CHAPTER XXXIY. 



BRIEF NOTES ON FISHES. 



IN front of my house, with only a pleasant stretch of 

 meadow intervening, flows the Delaware. To my right, 

 as I stand in the doorway facing the river, I can see, here 

 and there, between tall birches and bending elms, a little 

 silvery gleam that marks the course of a sluggish, lily- 

 choked stream which creeps slowly westward from the 

 foot of the terrace to the river. It is too insignificant a 

 stream to merit the attention of the geographer, though 

 it is worthy of a more than passing notice from the natu- 

 ralist. Its source is in a series of little springs that come 

 bubbling from the foot of the terrace or "hill" near by. 

 Gathering volume as it wends its way riverward, it soon 

 makes for itself a well-defined channel and glides slowly 

 through a stately growth of reeds that are haunted by the 

 king-rail and the little sora, the swamp-sparrow and the 

 marsh-wrens. Beyond, the silvery birches and drooping 

 elms shade its course and offer a safe retreat to the many 

 herons that find a refuge there by day ; and, in the gar- 

 landed month of May, I know of no spot in which the 

 fresh foliage that then decks these beautiful trees more 

 delights the northward-bound warblers or so tempts them 

 to tarry in its shade. Still moving onward, the little 

 river enters a denser growth and widens into a deep, 

 dark, weedy pond, which is still so wild, retired, and 

 tempting, that the wary wild-duck does not hesitate to 



