Americana) contained the same shrimp in abundance.

The Weak-fish (Cynoscion regalis Gill), called 'Blue-fish' at that locality, had its stomach filled with the same Crangon.

The King-fish (Umbrina regalis) called 'Hake' on the New Jersey coast, contained nothing but Crangon vulgaris.

The Toad- or Oyster-fish (Batrachus tau) is almost omnivorous. The stomach is large and usually distended with a great variety of food. Young edible crabs (Callinectes hastatus Ordw.) up to two inches across, Crangon vulgaris, and the common prawn (Palamoa vulgaris Say) were its principal articles of diet at that locality; but pipe-fishes (Syngnathus Peckianus) six inches long, and the common black Nassa (Ilyanassa obsoleta) were often found in their stomachs, as well as various young fishes of other species, among which were specimens of the Anchovy (Engraulis vittata). The toad-fish is, therefore, a fish that should not be encouraged.

The Shad (Alosa tyrannus Gill) contained large quantities of fragments of small crustacea, chiefly a small shrimp-like species (Mysis Americanus Smith) which was also captured alive in tide-pools on the salt marsh. Shad from the mouth of the Connecticut River, taken in May, contained the same, or another allied species of Mysis. Some of the shad had also fragments of eel-grass (perhaps accidental) mixed with the crustacean frag

ments.

The Hickory Shad' (Meletta Mattawocca), the young called 'Herring' at the locality, were also filled with comminuted crustacea, among which the common shrimp (Crangon vulgaris) could be recognized most frequent.

The Moss-bunker or Menhaden (Brevoortia Menhaden Gill), invariably had its stomach and voluminous intestine filled with the soft, oozy mud-containing a large proportion of organic matter-which abounds in the quiet part of this and all similar bays along the coast. This fish appears, therefore, to obtain its nutriment by swallowing the mud and digesting the organic particles contained in it, a mode of feeding for which its complex digestive apparatus and toothless mouth are specially adapted. Many

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marine worms, bivalve mollusks, and echinoderms feed upon the same kind of food, which is everywhere abundant. The Mossbunker is often infested by a large parasitic Lernean (Lernocera radiata Les.) which buries its star shaped head deeply in the flesh.

The Summer Flounder (Chaenopsetta ocellaris) contained an abundance of shrimps (Crangon vulgaris and Mysis Americanus). In one specimen we found a full-grown Gebia affinis Say.

The Spotted Flounder (Lophopsetta maculata Gill) feeds largely upon crustacea of various kinds. Many specimens contained large quantities of shrimps and prawns (Crangon vulgaris, Palamon vulgaris and Mysis Americanus), the latter often making up the bulk of the contents of the stomach. In addition to these, Gammarus mucronatus Say, and Gebia affinis Say, were sometimes found. The Gebia we obtained in considerable numbers by digging them out of their long, crooked burrows at low-water mark, near Mr. Peacock's hotel at Beesley's Point. The burrows, which are made in a tenacious clay soil, often with decaying sea-weed beneath, are from half an inch to nearly an inch in diameter, with smooth walls. depth and very long and tortuous. The Gebia has a distant resemblance to a young lobster about two or three inches long. The real lobster was not found on the New Jersey coast. The species of crustacea found in the fishes above named, are all common in the shallow waters of the bay among eel-grass, with the exception of the Crangon vulgaris, which frequents open sandy bottoms, living half buried in the sand, with which its colour exactly accords, furnishing an excellent illustration of imitative adaptation for protection.*

They are several feet in

Ophidium marginatum DeKay. This species appears to be

Many other crustacea of our coast afford similar instances. Palæmon vulgaris by its transparency and peculiar tints is scarcely distinguishable among eel-grass; Idotaa irrorata imitates in all its varied patterns of colour the eel-grass and sea-weeds on which it lives; I. cæca imitates the color of sand; two species allied to Sphæ roma imitate the colours of the rocks and white barnacles among which they live; Crangon boreas of the northern coast, imitates the colours of the red Nullipores among which it secks concealment, as do also several species of Hippolyte, Chiton ruber, C. marmoreus, Ophiopholis aculeata and Ophioglypha robusta. Numerous other instances might be given.

very rare and its habits little known. We dug two specimens out of the sand near low-water mark, where they burrowed to the depth of a foot or more. When placed upon moist sand they burrowed into it, tail foremost, with surprising rapidity, disappearing in an instant.

