42 
THE NEW YORK AQUARIUM JOURNAL. 
open sea he would return to shore on the crest 
of a second wave. This rashness, he states, 
nearly cost him his life, as a Physalia, many of 
which were stranded upon the beach, fixed itself 
upon his shoulder at the moment the wave land¬ 
ed him on the beach. Although promptly de¬ 
tached, many of the filaments remained glued 
to the skin, and the pain experienced was so in¬ 
tense as to make him faint. An immediate ap¬ 
plication of oil relieved the pain, though it was 
several hours before restoration was complete. 
The stinging property appears to reside in the 
tentacles alone, as the remaining portions of the 
body may be handled with impunity. So viru¬ 
lent is the poison here secreted that, when re¬ 
moved to a cloth, the latter will relain the viru¬ 
lent principle for many days, and from the sur¬ 
face thus infected it can be communicated to 
other objects. 
Fight Between a Trout and a Water-Snake. 
Mr. A. W. Chase, of the U. S. Coast Survey, 
contributes to The Popxilar Science Monthly the 
following interesting account of a remarkable 
conflict between a large water-snake and a trout, 
witnessed by himself and one of his brother offi¬ 
cers in the survey in 1867, on the Purissima, a 
small trout-stream which empties into the ocean 
about twenty-four miles south of San Francisco. 
“We had been fishing on the stream, and 
came to a high bank which overlooked a trans¬ 
parent pool of water about ten feet in diameter 
i'nu~carfeei' irr^cpth;— ■Ssgech 
with willows, and had on one side asrnall gravel 
bank. The trout at first sight was lying in mid¬ 
water, heading up-stream. It was, as afterwards 
ascertained, fully nine inches in length, a very 
desirable prize for an angler. While studying 
how to cast our flies to secure him, a novel fish- 
erman appeared, and so quick were his actions 
that we suspended our own to witness them. 
This new enemy of the trout was a large water 
snake of the common variety, striped black and 
yellow. He swam up the pool on the surface 
until over the trout, when he made a dive, and 
by a dexterous movement seized the trout in such 
a fashion that the jaws of the snake closed its 
mouth. The fight then commenced. The trout 
had the use of its tail and fins, and could drag 
the snake from the surface; when near the bot¬ 
tom, however, the snake made use of it*- tail by 
winding it around every stone or root that it 
could reach After securing this tail-hold it 
could drag the trout toward the bank, but, on 
ettmg go, the trout would have a new advan¬ 
tage. I his battle was continued for full twenty 
minutes, when the snake managed to get its tail 
out of the water and clasped around the root of 
one of the willows mentioned as overhanging 
the pool. The battle was then up, for the snake 
gradually put coil after coil around the root, 
wu ea f\? ne dra .?o> n o the fish toward the land. 
hen half its body was coiled it unloosened 
the first bold and stretched the end of its tail 
out in every direction, and, finding another root, 
made fast, and now using both dragged the trout 
out on the gravel bank. It now had it under 
control, and, uncoiling, the snake dragged the 
fish fully ten feet up on the bank, and I suppose 
would have gorged him. We killed the snake, 
and replaced the trout in the water, as we 
thought that he deserved liberty. He was ap¬ 
parently unhurt, and in a few moments darted 
off. That the water-snake of our California 
brooks will prey upon the young of trout, and 
also smaller and less active fishes, I have no¬ 
ticed, but never have seen an attack on a fish so 
large, or one more hotly contested., ” 
FISH IN FACT AND FABLE. 
3. 
THE TROUT. 
WRITTEN EXPRESSLY FOR THE AQUARIUM JOURNAL. 
There are some words so happily suggestive of 
the things which they represent, that they almost 
make out a clear case for the theory of the in¬ 
spiration of language. For instance, the word 
trout. It is not only the power of association ; 
the very sound conveys an impression of crisp¬ 
ness and coolness, of shady nooks and glistening 
pools, where the brook 
Winds about and in and out, 
With here a blossom sailing ; 
And here and there a lusty trout, 
And here and there a grayling. 
Perhaps to the epicurean mind it suggests, also, 
country breakfast tables, with the tempting ac¬ 
companiments of golden butter and rich cream. 
But even this word does scant justice to the 
speckled beauty of the mountain stream. It re¬ 
quires the pen of that poet and prince of 
anglers, Isaak Walton, to describe the swift 
grace of motion and exquisite blending of tints, 
which distinguish the salmo fontinalis, or com¬ 
mon brook trout. The beauty of color, however, 
belongs only to its perfect condition, and it is 
more susceptible than any other fish to surround¬ 
ing influences. If the bed of the stream which 
it inhabits is muddy the trout loses its delicate 
tints and assumes a dingy and dark brown hue ; 
while in a rock-bedded or gravelly brook, the 
skin grows variegated and lustrous, and the fishes 
shine 
“ Like golden ingots from a fairy mine.” 
This change of color is one of the marvelous 
■ad aptations of Nature for t he preserva tion of the 
fish, by rendering it as nearly akpossible invisi-. 
ble and indistinguishable from either the dark 
or the dazzling background. 
Another influence affecting very decidedly the 
beauty of color, is the time of the year. The 
trout season lasts from about the first of April until 
October ; that is from the time when the fish are 
fully roused from their winter torpor, till the be¬ 
ginning of the spawning season. The budding 
of the willow is supposed to mark the first ap¬ 
pearance of fine trout in the streams, and hence 
the willow is known as the anglers’ trysting tree, 
and has been made the subject of a graceful 
little lyric by Stoddard, an English angler and 
poet: 
Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and s<ng ! 
