DOSSIL ELEPHANT IN ENGLAND.

Yol.I. Page 117. This is a notice (See “ Land and Water/’ No. 57, Feb. 23, 1867) of the skull of the extinct Elephas Primigenius, with its immense tusks in good preservation, which had been discovered near Ilford in Essex, and which is now in the British Museum. I regret I have not space for Mr. Blyth’s valuable remarks.

EFFECTS OF SHOT ON FISH.—Vol. I. Page 142.

“Among the fishermen in Mount’s Bay, Cornwall, I find a belief that fish disappear at the sound of big guns. I have certainly seen a shoal of porpoises disappear on the report of a cannon, without reappearing afterwards, and I have been credibly told that shoals of pilchards invariably go to the bottom during thunder-storms. A fisherman of the bay here recently told me that he has more than once changed from good sport to no sport at all, on the commencement of artillery practice on the bay. One thing is certain, that the increase of artillery practice, and the decrease in the quantity of fish on the inshore here, are going on contemporaneously whether this is a mere coincidence, or cause and effect, I want to know.” M. B.

“When woodcock shooting in Cornwall, the spaniels drove a water-hen into the mill-leat near to where I was standing on its bank. I saw the bird making its way up the bed of the stream, which was about two feet deep. I fired almost vertically, which brought him to the surface, floating on his back. Thinking I had riddled the bird, I at once pocketed him, as dead. Some time afterwards, my friend exclaimed, c There goes a water-hen from under you! ’ and, sure enough, there he was, making off as fast as his cramped legs and bewildered head could carry him, having escaped from my inner pocket. Not a shot was found in the bird’s body \ and I came to the conclusion that the concussion of the

water must have stunned trim, which Mr. Buckland'g thoughtful experiment on the jack proves.” S. S. 8. u In Norway, as soon as the shallow waters are firmly frozen, men go out to look for fish, chiefly pike, through the ice: they strike a hard blow on the ice over the head of the fish with a large wooden hammer. The fish are killed in this way, provided the ice is thick and the water shallow.”— C. W. u I and some of my brother officers have shot fish in the marshes of the Cataragin Biver, Kingston, Canada, while out snipe-shooting. Our practice was, when arriving at any of the innumerable little creeks in those marshes, to look carefully out for the track of a disturbed fish, and fire at it without seeing the fish itself; frequently the result was the fish turned up apparently dead, but if it was not secured it would soon recover. I never saw any shot-marks on these fish. I have shot carp in a pond in Belgium, and without penetration. I made some experiments, years ago, on the penetration of shot in water, by sinking a pine-board at different depths, but I have lost the results.” M. V. “ I was struck with Mr. Buckland’s remark respecting the pike which was stunned with the shot. Beally nothing escapes his observation, which seems as keen as his scalpel. It may interest him to hear that we have a way of killing fish in Sweden, under the ice, much upon the same principle. As soon as ever the lake is covered in the autumn, so that the ice on the sides will bear us, we go round, over all the shallows, armed with an axe. The fish here, espe* daily the pike and perch, always come up into the rushes at the sides of the lakes at the end of autumn. We go cautiously over the ice (four to six inches thick), on all the shallows, and we can see anything at the bottom. The fish appear to lie close up to the ice (I suppose for the sake of air), and directly we see one we walk cautiously over him, and give the ice a thundering blow with the back of the axe, just over the fish’s head. This turns it up at once, and then, as quick as we can, we chop a hole through the ice, and

lug out the fish; we have to he pretty handy though, for the fish, which is only stunned, soon gets second wind. ’ fish: it is capital fun. The seasonThis we call to 6 dofna for this kind of poaching does not, however, last long, and I never see anyone try it except just for a week after the ice will first bear, for I fancy then the fish all go back to the deeps.”—An Old Bushman. u Being at one time of my life much given to diving, I made a series of experiments on sound, with a view of ascertaining whether fishes, under the water, could hear a sound on shore. I got some forty men and lads to stand by the river-side, and when I was seen at the bottom of the river, to give a unanimous shout; this was repeatedly done, but I never heard the least sound. I then directed a blow to be struck on the water with a stick, and was as nearly stunned as a fish might be, though my head was at least eight feet from the surface \ indeed, I thought at first that some one had played me a trick—dived after me—and hit me on the head. The conducting power of water is really wonderful, for the stroke of an oar at a mile’s distance seems just over head, and a heavy footstep on the bank communicates a perceptible and startling jar to the ears. It is a very good thing for fishes that the auditory organs are so imperfect, for if they were as sensitive as ours, the denser medium in which they live would communicate vibrations of such intensity that the brain would not be able to perform its functions rightly.” J. G. Wood. 66 1 once met a man fishing in a small stream, who told me that in the summer, when the water was low and the trout took refuge under the big stones, that he was in the habit of striking the uncovered tops of the said big stones, when the trout beneath them would almost immediately come 6 belly up ’ to the surface.”— Voyageur.

