414 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



own species, she sees only an enemy, and is restless and 

 uneasy till she has driven it away from her nursery. We 

 often find groups of the nests placed near each other along 

 the margin of the pond or river that the fir.h inhabits, but 

 always in very shallow water; hence they are liable to be left 

 dry in seasons of great drought. These curious nests are fre- 

 quently encircled by aquatic plants, forming a curtain around 

 them, but a large space is invariably left open for the admis- 

 sion of light." 



Thoreau ("Week on Concord and Merrimack''^ thus spoke 

 of this fish: 



"It is the most common of all, and seen on every 

 urchin's string, a simple and inoffensive fish, whose nests 

 are visible all along the shore, hollowed in the sand, over 

 which it is steadily poised through the summer hours 

 on waving fin. Sometimes there are twenty to thirty nests 

 in the space of a few rods, two feet wide by half a foot in 

 depth and made with no little labor, the weeds being removed, 

 and the sands shoved up on the sides like a bowl. Here it 

 may be seen early in the summer assiduously brooding, and 

 driving away minnows and larger fishes, even its own species, 

 which would disturb its ova, pursuing them a few feet, and 

 circling around swiftly to its nest again; the minnows, like 

 young sharks, instantly entering the empty nests, meanwhile, 

 and swallowing the spawn, which is attached to the weeds 

 and to the bottom on the sunny side. The spawn is exposed 

 to so many dangers that a very small proportion can ever 

 become fishes, for besides being the constant prey of birds 

 and fishes, a great many nests are made so near the shore, in 

 shallow water, that they are left dry in a few days, as the 

 river goes down. These and the Lampreys are the only 

 fishes' nests that I have observed, though the ova of some 

 species may be seen floating on the surface. The breams are 

 so careful of their charge that you may stand close by them in 

 the water and examine them at your leisure. I have thus stood 



