colour of the clays is observable. They here vary from a pale foxcolour to a warm reddish brown tint. The colour is not derived from the red granite of these hills, for this rock is too hard to have yielded much to the grinding action of glaciers; moreover, the red tint is more pronounced to the east and north of the granitehills than to the south of them. We must look then to some other cause for the red colour of the surface clays in Acadia. So far as New Brunswick is concerned I believe it is due to the destruction of red and chocolate-coloured shales of the Carboniferous System. Such soft rocks as these would yield readily to the erosive action of glaciers, and so might be expected to impart their colour to the detritus swept along with the ice. Strong ocean currents following the direction of the striæ could scarcely have hollowed out the low valleys which these shales are now seen to occupy, without sweeping the detritus out to the west as well as to the east of the granite hills. But as I have already stated the western clays are all of a grey colour. Much less will such currents account for the presence of these clays on the tops of the hills in question. If the aid of ice-bergs be invoked to push the debris of a sinking continent up the hill sides, we do not seem nearer a solution of the difficulty, than if the distribution of the clays were attributed to current alone. Bergs, no doubt, may have carried erratics from the northern hills across the Coalfield to this point, but such an agency seems inadequate to explain the presence of the red clays-replete as they are with countless fragments of slate and sandstone, swept up from valleys 800 or 900 feet below-on the summit of these hills. Had ice-bergs, driven southward by the polar current, forced these stones up the northern slopes of the hills during a period when the land was slowly sinking, one would expect to find the accom panying clays sorted out and carried down to lower levels. Such a current, too, must have been powerful enough to drive across these summits bergs, which, on sliding down their southern declivities would score the ledges on that side down to the sea level. Indications of southward drift are encountered at Bald Mountain,* the highest eminence in the central part of the Southern counties.

Gesner in his first report on the Geology of N. B. (1839), page 76, gives 1120 feet as the height of this hill. It is at the eastern extremity of a spur of the intrusive granite of Charlotte County, which extends along the dividing line between King's and Queen's Counties.

On its top are numerous fragments of coarse gray diorite and hypersthenite mingled with the red granite of the mountain, which must have been carried up a steep slope from ledges 500 feet below the summit. Westward of the hill there is a broad gap in the range, to which the descent from the mountain top is nearly as steep as it is on the north. Through this opening icebergs would have found an easy passage to the low-lands south of the hills without being compelled to ascend the mountain.

The influence of the soft carboniferous shales upon the colour of the Boulder and Champlain clays of the district to which the fourth group of striæ belongs, is even more noticeable than their effect upon that of the granite country. The four longitudinal valleys which here terminate in the valley of the St. John river, like the harbours to which I have alluded, ante-date the Carboniferous age, and are occupied to a greater or less extent by Carboniferous strata. This is more especially the case at the upper ends of the valleys, for at the lower ends, where they connect with the valley of the St. John, denudation has swept away the greater part of these deposits. In this way beds of soft slates of the St. John group (Primordial) are usually revealed in the valleys, the dividing ridges being in most cases hard rocks of the Huronian and Laurentian systems. The slates of the St. John group lying in these narrow valleys, while they have evidently contributed to the formation of the surface clays, do not appear to have deepened their colour materially, or caused them to approximate in tint to the gray clays of western Charlotte County. In the large areas of red, gray and chocolate-coloured shales of the Lower Carboniferous formation, about the upper ends of these valleys, a continental glacier would find ample scope for extensive erosion; hence it is not surprising that dark reddish-brown and liver-brown shades should be found to prevail in the Leda or Champlain clays about the city of St. John.

MORAINES. The region over which the Unmodified Drift in southern New Brunswick is spread, is to a great extent forest-clad, and its surface features concealed from view. In the lower districts which are cleared and settled, the drift has been greatly disturbed by the play of strong ocean currents over the surface of the land at the opening of the Champlain epoch. Hence it will be difficult to determine how far the ridges of coarse materials, often many miles in length (denominated Horsebacks) are old moraines, or to what extent they consist of accumulations in

the slack-water of the polar current which swept over the land in Post-pliocene times. All the ridges near the coast which I have examined have been worked over to a considerable depth, and some are stratified throughout. On the northern side of the gravel ridge, known as Pennfield Ridge, which lies on the eastern margin of the gray clay district in Charlotte County, there is said to be a tract covered by heavy beds of granite boulders without any admixture of soil.

CONCLUSIONS.-The observations upon which this paper is founded are too few and imperfect to form the basis of positive conclusions, but I will here summarize the results to which they appear to point.

1st. The present summer climate of a large part of Acadia is such as to compare with that of the region around Lake Superior, where, according to Prof. L. Agassiz and Sir W. E. Logan, glaciers existed during the Drift period. The resemblance in the climatic conditions of the two regions is shown both by their mean summer temperatures and by the distribution of indigenous plants, (this Journal, June, 1869). The authority of Messrs. L. Agassiz and J. D. Dana may be quoted in favour of the former existence of glaciers in southern New England, which enjoys a summer temperature considerably higher than Acadia.

2nd. Some of the phenomena of the drift epoch, such as the direction and position of the glacial striæ, and the distribution of the Boulder-clay, do not appear susceptible of explanation on the hypothesis that icebergs and ocean-currents alone produced them. And it seems reasonable to suppose that a great sheet of ice similar to the continental glaciers of Greenland and the Antarctic regions, which will explain these phenomena, covered the Lower Provinces during the glacial epoch; and that while the general course of this mass was southward toward the then existing ocean, the motion of the deeply buried ice in the bottom of the glacier was partly governed by the configuration of the land beneath it.

3rd. That while the western portion of this icy mass was steadily moving down the Atlantic slope from the table land of northern Maine, and the eastern pushing across the low swell of land which separates the Gulf of St. Lawrence from the Bay of Fundy, the motion of the central portion of the ice-sheet, which could have had but a slight inclination, would have been impeded or nearly arrested by the southern hills of New Brunswick.

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