chickens, pigeons, and sparrows, and dibbled them with a trocar, into the skins of rabbits, puppies, and kittens, where they took root and grew. He then dibbled, in the same manner, the long bristles of the whiskers of cats, &c. into the skin of the stript pigeons, with the same success. He next cut a bunch of feathers from the back of a pigeon, within an inch of the skin, pushed a needle down each stump, till the bird showed symp toms of pain, and on withdrawing the needle, he pushed the bristles of a kitten's whiskers into the hole, where they took root and grew well. Not contented with this, the learned doctor ingrafted successfully, upon his own arm, the hairs of a friend's eyebrow. A claw was next detached from the toe of a pigeon, and ingrafted upon its tail. This was the most wonderful experiment of all; for, though the claw did not itself take root in the tail, it seems to have deposited there the egg of a claw; at least a very fine new claw sprouted out from the same place. Some time afterwards, the feather which had been plucked out to make room for the claw, grew again, and an obstinate contest between the claw and the feather took place, for priority of occupancy, but the feather at last succeeded in expelling the intruder. The doctor, in his next experiment, scalped the head of a pigeon, and having cut a flap from the pigeon's thigh, he fitted it to the first wound, and sewed the edges together. It united and made an excellent scalp, and was soon covered with a fine grove of bristles. He next cut off the nose of a wild rabbit, sewed it on again, and it grew as well as ever. Gigantic Organic Remains. The bones of a non-descript animal of an immense size, and larger than any bones that have hitherto been noticed by naturalists, have been discovered about twenty miles from New Orleans, in the alluvial ground formed by the Mississippi river, and the lakes, and at but a short distance from the sea. They were disinterred by a Mr. W. Schofield, of New Orleans, who spent about a year in this arduous undertaking. A fragment of a cranium is stated to measure twenty-two feet in length; in its broadest part four feet high, and perhaps nine inches thick, and it is said to weigh 1,200lbs. The largest extremity of this bone is thought evidently to answer to the human scapula; it tapers off to a point, and retains a flatness to the termination. From these facts it is inferred that this bone constituted a fin, or fender. One of its edges, from alternate exposures to the tide and atmosphere, has become spongy or porous, but generally it is in a perfect state of ossification. A large groove or canal presents itself in the superior portion of this bone, upon the sides of which considerable quantities of ambergris may be collected, which appears to have suffered little or no decomposition or change by age. It burns with a beautiful bright flame, and emits an odoriferous smell while burning; it is of a greasy consistence, similar to adipocere. It is evident that there was a corresponding fin or fender. The animal, therefore, must have been fifty feet in breadth from one extremity of a fin to the other, allowing for wear and tear, as well as a width of the back proportionate to the length of the fins. There are several of the dorsal vertebræ, and one of the lumbar, and a bone answering to the os coccygis in our anatomy. The vertebræ are sound, and corresponding in size to the largest bone; the protuberances of the vertebræ are three feet in extent; they lead to the supposition that the animal had considerable protuberances on the back; the body of each vertebræ is at least twenty inches in diameter, and as many in length; the tube or calibre for containing the spinal marrow is six inches in diameter: some of the arterial and nervous indentations, or courses, are yet visible. There is a bone similar to our os calcis, one foot in length, and eight inches in diameter. It is stated that, in the place, whence these remains were disinterred, a large carnivorous tooth was found, and had been carried away. It is also stated, that, in the year 1799, many remains of antediluvian creation were taken up near the same place, and shipped to Europe. Mr. Schofield feels the most perfect conviction that he could at a slight expense collect many more. He had been hitherto prevented by the high state of the water from obtaining the whole but there was reason to hope that the skeleton might be completely disinterred. : Salmon Fisheries.-The second report of the select committee of the House of Commons, appointed to take into consideration the state of the salmon-fisheries of Scotland, and those of the united kingdom generally, together with the laws affecting the same, has been officially printed. The report states, that the committee have inquired into the more difficult branches of the subject of the salmon fisheries, and in particular into the important consideration (which is much dwelt upon) of obstructions to the free passage of salmon, between the sea and the upper parts of lakes and rivers, where the spawn is deposited, and the young fish come into life. They urge, that upon such free passage depends the multiplication of the breed-but then the difficulties interposed spring from the 'rights, both real and assumed, of parties who have long been in the habit of placing obstructions