360 RAMBLES ABOUT HOME. 



or among loose pebbles only, the darters can readily find 

 them, and they quickly devour all they discover. Were 

 it not for this unfortunate habit, these little fish would 

 merit our kindly consideration, as they help, to a certain 

 extent, in keeping pure the waters of the streams they 

 frequent. 



I have said there are but two kinds of darters in 

 our waters. I meant but two of whose identification I 

 was sure. There is, or was, a third. Some years ago, 

 in a pretty stream, which my neighbors persist in calling 

 the " Ten-foot Ditch," I found a few crimson-marked 

 specimens, that were wholly unlike the others, playing 

 on and in silvery white sand. The following autumn 

 the crimson markings had become dull brown, but 

 the little cylindrical bodies were of the same shape, 

 and the ridiculous efforts of the little fishes at natatorial 

 locomotion were just as absurd. A few of these I bot- 

 tled, and they were pronounced to be the Hololepis ero- 

 chrous. I was glad to find they had a name; but since 

 then, ten years ago, I have been too busy to use it, and 

 find that " crimson darter " meets all my needs. 



Passing on, in two ways, to a new page of the faunal 

 list and to deep waters, we come at once to what has 

 always seemed, and really is, a model fish. It is com- 

 plete in every feature, and there is nothing flabby about 

 it, like a sucker or roach ; nor is it out of date and clumsy, 

 like a gar-pike. I mean the yellow perch. 



So far as I have been able to follow it, this fish re- 

 mains throughout its first year, and often for many years, 

 in the stream in which it was hatched. Of course, where 

 it happens that the ova has been deposited in some little 

 out-of-the-way brook which grows smaller as the summer 

 passes, then the young perch will find their way into 

 deeper and cooler waters ; but they do not wander far 



