notes ot tbe 



had more sensitive ears we could detect the 

 utterances of the small fry that crowd the shallow 

 waters literally by the millions ? 



Fish of several kinds passed by, and occasion- 

 ally a silvery perch or rockfish leaped into the 

 upper air, shone brilliantly as a meteor for an in- 

 stant, and was gone. This sudden disappearance 

 into the black depths brought many a thought to 

 the foreground. What of these depths ? This long 

 river bed for centuries has been before our doors, 

 and for thousands of years before our homes were 

 built, yet no man can be said to have seen it. 

 What strange processions pass to and fro, from 

 the broad sea to the narrow mountain brooks and 

 return. The highway of another world than ours, 

 that we pass over and plough through, that we 

 choke and defile, and yet never see in its entirety, 

 never learn one tithe of the secrets it holds. We 

 may pass a lifetime on the banks of a river and 

 meet with as many novelties during our last days 

 as we did at the beginning. Because, years ago, 

 I had found every fish down in the books, I as- 

 sumed to know all about the Delaware, but now 

 I find little flatfish, a marine flounder, common 

 away up in the freshest water, and sometimes 

 they wander beyond the reach of tides. There is 

 nothing of this in any book that I have seen, and 

 one of those closet pests, a book-naturalist, says I 

 am mistaken. Let the fool slide. And what may 

 not be true of other forms of life from the deep 

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