THE REDD 155 



silt. Here again the instinctive wisdom of the parent 

 fish in thus elevating the redds above the bottom of 

 the stream will be recognized. The elevation of the 

 gravel causes the necessary percolation of the running 

 waters of the stream amid the pebble stratum in which 

 the eggs are deposited, and at the same time washes 

 out any deposits of mud or silt so fatal to the life of 

 young fish. 



No matter how cold and empty the river you are 

 watching may appear, hundreds of thousands of tiny 

 lives are healthily pulsating beneath these stream- 

 swept redds, and steadily, as the temperature of the 

 river rises, are becoming daily more capable of breaking 

 through the elastic covering which now encloses them, 

 and of emerging as alevin amid the crevices of their 

 pebbly surroundings. Even here, while yet in the 

 egg in the apparent security of their redds, their tiny 

 existence is continually threatened. Fish may root 

 them out ; the larvae of the stone-fly, caddis-fly, May- 

 fly, and dragon-fly, may penetrate the crevices of the 

 redds, and seize them in their voracious grasp ; the 

 water-rat and moorhen may gobble them up, floods 

 may destroy them, or droughts may leave the redds 

 high and dry, and the ova exposed to frost or dry 

 air. All these dangers are possible, and many of 

 them but too common. 



But haply none of these dangers may disturb the 

 eggs in the redds we are observing. Each egg is now 

 in itself a separate and detached entity, and as such 

 is individually affected by its own particular and 



