rain, without affecting them, if only the storms 

 are from the right quarter and it stays warm. 

 A cold east wind always hurries them back to 

 deep water, where they remain until the weather 

 warms up again. Late in May, however, when 

 they must lay their eggs, they ascend the stream, 

 and nothing short of a four-foot dam will effec- 

 tually stop their progress to the pond. 



They are great swimmers. It is a live fish in- 

 deed that makes Whitman's Pond. There are 

 flying-fish and climbing-fish, fish that walk over 

 land and fish that burrow through the mud ; 

 but in an obstacle race, with a swift stream to 

 stem, with rocks, logs, shallows, and dams to get 

 over, you may look for a winner in the herring. 



He will get up somehow right side up or 

 bottom side up, on his head or on his tail, swim- 

 ming, jumping, flopping, climbing, up he comes ! 

 A herring can almost walk on his tail. I have 

 watched them swim up Herring Run with their 

 backs half out of water j and when it became too 

 shallow to swim at all, they would keel over on 

 their sides and flop for yards across stones so 

 bare and dry that a mud-minnow might easily 

 have drowned upon them for lack of water. 

 [348] 



