368 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
sometimes in countless numbers, the tiny jack, hardly 
so long as one’s little finger, lurks all alone behind a 
stone which forms a miniature harbour. On a warm 
day almost every such place has its youthful pirate. 
Notwithstanding the terror of the roach when pursued, 
they will play about apparently without the slightest 
fear when the pike is basking in the sun with his back 
all but on a level with the surface—that is, when the 
lake is at its ordinary height. Itis as if they knew 
their tyrant was enjoying his siesta. 
These roach literally swarm. At their spawning 
time that part of the lake the shore of which is stony is 
positively black with them. For a distance of some 
hundred and fifty yards the water for seven or eight 
feet from shore is simply a moving mass of .roach. 
They crowd up against the stones, get underneath 
them and behind them, enter every little creek and 
interstice, and are so jammed by their own numbers 
that they may easily be caught by hand. In their 
anxiety to secure a place they crush against each 
other and splash up the water. This impulse only 
lasts a day or two in its full vigour, when the multi- 
tude gradually retires into deeper water. 
When thus spawning the roach are preyed on by 
rats—not the water-rat, but the house or drain rat. 
There are always a few of these about the lake, and 
they grow to an enormous size. They destroy the 
roach in great numbers. I have seen the sand strewn 
with dead fish opposite and leading up to their holes; 
