86 



WILD XATURE'S WAYS. 



BULLHEAD SWALLOWING LOACH. 



a boy who was reflecting light for hk^ witli a 

 mirror, suddenly exclaimed : "I can see a bully 

 with a tail at either end of his body, mister." This 

 somewhat startling assertion prov^ed to be liter- 

 ally true. The fish had just caught a loach 

 more than half its own length, and had succeeded 

 in swallowing all of it except the portion shown 

 in our illustration. 



In the days of my youth I have tickled trout 

 with bullheads, members of their own kind, and 

 even water shrews in their mouths, but how such 

 a slow, easy-going fish as a bullhead could make 

 one so nimble and vigorous as a loach captive 

 is to me a mystery, I must confess. It might 

 have been sickly or injured, of course ; but no 

 evidence supporting such a theor}' could be 

 traced wlien the p»-*soner was released from its 

 captor's jaws. 



The behaviour of even the lowliest of wild 



