400 RAMBLES ABOUT HOME. 



for several years ; and many, for aught I know to the 

 contrary, have been born and bred there. 



These landlocked specimens are of interest as show- 

 ing how readily an altered environment causes a decided 

 alteration in color, and probably also in their anatomical 

 structure. Comparison of these fish taken from the 

 "maple-pond," many of which are descendants of the 

 original fish that were landlocked in 1857, with those 

 from the river, show them to be wholly different in color, 

 and, more strangely still, their stomachs are certainly less 

 muscular. I have examined a great many from this 

 pond, supposed to have been hatched there, and at the 

 time were from two to three years old, and there was 

 certainly a smaller " gizzard " than in specimens of the 

 same size taken from the river, and which had come but 

 very recently from the sea, It is at least natural to specu- 

 late upon the probability of this herring in time losing 

 the muscular stomach, as a consequence of not requiring 

 such an organ for the digestion of the food that land- 

 locked localities offer. 



Other fish feed upon the same mollusks and have no 

 such convenient gizzards, as, for instance, the perch and 

 chub ; but, then, the one has teeth in its jaws, arid the 

 other stout pharyngeal teeth that are admirably adapted 

 to crushing. Do these take the place of the gizzard in 

 the landlocked herring ? If so, the need of it is apparent, 

 and it will not wholly disappear, unless there is an entire 

 change in the food. Still, there is a difference, in this 

 respect, between these fish as found on the coast, and 

 those that for several generations have been confined to 

 small bodies of fresh water. 



This landlocked herring is not always a sluggish fish, 

 as I have seen it, in April, as full of life as is the most 

 restless minnow. It seemed as though they had caught 



