The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1903-06-05
FISH FAR FROM HOME.
Wanderers Some times Found in Odd
Places Half Way Round
the Earth.

"One need not resort to tricks in or
der to obtain wonders in ichthy-
ology," said an officer of the fish com
mission in discussing hoaxes on sci
entists, recently referred to in the
Washington Post. eve are constant
ly picking stragglers along the Allan
tic, fish belonging in tropical and
arctic waters that have wandered out
of their course. More have been taken
at Woods Holl, Mass, than at any other
point on our coast, for the reason that
the confguration of Woods Holl and
the neighboring coasts is of charac-
teristic so peculiar that the island
forms sort of natural fish trap.
sit was here some years ago that the
most remarkable event in the history
of ichthyology occurred, when one of
the fishermen caught file fish (Alu-
terra monoceros), Indigenous to the
East Indies and unknown in the wa
tiers of the western hemisphere. The
next year another was taken at the
same place. How did this strange
Asiatic fish, common enough on the
Philippine coasts, reach America?
That is one of the puzzles which sci
ence has yet to solve. The only way
we can account for it is by supposing
that possibly the same fish may in
habit some restricted area in the West
Indian waters, where it has not thus
far been discovered.
"Nor do we need to leave home in
search of archaeological wonders. The
Potomac will, and has already, afford
ed some remarkable cases. Some years
ago the fish commission distributed
spawn of the Lake Superior pike, the
Yarmouth bass, and the Mississippi
channel catfish in the Potomac.
"They have thriven and multiplied
and every now and then some Potomac
fishermen comes in with strange fish,
confident he has caught a rarity. In
every case it turns out that he has
taken some one or other of the varie-
ties which we placed in the Potomac
in 1889. In this way we are able to
tell whether or not the fish we plant
in a stream are thriving. The chan
mel catfish weIplanted in 1889 and heard
no more of them until one day in jan
uary, 1902, when 100 of them were
caught in a net at Georgetown.
Several years after the war we had
a very dry summer. The Potomac fell
below low-water mark and the sea wa
ter encroached further up stream than
had ever been known. With the salt
water came lot of sea fish, and for the
first time in the history of this see
ton fishermen at Fort Washington
caught specimens of the red-mouthed
grunt, spot, whiting, spadefish and
one specimen each of the very curious
toadfish and sea robin.
"But the most remarkable event that
ever took place in the Potomac was in
the summer of 1880, when porpoise
came up stream to point just beyond
the Aqueduct bridge. There he re-
manned, playing and sporting about for
three days, his gambols witnessed by
thousands of people. He seemed to be
afraid of the shadow cast upon the wa
ter by the bridge, and, though appar-
emily anxious to return to sea, hewould
venture down until within few feet
of the shadow and then scurry back,
keeping this up for hours at a time,
to the amusement of the onlookers.
Finally he screwed up courage and
made wild dash under the: bridge,
and when last seen was going down
river at a pace that would have put the
master of an Atlantic liner to shame"