4O HOME FISHING AND HOME WATERS. 



fere with their normal action, death was the result. 

 These tubercles seemed to be filled with a watery 

 matter, and thus it appears that the inhabitants of 

 the watery kingdom are, like ourselves, subject to 

 aches and pains and many diseases, and, like our- 

 selves, perish because of them. 



CHAPTER XL 



MALFORMATION OFFISH FRY. 



FEW persons are aware that the young of fish, 

 when first ushered into this world, are as liable to 

 unshapeliness as are all other orders of creation. 

 Indeed, some of them are even more peculiarly form- 

 ed in some respects than any other living creature. 

 But the good Lord has ordained, as the fate of all de- 

 formed fish fry, that they shall cease to live after a 

 certain number of days, rarely ever exceeding thirty, 

 and in the majority of cases not as many. 



The causes through which these singular freaks 

 are brought into existence are undoubtedly due to the 

 violation of some of the unchangeable laws of nature. 

 I have never taken the trouble to ascertain accurate- 

 ly just what proportion of the young fish which have 

 passed under my observation are thus deformed, but 

 the percentage is very small, and, at a rough estimate, 

 I should say about one in five thousand. With the 

 varieties of fish I have hatched artifically, those 

 among which most of the deformities occur are the 