At Fire Island on the southern side of Long Island, Mr. S. I. Smith observed last August a species of worm (Heteronereis) of a reddish colour and two or three inches long, swimming in large. numbers at and near the surface. These were at that time the

favourite food of the Blue-fish (Temnodon saltator).

At Eastport in Maine, and at Grand Menan, during several years past, I have made many observations on this subject, but mostly relating to fishes of which the habits are better known, like the cod, hake, haddock, etc.

The Wolf-fish (Anarrhicas vomerinus) is not at all particular as to its food. At Eastport I took from the stomach of a large one at least four quarts of the common round sea-urchin (Euryechinus Dröbachiensis,), most of them with the spines on, and many of them quite entire. From another I took an equal quantity of a mixture of the same sea-urchin and the large whelk (Buccinum undulatum). Many of the latter were entire or but slightly cracked.

The Sculpins not unfrequently swallow entire, large specimens of several crabs (Cancer irroratus, Hyas coarctatus, etc.)

The Haddock is addicted to the same habit, but is a general feeder, swallowing all sorts of mollusca, worms, fishes, etc.

The Herring (Clupea elongata) in the Bay of Fundy feeds very extensively, at least during all the months when I have observed them (June to November), upon several species of Mysis and of Thysanopoda, called 'shrimp' by the fishermen, which swim free, at and near the surface, in extensive 'schools,' and are persistently pursued by the herring. The commonest species, apparently a Thysanopoda, is about an inch and a half long, of a pale reddish colour. The species of Mysis are smaller and paler; the two genera often occur together. Young Pollock or Coal-fish, four to ten inches long, pursue the same species in large schools, often coming around the wharves of Eastport in great numbers in eager pursuit of their prey, and by leaping out after them, produce a great commotion in the water. When thus pursued the Thysanopoda will leap out of the water to the height of a foot or more. The common Sebastes, or Red Perch,

at Eastport, feeds upon the same species when they come around the wharves, but probably does not pursue them to the same extent as the herring and pollock.-The American Naturalist.

NOTE ON THE FOOD OF THE SALMON.-The salmon is a greedy feeder while in the salt-water. Having examined large numbers of these fish just taken from the nets at several of the fisheries on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, I have uniformly found them to be gorged with food, -as heavily gorged and with the same food as were the cod-fish and other ground-feeders taken in the same neighbourhood at the same time. Large shoals of small fish visit these coasts during the summer and autumn; sometimes of sand-launce (Ammodytes sp.), sometimes of smelts (Osmerus mordax Gill), more frequently of capelin (Mallotus villosus Rich.), and these form the staple food of all the larger fish. I have taken as many as twenty-five capelins from the stomach of a salmon, besides a quantity of half-digested matter. The spawn of the echinoids is said to be largely eaten by the salmon, and to account for the colour of his muscle; be that as it may, doubtless nothing juicy and palatable comes amiss to him, and his condition shews that he feeds to good purpose. On the other hand, I have never found any food whatever in the intes tines of a salmon taken in the fresh-water; one or two small flies occasionally, or a winged bug, probably taken in sport, and more frequently intestinal worms, formed the sole contents of the collapsed stomach and intestinal canal. From lack of food or otherwise, his stay in our Lower Canada rivers is evidently a prolonged fast, during which he lives on his tissues, consuming them some. times even to dissolution.

D. A. WATT.