408 RAMBLES ABOUT SOME. 



Like all the cyprinoids, they are seen at their best 

 during the breeding-season, and then, indeed, their color- 

 ing is gorgeous blue, purple, crimson, gold, and silver 

 every tint brilliant, and all so blended as to produce a 

 most pleasing effect. The fish either realize their attract- 

 ive appearance at such times, or their unusual animation 

 is a happy coincidence. At all events, every movement is 

 in accord with their holiday attire, and no more interest- 

 ing sight beneath the water is to be met with than the 

 courtship of the rosy chubs. 



Their courtship varies in nothing from that of the 

 diurnal fishes generally. The males simply display their 

 charms to the best advantage before the passive females, 

 resist the encroachments of every rival, and in a few days 

 have either chosen a mate, or been chosen it is difficult 

 to say which. It is probable that the females express 

 their assent to the claims of such aspiring males as meet 

 with their favor, and then off they go. Those who have 

 carefully watched our fishes in spring see little difference 

 between their methods of courtship and that of our birds. 



In one respect, however, the chub differs materially 

 from the birds and even many fish : it does not concern 

 itself with the care of its offspring. Once the eggs are 

 laid upon their bed of sand, all care as to their future 

 vanishes. So, too, does the mutual regard of the newly 

 mated pair. Leaving the spawning-ground, they are at 

 once utterly indifferent to each other. 



I find it to be a common impression among those fish- 

 ermen who have given the subject any attention, that our 

 " shiners," as a class, do not pair, but go in mixed schools 

 to available spawning-grounds, where the ova are depos- 

 ited and fertilized in the most careless manner, and that 

 many of them are devoured by these same fish ; that many 

 are destroyed by floating to unsuitable localities ; and that 