Meet the mom upon the lea ; 
Are the emeralds of spring 
On the angler’s trysting tree ? 
Tell, sweet thrushes, tell to me ! 
Are the buds on our willow tree ? 
Buds and birds on our trysting tree ? 
From this time onward, almost until the first 
frosts, the trout increases constantly in size and 
beauty. One who would see it in its perfection 
must stand, on some midsummer day, by the 
bank of a heavily wooded, swift and gravelly 
brook, and keeping himself carefully concealed, 
gaze into the pool 
Where sensitive of every ray 
That smites the tiny sea. 
Their scaly panoplies repay 
The loan with usury. 
It is very easy thus to catch a glimpse of these 
bashful beauties, but the artful coquettes are 
much more willing to be admired than to be 
caught, and for an unpracticed hand to hook 
one would almost require the charmed rod of 
the fairy queen in the Arabian Nights. 
The trout is probably the shyest of all fish. 
Shining minnows, alluringly wriggling worms, 
and especially brilliant artificial flies are used as 
bait to tempt the unwary from their nooks, but 
the most skillfully thrown lines fail time' after 
time to attract even a nibble, and it is by no 
means an easy thing to throw a line skillfully. 
MiGHASL Avpi-o’s defiqjjjpn of genius as eternal 
patience is especially applicable to angling. The 
expert fisherman has need of a quick eye, a sure 
hand and an unlimited stock of perseverance. 
Walton says angling is like poetry, a man 
must be born to it; so accurate and so delicate 
must be the senses. But in the notes to his 
book, “ The Complete Angler, ” a story is told, 
and vouched for by Captain Rickets, an Ameri¬ 
can, who says he saw three men in Switzerland 
going to take trout, one equipped with a sledge 
hammer, another with a crowbar, and a third 
with a large basket. He followed them to the 
brook and watched the operation The first man 
struck a heavy blow on a stone in the centre ol 
the stream, the second swiftly turned the stone 
over, and the third caught in his wicker basket 
the fish which had been stunned by the blow of 
the sledge hammer. This story seems so incredi¬ 
ble that it might perhaps have been questioned 
before this if it were not that every one who 
reads “The Complete Angler ” is charmed be¬ 
yond the power of criticism. There is an inno¬ 
cent simplicity about it, which, as Charles Lamb 
says, would sweeten any man’s temper in the 
reading. The Angler’s song, for example, is as 
quaint as the verses of Herrick or Herbert : 
Who hunts doth oft in danger ride, 
Who hawks lures oft both far and wide ; 
Who uses games will often prove 
A loser ; and who falls in love 
Is fettered in fond Cupid’s snare. 
My angle breeds me no such care. 
And when the timorous ti-out I wait 
To take, and he devours my bait, 
How poor a thing sometimes, I find, 
Will captivate a greedy mind ; 
And when none bite, I praise the wise 
Whom vain allurements ne’er surprise. 
But in talking of the brook trout we must not 
forget their kindred, the salmo fario , or lake 
trout, which are equally remarkable for their 
JafiaiLtiM-.hj e.a.jhg quaker grey ab ove shading 
into a soft cream color below, an J~5otn coveT£fr“' 
with crimson spots, making a combination of 
colors as rich as the banana and pomegranate of 
the tropics, and as delicate as the deep red andl 
tea roses of the north. But woe to the unfortu¬ 
nate minnow or tadpole that reverses the old 
proverb, and rashly believes that handsome does 
that handsome is, for in spite of its graceful 
movements and delicate tints the trout is a most 
voracious marauder, as its mouth betrays by its 
lining of teeth, not only on the jaws but even on 
the palate and tongue. Some of these freeboot¬ 
ers grow fat on their spoils. In Llyndivi, one 
of those unpronounceable lakes in Wales, there 
is a species of trout called Cochy Dail, which 
weigh twenty-five pounds. In Lough Neagh, in 
Ireland, trout called Buddaghs are caught, weigh¬ 
ing thirty pounds, and our own waters excel 
both the Welsh and Hibernian, and have pro¬ 
duced trout of ninety pounds weight. 
The strength of these fish is wonderful. A 
gentleman, fishing in one of the Adirondack 
lakes with a light line, spent five hours in trying 
to pull in a trout without breaking the line, and 
when the fish was finally drawn into the boat he 
plunged so violently that it required a severe 
blow with one of the seats to effectually quiet 
him. Another angler, equally persevering, but 
less fortunate, after two hours of gentle persua¬ 
sion and delicate manipulation, drew up a bough 
of a tree which had caught in his hook, and giv¬ 
ing slightly at each pull, and then rebounding 
at the release, had given to the hand and mind 
of the eager fisherman the impression of a forty 
pound trout. Thus there is no end to the anec¬ 
dotes related by anglers, and there seems to be a 
fascination about “-the gentle art” which com¬ 
pensates for the fatigue, exposure and disappoint¬ 
ment of the process. Walton exclaims enthusi¬ 
astically:— “Trust me, scholar, I have caught 
many a trout that the very shape and enameled 
color of him have been such as hath joyed me 
to look upon him, and I have then concluded 
with Solomon, everything is beautiful in its 
season.” Rachel Far^ 
