. The aquarium . River emptied into theHudson within a mile or two of theCollege. Rockland Lake and Haver-straw Bay were on the opposite shore,whilst in the hills back of us were nu-merous ponds and streams aboundingwith life. Near the mouth of the Cro-ton River lay the old Van CortlandManor House, on the lawn of whichwas a fish-pond, constructed by someof the early Dutch occupants and wellstocked with gold-fish. During aheavy freshet one spring, some years previous to the time I am talking of,the banks of this pond gave way, dis-charging its waters and its contentsinto the Croton River. As a
. The aquarium . River emptied into theHudson within a mile or two of theCollege. Rockland Lake and Haver-straw Bay were on the opposite shore,whilst in the hills back of us were nu-merous ponds and streams aboundingwith life. Near the mouth of the Cro-ton River lay the old Van CortlandManor House, on the lawn of whichwas a fish-pond, constructed by someof the early Dutch occupants and wellstocked with gold-fish. During aheavy freshet one spring, some years previous to the time I am talking of,the banks of this pond gave way, dis-charging its waters and its contentsinto the Croton River. As a conse-quence of this, the gold-fish took uptheir quarters in the Croton and Hud-son Rivers, and it was no unusual thingwhen the fishermen were drawing theirseines in this vicinity, for a number ofgold-fish to be among the fish were generally thrown back, butanyone on hand at the time could al-ways procure what he wanted, aud I,at various times, picked out such as Ichose. These fish had also from time. to time been taken by boys to variousponds in the hills, so that there is nolack of gold-fish in the waters of West-chester county. I may here mention,that further up the Hudson River asimilar fish pond years ago gave way,well stocked with the European Carpthat had been brought from have also taken to the HudsonRiver, and are from time to time nettedthere. Being of the same family, theyhave crossed with the gold-fish inbreeding, and the result is that a mot-tled fish is frequently to be seen, someof which bear very little of the dis-tinctive red that marks the gold-fishproper. I have seen the latter in thelagoons along the railway in that vicin-ity, eight or nine inches long, and al-though it may seem scarcely credible,I have seen them lying in shoals nearthe surface of the water on a bright,sunny day, jd such abundance that the THE AQUARIUM, OCTOBER, 1895. surface appeared to assume where theywere, a red tinge. The Hudson River is famous for itseels, and
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