Panic-stricken Fish 299 



walk slowly and not to jar the ground or let his shadow 

 fall on the water before he can glance round the willows 

 and bushes. Jack may then be seen basking by the 

 weeds. 



When an exceptionally long continuance of dry 

 weather forces all the fish to retire to the few acres of 

 water that remain, then these voracious brutes do as they 

 please with the other fish, and the roach especially suffer. 

 Every two or three minutes the fry may be seen leaping 

 into the air in the effort to escape, twenty or thirty at a 

 time, and falling with a splash. The rush of hundreds 

 and hundreds of roach causes a wave upon the surface 

 which shows the course they take. This wave never 

 ceases : as soon as it sinks here it rises yonder, and so on 

 through the twenty-four hours, day and night. 



The miserable fish, flying for their lives, speed towards 

 the shallow water, and often, unable to stop themselves, 

 are carried by their impetus out on the mud and lie there 

 on the land for a few seconds till they leap back again. 

 Even the jack will sometimes run himself aground in the 

 eagerness of his pursuit. Looking over the pool, the 

 splash of the falling fish as they descend after the leap into 

 the air may be heard in several directions at once, and the 

 glint of their silvery sides in the sunshine is at the same 

 time visible. At night it is clear the same thing is going 

 forward, for the splashing continues, though the wave 

 raised by the panic-stricken crowds cannot be distin- 

 guished in the darkness. 



It is curious to notice how the solitary disposition of 

 the jack shows itself almost as soon as he comes to life. 

 While the fry of most other fish swim in shoals, sometimes 

 in countless numbers, the tiny jack, hardly so long as one's 

 little finger, lurks all alone behind a stone which forms a 



