ENEMIES. 73 



CHAPTER IX. 



ENEMIES. 



hostile forces ranged against the eggs and 

 young of the salmonidae may be said to be 

 " legion," so many are they. From the moment of 

 extrusion from the maternal ovaries, the eggs are the 

 prey of other fishes, shrimps, beetles, birds, rats, voles 

 even cats. In a word, everything that has a mouth 

 will be found partial to them. Shrimps are terribly 

 destructive, as they burrow through the shingle forming 

 the " redd " or nest, and do their deadly work unseen. 

 We have put shrimps and trout eggs together in a 

 vessel, and watched them minutely. They go from 

 egg to egg, biting a small piece out of each, just 

 enough to kill it. If they were to devour one egg 

 each per day, wholly confining themselves to it, that 

 would be bad enough ; but they seem animated by a 

 spirit of wholesale destruction. What reason there 

 may be for this is unknown, unless it be from an 

 instinct implanted in them for the purpose of keeping 

 down the numbers of the salmonidae. 



Beetles and birds greedily devour the newly-hatched 

 fishes, as do rats and voles; when older, the king- 

 fishers swoop down on them, flashing up and down 

 the stream a wonderfully beauteous sight for all but 

 those who make pisciculture either a business or 

 a pleasure. 



