In the Little Brook 295 



with dark spots and dashes like the weeds under which they 

 he. The male is only a little fellow, not so long as your 

 finger, and slim for his size. He lies flat on the bottom, 

 half hidden by a stone, around which his tail is twisted. He 

 will stay there for hours, unseen by other fishes, except by 

 his own kinsmen. But if you reach down to touch him 

 with your finger he is no longer there. The tail straightens 

 out, there is a flash of blue and scarlet, and a foot or two 

 away he is resting quietly as before. On the bottom is his 

 place, and he seems always at peace, but when he moves, 

 his actions are instantaneous and as swift as possible to a 

 creature who lives in the water. On the bottom, among the 

 stones, the female casts her spawn. Neither she nor the 

 male pays any further attention to it, but in the breeding 

 season the male is painted in colors as beautiful as those of 

 the wood warblers. When you go to the brook in the spring 

 you will find him there, and if you can catch him and turn 

 him over on his side you will see the colors that he shows 

 to his mate, and which observation shows are most useful in 

 frightening away his younger rivals. But do not hurt him. 

 Put him back in the brook and let him paint its bottom the 

 colors of a rainbow, a sunset or a garden of roses. All that 

 can be done with blue, crimson and green pigments in fish 

 ornamentation you will find in some brook in which the 

 darters live. It is in the limestone brooks that flow into 

 the Tennessee and Cumberland where they are found at 

 their brightest, but the Ozark region comes in for a close 

 second. 



There will be sticklebacks in your brook, but the other 

 fishes do not like them, for they are tough and dry of flesh, 

 and their sharp spines make them hard to swallow and 

 harder still to digest. They hide beneath the overhanging 

 tufts of grass, and dart out swiftly at whatever passes by. 

 They tear the fins of the minnows, rob the nests of the sun- 

 fish, drag out the eggs of the suckers and are busy from 

 morn to night at whatever mischief is possible in the brook. 



