JUNE. 155 



was dire confusion. The released fish was either recog- 

 nized as a stranger, or as their parent gone mad. The 

 poor things scattered, and showed every evidence of genu- 

 ine fear. I repeated this, from day to day, for a week, 

 and with practically the same results ; but, after all, I am 

 not sure that they have much significance. I failed alto- 

 gether to determine the main point, and have had to con- 

 tent myself with the feeling that my inference of some in- 

 tellectual power in very young fishes is correct. I believe 

 this brood of sunfish recognized the strangers as such, 

 rather than supposed them to be their parent in a danger- 

 ous frame of mind ; this being indicated, too, by the fact 

 that when the parent fish was removed and returned to 

 the pond, the young immediately clustered about her and 

 no evidence of fear was apparent. 



To observe to the best advantage the majority of the 

 fishes in our little creeks, it is necessary to study them 

 when associated, as well as during the spawning season, 

 and this is practicable in midwinter. In fact, the absence 

 of vegetation, both along the banks of the streams and in 

 their beds, renders such study a far easier task than in 

 summer; and one has the advantage, too, of of ten. finding 

 several species collected in the spring-holes where the 

 water is appreciably warmer than elsewhere in the bed of 

 the stream. To watch such congregated fishes from day 

 to day, yourself remaining concealed the while, is to be- 

 come satisfied that, however small the fish, it is never a 

 fool, but really has a modicum of common sense. And 

 let me add, I have never been convinced that a friendly 

 critic was right when he insisted that batrachians were 

 more intelligent than fishes, as a rule. I admit that my 

 more recent field-work has often been contradictory in its 

 results, the observations of one day negativing those of 

 the next, but I find, on careful collation of memoranda 

 covering all the year, that the impression has been further 



