THE BRITISH ANGLER'S LEXICON. 53 



bass spawns in May and June, according as the season is 

 early or late. The parent fish go in pairs, and select some 

 place where the bed of the water they inhabit rises nearly 

 to the surface, where the sun's rays may reach the eggs. 

 If they can find no convenient shallow, they will head up 

 stones on the bottom and make one. Before the eggs are 

 deposited, the parent fish most carefully clear the space 

 they have selected, by brushing it with their fins, and 

 carrying away from it with their mouths all debris, such as 

 twigs, stones, &c. These cleaned spaces are readily 

 distinguished by their contrast to the dark wood-covered 

 ground around them ; and many of them may be seen in the 

 lake (White Water) in Burleigh Park, in which the Marquis 

 of Exeter placed hundreds of black bass a few years ago. 

 American observers of the black bass have placed things on 

 these cleared spaces, and have seen them carried away and 

 deposited outside by the black bass. The nest prepared, 

 the female deposits her eggs in it, and the male impregnates 

 them. Then both fish keep jealous guard over them for 

 some ten days, when the young hatch out. Every intruder 

 is fiercely driven away. Nor does their care cease here ; 

 for keeping their young together, as a hen does her chickens, 

 they convey them to some shallow place amongst reeds and 

 weeds, where they will be safest from the attacks of other 

 fish. This care is continued for some days, until the fry are 

 strong enough to scatter and look after themselves. A few 

 parent fish will stock a water without aid of any kind. To 

 place a very limited number of fish in a large sheet of water 

 might result in their becoming too much scattered to get 

 together again in the breeding season ; therefore it is 

 advisable to place them in very small ponds, or else enclose 

 with wire-netting a portion of a large sheet of water, and 



