The Story of the Rocks 119 



when the river recedes would be destroyed in vast numbers 

 annually, were it not for the work of the U. S. Bureau of 

 Fisheries and other agencies, which rescue them from the 

 receding lakes and return them to the river, or use them for 

 stocking other waters. An instance of the destruction of 

 fishes in this manner is cited by Lucas in his ' ' Animals of the 

 Past," from the observations of Mr. F. S. Webster in Texas, 

 "Where thousands of gar pikes, trapped in a lake formed by 

 an overflow of the Rio Grande, had been, by the drying up 

 of this lake, penned into a pool about seventy-five feet long 

 by twenty-five feet wide. The fish were literally packed to- 

 gether like sardines, layer upon layer, and a shot fired into 

 the pool would set the entire mass in motion, the larger gars 

 as they dashed about casting the smaller fry into the air, a 

 score at a time. Mr. Webster estimates that there must have 

 been not less than 700 or 800 fish in the pool, from a foot and 

 a half up to seven feet in length, every one of which perished 

 a little later. In addition to the fish in the pond, hundreds 

 of those that had died previously lay about in every direction, 

 and one can readily imagine what a fish-bed this would have 

 made had the occurrence taken place in the past." 



Devils Lake is a remnant of the glacial lake Minne- 

 waukon, which at one time covered some hundreds of square 

 miles in North Dakota. Due to various factors this lake is 

 gradually drying up. Formerly pickerel abounded in it in 

 countless numbers. Old settlers tell of catching the fish 

 through the ice in winter with pitchforks and shipping them 

 out by carloads. But between 1885 and 1890, coincident with 

 a marked decrease in lake level, the fish suddenly disappeared. 



In 1879 there were discovered along the edge of the Gulf 

 Stream -off the coast of Massachusetts members of a group 

 of fishes having their home in the Gulf of Mexico, known as 

 the tilefish. In the spring of 1882 they were found dead and 

 .dying by the million over an area estimated at from 5,000 

 to 7,500 square miles. This catastrophe is believed to have 

 been due to a continuation of northerly and easterly winds 

 which drove the cold arctic current from the north out of 

 its usual course, overwhelming the fish with disaster. For 

 many years no more appeared in this region, but about 1900 

 they reappeared and are now being taken in considerable 

 numbers. 



' In the preceding chapter we have taken a glimpse at the 

 lungfishes, which point the way from water to land inhabit- 

 ing vertebrates. One would naturally expect such creatures 

 to have a comparatively high standing in aquatic society, but 

 strangely enough their position is a lowly one indeed. This 

 is evidenced not alone by their structure but by their 



