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Many trout, especially the larger and older ones frequent 

 the cold depths of lakes, but the younger and active fish 

 inhabit brooks, particularly those with swiftly running 

 water over sandy bottoms, with numerous deep pools and 

 rapids, and well fringed with bushes for protection. Trout 

 have excellent appetites and like a variety of food. A 

 White-footed !Mouse accidentally loses his hold while climb- 

 ing about the exposed, overhanging roots of a tree, and 

 falls into the pool below. It is the signal for a short but 

 very exciting race between the three trout that happened 

 to dwell in that very pool. A violent upheaval of the water, 

 and the winner seized the unfortunate rodent, his momen- 

 tum from the swift dash carrying him full out of the water. 

 A blundering moth barely touches the surface of the water, 

 but ere it can free itself, it is in the capacious maw of a 

 hungry fish. 



A dragon-fly alights upon the end of a dead twig, two 

 or three inches above water. He, too, has a voracious 

 appetite and is at the very moment looking about for pass- 

 ing insects upon which to pounce. Alas, — his thousands 

 of eyes failed to note the enemy below him. With a swish, 

 a filvery, speckled body hurls from the water, turn grace- 

 fully on one side and disappears within the depths, but 

 the dragon-fly has gone with the trout, back to the very 

 elei'ent, perhaps to the same pool in which it lived while 

 in the larval or nymphal stage. 



A Striped Dace hurries by on its way up-stream, but its 

 hurry is too slow for the , lightning-like dash of the 

 "speckled-teauty," and there is enacted another of those 

 very frequent tragedies when fish eats fish. A sand-darter 

 that had been quietly resting on the bottom, concealed by 

 its protecting coloring, suddenly leaped for a "wriggler" 

 that was floating with the current but almost before it had 

 caught its prey, it in turn became a victim. 



A Leopard Frog, wandering .?long the edge of the 

 brook, startled by a boj'- coming along the path gave one 

 long, lusty leap, — the last that he ever would make, for a 

 large trout that had been lying in wait, met him as he 



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