a cautious reticence on the point that was altogether praiseworthy, for really and truly nobody did know or could say anything satisfactory in explanation of the mystery. Was it owing to the multiplication of the number of steamers, screw and paddle, constantly coming and going, and like Tennyson's "years" at their unamiable meeting, "roaring and blowing," keeping the waters in perpetual turmoil, and scaring the fish from their usual haunts? Such an hypothesis could be seriously entertained for a moment only to be rejected. Could it be owing to any cyclical meteorological changes, or to anything anomalous in the order of the seasons? Admitting that something of this kind has been going on for some time, and is still going on, it was readily seen, nevertheless, that it was all too inappreciable and remote to have had the result complained of--to cause that in the waters of "the great deep" which it had failed to effect in any noticeable way on the dry land. Or, was it that the fish themselves, by reason of their numberless enemies, afloat and ashore, were actually diminishing in numbers, and so necessarily becoming scarcer from year to year? No one, however, knowing anything of the economy of the fish in question, could for a moment entertain such an idea. The fecundity of these fish is something incredible. We once had the roe of a female cod, that weighed (the fish) six lbs., first boiled hard, and then divided with tolerable exactness into so many ounces, and counting the number of eggs in one ounce, and multiplying by the number of ounces in the entire roe, we found, at a rough calculation, that in that single fish, of no great size, there were upwards of a million and a half of eggs--each egg destined to become a fish, and, barring accidents, to attain to the average age and size of its kind. But however we may try to account for the scarcity of these fish in our lochs for several years back, it is an agreeable duty to have to record that during the past winter and spring there has been a marked improvement alike in the quantity and quality of the fish caught all along the western seaboard. Not only have the common fish of our own coasts been taken in considerable numbers, but several kinds of fish formerly known only as occasional visitors to our shores have this season been plentiful in all our lochs, and have well repaid the diligence of their captors. The long-nosed skate, for example, formerly a rare fish with us, has this season been common. It is known to ichthyologists as the Raia chagrinea, and is not only excellent eating, but from its enormous liver supplies a large quantity of very fine oil, that burns with a clearer and steadier light than that of any other fish with which we are acquainted. We are convinced, by the way, that, used medicinally, it would be found equally efficacious with cod liver oil in all cases where the latter is recommended, whilst its rather agreeable taste and