across the rivers to catch fish on private accounts, while, from their local impediments, they injuriously affect the general breed. Another class of obstructions arises from the application of water (for mills) to the purposes of manufactures. The committee agree, that the salmon fishery ought to be subordinate to the interests of the latter, and they strongly recommend an inquiry into the foundation of right of individuals exercising the former, suggesting at the same time an accommodation of differences, so as to preserve a free passage for the salmon, and more particularly during the fence months and part of the fishing season. There is some slight difference of opinion in the evidence as to the duration of the time during which the fish ought to be fenced from disturbance; but the general wish comprehends the months of October, November, and December. Lowering the wears, and obvious mechanical alterations safely practicable in their structure, would mitigate, if not remove, many of the objections urged against them in this report. The committee dwell strongly upon the clearing away of all obstructions in the rivers as indispensable to the foundation of the fisheries upon any prosperous plan, and point out the mistaken calculation of individuals in the estimate of their own interests as connected known that several wears were with existing impediments. removed at various times (though not of late years) in the south of Ireland. The committee have also gone into evidence at considerable length, respecting the modes of taking salmon practised in different parts of the kingdom, with a view to ascertain the circumstances attendant on each, for the future consideration of the legislature. In pursuing this branch of the inquiry the end in view has been, to ascertain what modes of fishing are adapted to the greatest variety of circumstances, calculated to secure the largest supply of good fish, and suited to the habits of the animal. The committee state in conclusion, that they cannot refrain from expressing an opinion, that the salmon fisheries are eminently deserving, and stand greatly in need of, the protection of the legislature; and that there is every reason to believe, under the influence of a general law, founded in sound principle, that they might rise to an importance and magnitude hitherto unknown. But how is this law to be framed, until the inquiries into individual rights creating ruinous obstructions, recommended by the committee at the outset, shall have been gone through? And what chance is there, upon so vague a recommendation, of having these inquiries made at all, when the poverty in many instances of the parties is considered -fishermen at the one side, and corporate monopolies at the other; and not the least outline given by the committee of the manner and form in which such investigations should be prosecuted? Perhaps the easiest, and certainly the cheapest, process of conducting this litigation would be by the ordinary mode of indictment for nuisance-a mode by which it is The great, and indeed universal evil complained of throughout the mass of evidence taken before the committee, is the havoc in the breed occasioned by fishing in the tributary streams during the spawning season, and various schemes are suggested by way of dams to prevent the progress of salmon from the large rivers into these streams, and thereby avert the work of untimely destruction which is so severely censured. There is a good deal of contradictory evidence upon the point whether salmon always continue to spawn in the same rivers; the general tendency of the testimony is, however, rather to affirm that fact, and experienced fishermen profess to distinguish with certainty the fish of the several rivers. We have the following curious information respecting the natural history of the salmon. To prove that the grilse and salmon are one species, 66 we marked," says Mr. Mackenzie "in the month of March, 1823, a grilse keip in the river Oykell, by tying a piece of wire round the body of the fish, immediately above the tail, and in March, 1824, we caught the same fish again as a salmon of about 7lb. weight, though it was only 3lb. when we marked it.” Other witnesses confirm to demonstration this evidence as to the identity of the grilse and salmon. The rev. John Fleming gives the following evidence of the fruitfulness and extraordinary precocity of the fish: "Fish are well known to breed long before they have arrived at maturity, and as a proof that they do, it may be stated that at the end of the season the salmon caught in a state fit for spawning are by no means all of the same size; if, then, we are to take size as an index of age, we must arrive at the conclusion that salmon spawn at different ages, and before they have reached their full size. I know, likewise, in reference to another species of the genus which I have enumerated, the spirlin, for instance, that it breeds before it reaches its full size. I have taken a young spirlin, not two inches in length, full of roe, evidently ready or nearly ready for exclusion, along with full grown spirlins about six inches in length. "Have you any knowledge of the number of ova in the roe of a salmon ?