OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 



329 



they carry little stones to build heaps, among which the eggs are 

 laid ; and this species is commonly called Stone-toters (carriers of 

 stone). But I have had ample opportunity to watch the Pomotis 

 in the breeding season every spring for the last eight years. At 

 that time it approaches in pairs the shores of the ponds in which 

 it lives, and selects shallow, gravelly places, overgrown with Potamo- 

 geto?i, water-lilies, and other aquatic plants, in which it begins by 

 clearing a space of about a foot in diameter, rooting out the plants, 

 removing, with violent jerks of its tail, the larger pebbles, carrying 

 away with its mouth the coarser gravel, and leaving a clean spot of 

 fine sand, in which it deposits its eggs, surrounded and overshadowed 

 by a grove of verdure as represented in the following wood-cut. In 



this enclosure one of the parents remains hovering over its brood, 

 and keeping at a distance all intruders. The office of watching over 

 the progeny does not devolve exclusively upon either of the sexes, 

 but the males and females keep watch alternately. The fierceness 

 with which they dart at their enemies, and the anxiety with which 

 they look out for every approaching danger, show that these are en- 

 dowed with stronger instincts than have been known heretofore in any 

 of their class. Their foresight goes so far as to avoid the bait at- 

 tached to any hook, however near it may be brought to them, and 

 however lively and tempting it may be. Pomotis do not build their 

 nest singly ; hundreds of them may be seen along the same shore, 

 within very small distances of one another, forming, as it were, tem- 

 porary settlements, two nests sometimes hard by each other, or only 

 separated by narrow partitions of water-plants. However near to 

 one another, the pair of one nest do not interfere with those of another, 

 VOL. III. 42 



