attention called to the stone cat-fish (Noturus gyrinus), from the Delaware Water Gap, Warren County, New Jersey. Besides the specimens from this locality in the Museum of the Philadelphia Academy we have seen one living specimen in an aquarium, taken in the Assunpink Creek at its mouth. This is the only living specimen taken in New Jersey that we have ever seen, but learn that it is common in some of the rocky creeks in the northern part of the State.

The Eel (Anguilla tenuirostris), as elsewhere we suppose, is abundant in all our water courses. A careful examination of specimens from various localities, and comparison of reports of local fishermen, tend to the fact (?) that the largest eels are to be found in the rivers and streams directly tributary to them; and that in isolated mill-ponds far distant from the main water courses, they are not so large or numerous. We do not admit that such is really the case, but it does appear to be true. The experience of other observers would be interesting to know; and how large do our various species of Anguilla grow, as found in fresh-water? In the Delaware and its many small tributaries we find the Lamprey (Petromyzon nigricans) very abundant. Although occasionally found sticking to the sides of large fish, shad, rock-fish, white-perch and chub, they do not appear to feed upon fish thus exclusively. We have frequently found a large quantity of them adhering to the carcasses of dogs and other drowned animals, and judge that they subsist upon dead, rather than living animal matter. In an aquarium they adhere to the glass sides and remove the green scum very effectually, but whether they devour it or not we could not ascertain. We have known the Lampreys to suck their way up the facing of mill dams and so wander far up from the river. In such cases they bury themselves in the mud, in the winter, as do eels instead of following the river out into the sea.

VARIATIONS IN NATURE.

BY THOMAS MEEHAN.

THE idea that art has made most of the variations we find in gardens is far removed from the truth. It has done much to prevent a true knowledge of the origin of species. Art has done little towards making variations; it has only helped to preserve the natural evolutions of form from being crowded out. There is scarcely any species of wild plants but will furnish numberless variations, if we only look for them. To-day I examined a large patch of ox-eye daisies (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum). The first impression is that they are remarkably uniform, yet there were some with petals as long only as the width of the disk; others with petals double the length. In some the petals taper to a narrow point; in others they are tridentate on the apex. Again, some flowers have petals uniformly linear. Others have them tapering at both ends. Some have recurved and others flat petals. In one plant the scales of the involucre were very much reflexed, a very striking difference from the usually closely appressed condition.

I have frequently found that these very common things which nobody looks at, furnish as many new facts to an enquiring mind, as the rare species which every one loves to

see.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE FAUNA OF THE SOUTHERN ALLEGHANIES.

BY PROFESSOR E. D. COPE.

I. On the so-called Alleghanian Fauna in General. The terms Canadian and Alleghanian, have been applied by Pro

fessors Verrill and Agassiz† to faunal associations of species of animals, characteristic of Canada and adjacent territory, and the Middle and Eastern United States, etc. The former author, in the later essay quoted, attempts to define these faunæ in a more or less precise manner, regarding the southern boundary of the first as "coincident with a line which shall indicate a mean temperature of 50° Fahrenheit, and the southern boundary of the second, to be the line of 55°." In accordance with this view the southern boundary of the Canadian fauna, commencing at the mouth of the Penobscot River in Maine, extends parallel with the coast into New Brunswick, and returning through middle Maine passes south of Moosehead Lake and the White Mountains, along the eastern base of the Green Mountains to the south, and up their western foot to the river St. LawFrom near Montreal it turns to the south-west, and, passing through Lake Ontario, crosses Michigan from St. Clair to Milwaukee, and rises following the valley of the Mississippi northwards. The Adirondack Mountains were regarded as a portion of this fauna, surrounded, like an island, by the Alleghanian.

rence.