—I have never counted the ova myself, and I should think it would be difficult to assign any definite number of ova, the number differing according to the size of an animal and its condition, so that what may be true in a small fish may not be true in a large one, and there may likewise be some individual differences. "Can you state the probable number in a well-grown salmon? Not having counted them myself, I cannot state positively; but I have no hesitation in believing the testimony of experienced fishermen who have counted them, and who have said there are 17,000 or 18,000. "In what places do the salmon spawn?-Generally in shallow fords, with a gravelly bottom. "In fact, may it not be said to be always within the reach almost of destruction?-I should think so. "You have said that your opinion was, that salmon pair; but if the male salmon be killed, would not another male salmon immediately throw its melt over the spawn of the female?-It is well known to poachers, that if in the act of spawning they destroy the male fish, the female fish leaves the bed, and in the deep pools endeavours to find another mate. In that way, poachers, by attending to the operation of one female, may succeed in capturing many males, leaving the female fish undestroyed." It is manifest from the evidence annexed to this report, that the general fisheries in the kingdom have for a number of years been gradually declining in value; indeed to an alarming degree, in some places where the population (particularly in parts of Ireland) presses heavily upon the means of subsistence. The same abundance of fish still visits our shores as formerly, but through the complexity, the folly, and partiality of the laws, together with the blind cupidity of individuals, who grasp at present profit, to the injury if not extinction of future supply, the breed is immaturely intercepted, and sacrificed. In some places (Cork, for instance) the greatest injury is inflicted upon salmon, by a prevailing, but most unfounded notion, that the fish is in season the whole year round; and where even hogsheads of the fry (notwithstanding a prohibitory law) have been publicly exposed for sale in the market at three halfpence the dozen. The scarcity of salmon in the present day, compared with its former abundance, is curiously illustrated by an anecdote communicated to this committee by Mr. George Hony, of Edinburgh, who alluding to the present scarcity along the whole line of the Tweed, where salmon was formerly caught in such abundance as to be a principal article of food, states, with reference to that abundance-" So muca, indeed, was this the case, that I have been informed, that in some old indentures between master and servant, it was a common stipulation on the part of the latter, that he should not be obliged to eat salmon more than four times in the week!" The more remarkable fact, too, is, that this mismanagement and consequent decrease has occurred in proportion as larger capital has been embarked in the trade, and greater public and private interests become involved in its success; together with bounties from the legislature for its support, and a variety of other shifts (for they deserve no other name) held out by the government, which have all proved misplaced and abortive. There is a fatality about these fisheries which must puzzle political economists they have had a free trade and a monopoly, and been equally ruined in both. The stake-nets, seem, in many places, to have been a free (or rather a freebooting) trade, as lawless and destructive as that of the seals and grampuses, and yet to have turned to little or no account; and the monopolies are equally declared to have declined in the hands of the corporations. We are now a fish-importing people, while a century has hardly elapsed since Spain, France, and Holland, severally paid very large sums annually for permission to fish on the coasts of this kingdom. Such is the historical fact, eontrasted with the present condition of the British fisheries-a trade which has, in its course, within the last twenty-five years, been an exception to every other in which the United Kingdom has been concerned. GEOGRPAHY, ASTRONOMY, &c. North Pole Expedition. The expedition, it will be recollected, sailed in May, 1824, and very soon encountered the mortifying obstacle of being embayed within mountains of ice crossing Baffin's-bay: they were eighty days encircled with in this icy barrier, and the occurrence took place during our summer months of June, July, and August. They were only twelve days extricated from this position, when the state of the weather, and frozen obstruction of every object around them, rendered it absolutely necessary they should seek winter-quarters, which they did in a small inlet called Port Bowen, on the 1st of September, 1824. In this situation, the crews of the Hecla and Fury remained nearly ten months, during which time they were left entirely upon their own resources, for not a single native visited them in their winter-quarters, nor was the shore which they occupied stocked with the same quantity of game, or indeed animals of any description in the same numbers as in that where the former expedition had wintered, The specimens brought home by the sailors are merely of the common sea-fowl-they had only two of the arctic foxes; they saw none of the native dogs; the white bears, however, abounded, and afforded occasional sport on the ice. It was quite impossible |