Recognized HTML document

Signals.   273

enclose deep pools of water with no current ; into these the poison is thrown : it intoxicates the fish, which float and are taken by the hand.

Otters, Cormorants, and Dogs.-Both otters and cormorants are trained to catch fish for their masters ; and dogs are trained by the Patagonians to drive fish into the nets, and to frighten them from breaking loose when the net is being hauled in. Cormorants, in China, fish during the winter from October to flay, working from 10 A.M. to 5 P.m., at which hour their dinner is given to them. When they fish, a straw tie is put round their necks, to keep them from swallowing the fish, but not so tight as to slip down and choke them. A boat takes out ten or twelve of these birds. They obey the voice : if they are disobedient, the water near them is struck with the back of the oar ; as soon as one of them has caught a fish, he is called to the boat, and the oar is held out for him to step upon. It requires caution to train a cormorant, because the bird has a habit, when angry, of striking with its beak at its instructor's eye with an exceedingly rapid and sure stroke.

SIGNALS.

Colomb and Bolton's flashing signals, adopted in our Army and Navy, and used in many other countries as well, are eminently suited to the wants of an expedition. Anything may be used for signalling, that appears and disappears, like a lantern, or an opened and closed umbrella, or that moves, as a waved flag or a person walking to and fro on the crest of a hill against the sky. Sound also can be employed, as long and short whistles. Their use can be thoroughly taught in two hours, and however small the practice of the operators, communication, though slow, is fairly accurate, while in practised hands its rapidity is astonishing. The proportion of time occupied by the flashes and intervals is as follows. (I extract all the rest of the article from the pamphlet published by the inventors of the system.)

Flashing ,Signrils, with Flags.-Supposing the short flash to be half a second in duration, the long flash should be fully a second and a half. The interval between the flashes form-