STONE-DWELLERS 277 



from under the stones. Yet it is armed well enough 

 against its enemies in the huge spiked gills which it 

 can stick out almost as furiously as the father lasher 

 of the sea. A water-rail was found here last 

 autumn, choked in the attempt to swallow a miller's- 

 thumb. 



More warrantable is the hiding of the loach, called 

 stone-loach because of its very retiring disposition. 

 It is smoother than a gudgeon, and sweeter too, 

 as any fisherman knows who has offered it to pike 

 or perch. It has no defence except an unusual 

 slipperiness, and it squeezes beneath stones in such a 

 manner that its capture by hand is far more difficult 

 than that of the miller's-thumb. Our stream also 

 holds in plenty the crayfish, or fresh-water lobster. 

 The big ones have holes in the bank, where they are 

 ready to nip shrewdly the fingers of boys who come 

 to tickle trout. But there are lots of little ones under 

 the stones, as ready as their elders to nip when they 

 cannot escape, but not so able to hurt. They are 

 made exactly in the image of the lobster, and use 

 their feathered tails to grip the water under the body 

 and shoot off backwards as rapidly as a fish darts. 

 In spring the elder female crayfish carry great 

 bundles of eggs under the tail, for other crayfish are 

 great eaters of ova, including those of trout. A few 

 years ago all the streams running into the Thames, 

 right up to the farthest hills, partook of a Thames 

 epidemic that carried off the crayfish almost to the 

 last one. Slowly they came back, and may be as 

 numerous as ever by now. Our stream starts just 

 over the Thames water-shed, and its crayfish were 

 immune from that epidemic. 



