Winged Enemies of Pisf). 



s 



OME idea of the serious loss of fish and 

 fish eggs caused by myriads of enemies 

 in and about the waters is conveyed in 

 a paragraph of Dr. Day's book upon the British 

 and Irish Salmonidas. He says: "So enormous 

 is the loss which occurs among the eggs and 

 young, that in such a river as the Severn the 

 annual produce of salmon and grilse at the 

 present time (1887) consist of about twenty 

 thousand fish. Were all the ova of one female 

 salmon of about twenty pounds weight to 

 be hatched and attain maturity, they would 

 suffice for keeping up the stock to its present 

 condition." The Severn is 200 miles long and 

 receives five principal tributaries. 



Chief among the destroyers of fish are 

 certain birds and winged insects. The com- 

 mon crow, the crow blackbird, hawks, bluejay, 

 some owls, grebes, gulls and terns, have the 

 reputation of poaching to some extent, but their depredations are much less in 

 our State than the ravages of such birds for example as the herons, kingfisher, 

 certain ducks, loons and fish-hawk. Chief among these is the 



Night Heron. In the report of the Pennsylvania Fish Commission for 1897, Dr. 

 B. H. Warren publishes some interesting notes on the destructive work of the black 

 crown night heron. In a small pool at Westchester, Pennsylvania, twenty-five gold- 

 fish were placed. Two night herons caught all but one of them before the following 

 morning. A night heron killed near a branch of White Clay Creek, in Penn- 

 sylvania, had the tail of a common sucker of about twelve inches long, projecting four 

 inches beyond its bill. The head and shoulders, except the oony portion, were eaten 

 away by the gastric juice of the stomach. Dr. Warren examined the stomachs of 

 about twenty of these herons which were shot in June near their breeding ground, and 

 found fish remains in all of them. 



In July, 1883, Dr. Rudolph Hessel shot a night heron containing the heads of 



seventy -eight young carp. This bird is sometimes called blue heron, and is also quite 



199 



THE FIGHT IS ON. 



