BRIEF NOTES ON FISHES. 399 



neighborhood. This fact has made them interesting ; and 

 it is well that they should find favor in some way. As 

 an article of food they are absolutely valueless, or worse, 

 for the bones are of such size, strength, and confused ar- 

 rangement, that it is a foolhardy act to try to eat one of 

 these fishes. I speak from experience. 



Not very far from the house is a quiet, maple-shaded 

 pond, where, summer long, the deep-voiced bull-frog 

 sounds his doleful ditty, and the sprightlier swamp-frogs 

 on the grassy shores, and bell-tongued Hylas on the 

 drooping branches of the overhanging trees, wake the 

 dull echoes with a livelier song. Here, out of the world, 

 as it were, in green and sluggish waters that tempt no 

 seeker for romantic scenes, there roams in listless mood 

 this great, lazy, leaden-colored fish that denies, in its 

 habits, any kinship to the great herring family to which 

 it belongs. 



In this pond, for nearly thirty years, these landlocked 

 herring have lived and moved and had their being, sub- 

 sisting on the myriads of small shells that they crush to 

 atoms in their dense, muscular stomachs, the possession of 

 which has given them their common name of the gizzard- 

 shad. 



This herring is common along our coast, and, entering 

 the river early in the spring, wanders as far inland as 

 do any of its tribe ; but, unlike the others, it often gets 

 into ponds which have an outlet to the river when the 

 spring freshets occur, but which are shut off from the 

 main stream when the waters sink to their ordinary 

 level. In this way the gizzard-shad become landlocked, 

 and under these circumstances they thrive admirably. 

 Whether, in the pond to which I have referred, they come 

 and go with every freshet, I can not tell, though I doubt 

 it. Some, at least, that are in the pond have been there 



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