Water Poachers. 167 



small river lamprey has* also been seen busily 

 engaged in the like pursuit. These have a 

 method in going about their depredations that 

 is quite interesting. Small parties of them work 

 together, and by means of their suckers they 

 remove the stones, immediately boring down 

 after the hidden spawn. If a stone be too large 

 for one to lift another will come to its aid, even 

 four or five having been seen to unite their 

 forces. It is a good-sized stone which can resist 

 their efforts, and the mischief they do is con- 

 siderable. Even water beetles and their larvae 

 must, on account of their numbers and voracity, 

 come within the reckoning, and among the most 

 destructive of these are water-shrimps and the 

 larvae of the dragon-fly. Have we not been told 

 that while the loved May-fly is "on," all hours, 

 meats, decencies, and respectabilities must yield 

 to his caprice, so that the pink-spotted trout, 

 rushing from every hover, may be lifted gently 

 from its native stream to gasp aw T ay its life among 

 the lush summer grass ? But if the gauzy-winged 

 fly is one of the loved likes of the trout, the 

 former has its day, for none of the larvae of water 

 beetles is so destructive to spawn and fry as 

 this. Pike and coarse fish are equally partial 

 to the same repast, and even salmon and trout 

 devour the young of their own kind. Water- 

 fowl are among the trout-stream poachers, and 



