THE BEST KI^DS OF FISH FOR EIVERS. 133 



I make no doubt but in small spaces of water, pro- 

 perly managed, with a sufficiency of holes and hiding- 

 places for them, and by feeding them with fit and 

 enough of food, they would breed and increase to 

 any extent, and a very profitable trade carried on in 

 them : their food need be but of small consideration, 

 as they will eat offal in preference even to other 

 matters. They make good use of their nippers, when 

 handled, and are apt to pinch somewhat sharply. 

 One way of taking them is to thrust the hand up into 

 the holes under old roots and banks, and letting them 

 fasten on the fingers, to draw them out thus. I do 

 not strongly recommend the plan ; but the reader can 

 try it if he likes, and, if he does not mind the pinch, 

 will no doubt find amusement in it, particularly as 

 he may, perhaps, occasionally lay hold of a water-rat, 

 whose sense of his attentions will, possibly, be even 

 more strikingly expressed. 



The pearl-bearing Muscle, which abounds in many 

 of our rivers, particularly in the Perth, in Scotland, 

 and the Donegal river, in Ireland, might also be a 

 subject for cultivation, as it would not only be valuable 

 for its pearls, but form food for insects, on which the 

 fish live in turn. These muscles have received some 

 little attention from the Acclimatization Society. 

 Muscles of a somewhat similar kind are found abun- 



