BUZZARD'S REST. 59 



Not only the lily, but sweetly-scented, white - spiked 

 clethra flowers bloomed, half-hidden, close to the water's 

 edge, its snowy blossoms in marked contrast to the brill- 

 iancy of the scarlet lobelia growing near ; and close to 

 my boat, and over all the shallows, rank pickerel-weed 

 and coarser splatter -dock, tinted the waters with the 

 blue and gold of their bloom. 



I will not admit that I soon tired of flowers, but when- 

 ever afloat I am never unmindful of the fishes. At the 

 mouth of this tributary creek, where my boat was now 

 at anchor, the water was very clear and the sand and 

 pebbles at the bottom plainly in view. Scarcely a fish 

 was to be seen for several minutes, when suddenly a pair 

 of lithe and active stone-catfish came directly beneath 

 me. They interested me very much by overturning flat 

 pebbles gracefully with their wedge-like snouts. Occa- 

 sionally a stone would prove a little heavier than antici- 

 pated, when the fish's whole body would be rapidly 

 curved, straightened and recurved, as if to squeeze into 

 its nose all the strength that it possessed. At last, over 

 the heavy pebble would go, and with a quick, nibbling 

 motion of the mouth, the newly exposed surface would 

 be rifled of everything acceptable to a catfish's palate. 



Although these two fishes were constantly near to- 

 gether, they did not co-operate in any of the stone-turn- 

 ing. Nevertheless, their association was not accidental, 

 for I frequently startled them by thrusting down a stick 

 into the sand, which caused them immediately to dart 

 away at the same instant ; but they invariably swam in 

 the same direction and returned, swimming side by side. 

 They evidently derived some advantage, or, shall I say, 



