out all
intruders.

I have, as I say, noticed this beautiful instinct of the sun-fish for
the perpetuity of her species more particularly in the lakes of this
region; but doubtless the same habit is common to these fish in other
waters.

William L. Stone.

Jersey City Heights, N.J.

* * * * *

ANCIENT LAKE DWELLINGS.

Among the many traces which man has left of his existence in long past
ages on the face of the earth, says a correspondent of the _Scotsman_,
none are more interesting and instructive than the lake dwellings of
Switzerland and other countries, which have been discovered within the
last fifty years or so. Although these relics of the past are far more
modern than those which we referred to in a late article on "Primeval
Man," and are probably included within the range of Egyptian and
other chronologies, yet they stretch far beyond the historic period,
so far as Europe is concerned, and throw a flood of light on the
habits of our ancestors, or at any rate predecessors, in these
regions. We are tolerably well acquainted with the history of the Jews
when David worked his way up from the shepherd's staff to the royal
scepter, or when Joshua drove out the Canaanites and took possession
of their land, but of what was going on in Europe in these times we
have hitherto had no knowledge whatever. These lake dwellings,
however, were in all probability inhabited by human beings somewhere
about the time when the events we have referred to took place, and may
have been inhabited before the earlier of them.

The first hint we had of the existence of these remarkable dwellings
was obtained in 1829, when an excavation was being made on the shore
of a Swiss lake. Some wooden piles, apparently very old, and other
antiquities were found by the workmen. Not much attention, however,
was paid to this discovery till 1854, when a Mr. Aeppli drew attention
to some remains of human handiwork found near his house, in part of
the bed of a lake which had been left dry during a season of great
drought. The workmen employed in recovering some land from the lake
found the heads of a great many wooden piles protruding through the
mud, and also a number of stags' horns, and implements of various
descriptions. Stimulated by this discovery, search was made in various
lakes, and the result was truly astonishing. In every direction
remains of the habitations of prehistoric man were discovered, a