The Fishes of our Boyhood 101 



boy's deft, brown paw. The nip of the formidable- 

 looking claws really is a trifling matter. The cray- 

 fish are found under stones and sunken rubbish near 

 the margins of streams, and under sodden bark and 

 leaves of bush-ponds. Crayfish burrows, capped by 

 curious little mud-towers, are familiar objects to 

 those who go much a-field. When not easily ob- 

 tainable elsewhere, the crayfish may be taken from 

 its burrow by overturning the mud-tower, lowering 

 a bit of flesh tied to a string and jerking when 

 the sure-to-follow nibbling is felt. The boys also 

 "churned for 'em," by breaking a switch with a 

 ragged end, manipulating this in the burrow till 

 the outraged crayfish took hold, then jerking him 

 from his bomb-proof. 



The creature referred to as a mystery is what is 

 termed the "horse-hair snake," in reality a hair- 

 worm. It is found in all of our waters, and it 

 greatly resembles a black hair from a horse's mane. 

 Most boys are willing to swear that this hairworm 

 really is a horsehair turned into a snake, and many 

 grown persons will back up the claim. People 

 have declared that they have placed a horsehair 

 in a bottle of water, corked the bottle, and kept it 

 so till the hair had turned into a snake and swam 

 about. Science, however, accepts no such testi- 

 mony. The truth is, the so-called " snake " is a gor- 

 dioid nematode worm, so named from its structure 

 and characteristic habit of snarling itself up. Its 

 first stage of life is as a parasite, the hair-like form 

 representing the adult It swims like a snake. It 

 may be found in shallow water, perhaps lying upon 

 the bottom like a snarl of black thread, or smoothly 