“When at St. John’s, Newfoundland, I was much interested in the matter of submarine blasting which was being carried on at the entrance to the harbour at a depth of from eighteen feet to twenty-four feet, I observed that

quite a number of fish, chiefly of the herring tribe, were killed by the explosion of the charges of powder, which, I believe, were on an average of seventy pounds. The fish floated to the surface quite dead, but not mutilated. In my opinion the fish were attracted by the brightness of the tin cases which contained the powder.” C. (Halifax, Nova Scotia.) u About all large tanks in India there is generally a superannuated shikari with an equally superannuated matchlock, who perches himself on hot afternoons, like a kingfisher, on some branch overhanging a deep sunny corner, where the big fish are lazily floating near the surface. Presently a circle of little bubbles on the water shows where a gigantic * sork ’ or ( rhoe ’ is nearing the air. Our kingfisher blows his match, and as the outline of the monster gets distinct, bang! he fires at his head. Sometimes the bullet hits the fish and kills it, but oftener it sinks stunned to the bottom, in which case the sportsman slips off the tree and plunges in after it, lugs it out, and despatches it with his axe before it has recovered its senses. I have passed many a lazy evening shooting these big fish. Shells are the best things to use for this sport, if sport it can be called. On a cold day the fish will not rise nearer the surface than within a foot or two, and owing to the refraction it is difficult to kill them with a common ball. A shell, however, always explodes on the water, and generally stuns the fish. The natives show their knowledge of an important principle of gunnery by using a reduced charge for this sort of shooting. There is a certain velocity adapted for the penetration of water, beyond which an increase of velocity is disadvantageous. I was much amused once at the disappointment of a gentleman who was very positive that he could shoot three feet of water with his smoothbored gun. I laughed at the idea, and an experiment was accordingly arranged. A big bathing-tub was to be fired into perpendicularly from the top of a house about three yards high, when I found the tub could only accommodate

two and a half feet of water. I rather trembled for my credit, but was reassured by seeing my opponent loading his gun with a double charge of powder. The firing place was so close to the water that he got thoroughly splashed as he fired both his barrels into the tub, but neither bullet penetrated the bottom. Had he used a single charge he would probably have succeeded with only two and a half feet.” J. F. (Central Provinces, India.)

ENOEMOUS JACK— Vol. I. Page 146.

Martin, the water bailiff at Maam at the head of Lough Corrib, told me of an enormous jack which he had found floating dead near a bed of rushes. He carried him home on his back, and he was such a huge fish that his tail then dragged along the ground behind. We measured Martin, and found that the length of the jack would be about 5 ft. 8 in. He did not know the weight of the fish, but anyhow il it made plenty of kitchen for the whole of his family for nearly a week.” He thinks the jack must have died from old age, as he did not see any marks, or wounds, or injury about him. An enormous jack was lately prepared by Mr. Spencer, of Great Portland Street j this fish was found dead in a pond belonging to the owner of Kineton Park, Warwickshire, fixed in between a stake and the bank. His length was 4 ft. 1 in., and his weight was said to be 37J lb.

As regards the relative proportion of the weight to the length of fish, my friend, Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton, writes me as follows 16 1 send you a formula which was com-municated to me the other day for deducing the weight of a salmon from his dimensions, in the hope that you may be able to test its accuracy. I have only had one opportunity, and the calculation came out very near the truth. ( Given the length and girth of a salmon in inches: to ascertain his weight, add one-third of the length, multiply by the square of the girth, and divide by 1000; the product wrill be the

weight in pounds.’ Of course accuracy cannot he expected in a calculation of this description, and the result must depend very much upon the shape of the fish; hut i helieye it will give as good an approximation as the formula for ascertaining the weight of cattle hy their dimensions.”

On the steamer which runs from Galway to Cong, a gentleman told me that a man had caught a pike in Lough Cong which he himself had seen weighed in the scales, and it turned the beam at 47 lh.

MONSTER PIKE AT ESHER.

Ewen Macdonald, Esq., Her Majesty’s Agent at Clare-mont, was kind enough to write me on Monday, September 30, to say that an enormous pike had been found, September 28, floating dead in the ornamental waters at Esher.

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