128 AUTUMN TIDES. 



to go forth and seek a permanent winter abode. If 

 the covers could be taken off the fields and woods at 

 this season, how many interesting facts of natural 

 history would be revealed ! The crickets, ants, bees, 

 reptiles, animals, and, for aught I know, the spiders 

 and flies asleep or getting ready to sleep in their win- 

 ter dormitories ; the fires of life banked up and burn- 

 ing just enough to keep the spark over till spring. 



The fish all run down the stream in the fall except 

 the trout ; it runs up or stays up and spawns in No- 

 vember, the male becoming as brilliantly tinted as 

 the deepest dyed maple leaf. I have often wondered 

 why the trout spawns in the fall instead of in the 

 spring, like other fish. Is it not because a full supply 

 of clear spring water can be counted on at that season 

 more than at any other ? The brooks are not so 

 liable to be suddenly muddied by heavy showers and 

 defiled with the washings of the roads and fields as 

 they are in spring and summer. The artificial breeder 

 finds that absolute purity of water is necessary to 

 hatch the spawn ; also that shade and a low tempera- 

 ture are indispensable. 



Our northern November day itself is like spring 

 water. It is melted frost, dissolved snow. There is 

 a chill in it and an exhilaration also. The forenoon 

 is all morning and the afternoon all evening. The 

 shadows seem to come forth and to revenge them- 

 selves upon the day. The sunlight is diluted with 

 darkness. The colors fade from the landscape and 

 only the sheen of the river lights up the gray and 

 brown distance. 



