The Waking of the Fishes 



the season; and fishermen through the ice 

 of ponds and lakes can testify to the great 

 increase in the number of perch, pickerel, 

 etc., during the winter, as these fishes come 

 out from the ponds and creeks to warmer 

 and more protected depths. And so I think 

 we may claim that there is a semi-migration 

 of many of our commoner fishes twice a 

 year, just as there is of robins, bluejays, 

 crows, flickers, and other familiar birds, 

 that do not entirely leave the temperate zone 

 in their search for a warmer climate in 

 winter. Here, then, is one pleasing corre- 

 spondence between birds and fishes that a 

 certain number of both tribes are limited 

 or semi-migrants. 



A further and more marked correspond- 

 ence may be observed in the case of certain 

 salt-water fishes, particularly those that 

 spawn in fresh-water streams the anad- 

 romous fishes, so called. These fishes 

 make extended southward migrations, just 

 as the majority of birds do, and return at 

 the same season in the spring the great 

 waking and home-returning month of April. 

 At the same time that the mighty army of 

 birds is speeding northward, what we might 



35 