The southern boundary of the Alleghanian was traced from near Norfolk, Virginia, up the valley of the James River to the Alleghany Mountains, southward along their base to their termination in Georgia, and then north again along their western slope to Kentucky and the Ohio River. The Southern, or Louisianian, fauna included the lower portion of the Ohio basin, and an undetermined extent of that of the Mississippi north of the latter. The boundary line then descended to the south to the west of that river. I may suggest here that the most northern habitat of the Siren lacertina might prove to be near the northern extreme of the boundary in question. This point, so far as I am aware, is

• Proceedings Essex Institute, III. 136. Proceedings Boston Society of Natural History, 1866, 260.

↑ Nott and Gliddon, “Types of Mankind,” 1853.

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50

Alton, Illinois, from which place I have a specimen of that species.

My object at present is to show that the region, including the crest of the Alleghany Mountains to their southern extremity in Georgia, possesses a fauna in many respects entirely different from that of the southern two-thirds of the Alleghanian fauna as defined by Verrill, and in some respects as similar to the Canadian. My conclusions are based more on observations on the distribution of birds than on animals of other classes, as were also those of Professor Verrill. They are very imperfect, and I have no doubt that additional observations will increase the weight of evidence in the direction here pointed out.

Among Mammalia three species may be noticed, namely: Sciurus Hudsonius, Cervus Canadensis, Lynx Canadensis. The first named species is characteristically northern, and little known in the southern part of the above defined Alleghanian fauna. In southern and eastern Virginia it is unknown, as well as in North Carolina and Tennessee. It is, however, not uncommon on the summits and crests of the Alleghanies in both the former states. In North Carolina and southern Virginia it is so restricted to the heights as not even to descend into the mountain valleys. I resided for nearly two months at the Warm Springs, Madison county, North Carolina, and in Henderson county, in the same state, at an elevation of two thousand five hundred feet above the sea, without observing a single individual; yet the inhabitants are well acquainted with them as game of the mountain tops, under the name of the "Mountain Boomer," a name they bear in Virginia, also. This distribution and name are mentioned by Audubon and Bachman in their great work.

The elk is recorded by Baird as having left remains, during human habitation, in West Virginia. Of this fact I was also assured when in the same region. Dr. Hardy, of Asheville, North Carolina, states that horns of the elk were found in

the woods on the Black Mountains at that southern point, when he was younger, and that he is satisfied that its range extended nearly to South Carolina during the human period. This species formerly ranged over the Alleghanian fauna, but is now nearly confined to the Canadian.

Like the red squirrel the Canada lynx extends to the southern limits of the Alleghany ranges, occupying the highest ground, though apparently not so restricted to the elevations as the first named. It is distinguished, by the name catamount, from the Lynx rufus which is called wild cat, and is well known to the hunters. It is known to be a northern species, being unknown in the wilds of the lower country of Virginia and North Carolina, where the L. rufus takes its place. What its southern limit is, in eastern and western Pennsylvania, I am unable to ascertain.

In Giles County, E. Virginia, at an elevation of five thousand feet, I observed in August, 1867, the following species of birds: Junco hyemalis, Dendroca icterocephala, D. Blackburnia, D. coerulescens, D. maculosa, D. virens, Myiodioctes Canadensis, M. mitralus, Parula Americana, Mniotilta varia, Setophaga ruticilla. From the season at which these were observed, they evidently bred in the locality in question. They were most of them abundant.

In the high valley of Henderson county, and on the Black, Rich, and other mountains in southern North Carolina in September, 1869, I observed the following: Junco hyemalis, Vireo solitarius, Dendroca coronata, D. maculosa, D. virens, D. cœrulescens, D. Blackburnia, Parula Americana, Mniotilta varia, Myiodioctes mitratus, Setophaga ruticilla. These were also abundant, and no doubt bred in the localities in question.

These species are enumerated as especially northern forms. They pass Philadelphia in latitude 40° in early spring (April and May), on their way to northern breeding places. Rarely a Setophaga ruticilla breeds in that region, but the great majority accompany the northern Dendrocas and the