SMALL ANIMALS AND INSECTS. 



[Chap. IL 



State of tlie land. Sawdust lias no more cftect npon the lisli than rotting 

 leaves and wood in the forest streams. The washing of cultivated liekls, by 

 which the water is made impure, has more effect upon fish of all sorts than 

 sawdusi, or, in our opinion, lime, in such quantities as result from any manu- 

 facturing establishment. This fact must be kept always in view in establish- 

 ing artificial ponds for fish-breeding. Make them ■where the water will not 

 be roiled by every shower. 



299. Eel Streams aud Eel-Fishing. — In all parts of the country where eels 

 abound, they may be made an essential part of the food of the family in the 

 autumn mouths, if the streams are such as easily admit the construction of 

 weirs aud placing traps or eel-pots. In some parts of the country the eel 

 business affords no mean item of income to farmers who have riparian rights, 

 the work not interfering materially with ordinary farm labor. 



"We find the following interesting account of the eel fishery on the Susque- 

 hanna in the Lancaster (Penn.) Jlerald : 



" About the middle of August the water of the stream becomes very low, 

 and usually by September that in the channel is only a few feet deep, leav- 

 ing the stony bottom, for a wide space on either side, in some places nearly 

 bare, with occasional deeper furrows which pass along it. At this stage of 

 water, the instinct which governs the fish to descend the rivers previous to 

 the advent of cold weather becomes the means of their destruction. For 

 many miles of the river's length, therefore, north and south of us, the people 

 owning the shore adjoining erect their fish-dams and gins, by deepening the 

 channel somewhat, and building an elongated V-shaped wall, at the lower 

 point of which is fixed a box, from which the fish, when once caught, can 

 not extricate themselves. Obeying this instinct in their descent of the 

 stream, they find themselves borne pleasantly in this channel, and, wriggling 

 themselves cheerily, they let the current, pent in by the walls, carry them 

 along until they tumble plump into the box at the termination of the Y. 

 The fish taken in this manner are for the most part eels, of which almost 

 incredible quantities are captured during the fall season. Their ' run' only 

 takes place during the night. In daytime they remain quiet in the compar- 

 atively deep pools of the river. Tlie work of catching them, however, is no 

 sinecure, not so much on account of the labor as of the wakefulness aud ex- 

 posure which it involves. In some of the dark and showery nights of the 

 season the game will come into the box so fast that the watcher, who is often 

 stationed there with a boat, can scarcely remove them into it with suflicient 

 celerity. At other times there will be scarcely spoil enough in the boxes to 

 repay the trouble in watching them. It is only the larger apparatus and 

 dams, however, that are thus cared for, the smaller being rarely filled to 

 overflowing. Fishermen secure and salt down some five or ten barrels of 

 eels during the season, besides living entirely upon them during the catch. 

 The larger operators make the business pay, as a single man alone can 

 perform all the labor required in taking and salting the fish. We have 

 seen various illustrations of digital dexterity, and also Ole Bull's manipu- 



