CARP OUSTING WILD DUCK.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 28, 5 April 1907, Page 6

CARP OUSTING WILD DUCK.

ITweletHM Themaelvira, They Have Destroyed *lic WiM Rice Flefld« in Ontario, Canuda.

The singular complaint comes from various pails of northern Ontario that fish are responsible for tho disappearance of certain kinds of pa me. In localities which were formerly noted for the excellent duck shooting which they offered the birds are now not to be had at all.

The ducks, geese and other aquatic birds wore formerly in the habit of frequenting the largo fields of wild rice in the lakes and streams of parts of Ontario, but now these fields have been, in many instances, destroyed by the Cerman carp, which has found its way into these waters. The vegetarian diet of this detestable fish not only ruins Ihe flavor of its own flesh, but exhausts the food supply of some of the most desirable forms of feathered game, says the \ew York Run.

The . Ontario inspector of fishoricß, who has been in northern Ontario for the last fewweeks, reports that the German carp has not only become dangerous to oilier tbh, as has been frequently claimed, but that in Cook's bay. Lake Simeoe, where there were formerly hundreds of acres of wild rice, not a snear of (bat plant is to be seen to-day, The same is Irne of the Holland rivo'r, where there were at one time 1.500 acres of rice. The carp have eaten it roof, branch and seed.

The almost incredible port of it is that the li-li havo entirely destroyed the fields in one yi\ar. The. aquatic birds which visit the locality, finding that all their usual feeding grounds have disappeared. cut short their visit anil move away in search of others. The local sportsmen eomplnin, too, that the carp have attacked the beds of wild celery, and that they, too, are almost completely destroyed. It remains to be seen what the effect of this wholesale destruction of aquatic vegetation will he upon the frame fishes of the locality. The fishery overseer of the district declares that it is a question whether the spawn of (he muskalhmgo can be protected and developed without the rice beds. He does not accuse the carp of eating the eggs of the other fish, hut states that they keep the water continually disturbed, and that to their presence in these waters must he attributed the decrease in the number of muskallonge frequenting them for spawning purposes. A Monster Mushroom, '■ Wei jib three pourals fonr ounces, circumference forty-five inches, is the description of another monster mushroom which has been gathered at Braconaish, Norwich, England* _ ° ,wkA4l