
JULY 27, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 

= 
auriferous for me to deal with just now. 
In view of these particulars I feel that I 
should revert to my fish ponds, taking up the 
theme where I left it nearly a year ago, when 
I sent you a sketch and a brief description of 
ponds rt and 2. I have since enlarged my 
aquatic nursery by the addition of ponds 3 and 
4, providing the latter for the reception of young 
trout that I expect to dip out of the ponds con- 
taining the parent fish, which latter love their 
progeny unwisely and too well. 
Although the trout this.season were busy 
upon their spawning beds for many days, only 
a dozen young appeared. I can find few in the 
nearby Stream and believe the eggs failed to 
hatch there, as they apparently have failed in 
the ponds—a condition I cannot account for, as 
the season was theoretically a favorable one. 
The ponds now contain about a hundred trout 
of varying age and size, averaging larger and 
fatter than any I have seen ‘in the stream, their 
former home. I have fed them upon a little of 
everything, and all ordinary contributions are 
impulsively received. When these are not al- 
together palatable, they are rejected, or, more 
properly, they are ejected. Where a morsel 
looks better than it tastes they frequently try it 
a number of times in turn, until about every one 
of them has inspected and experimented with 
it. The water being very clear, when the light 
upon the ponds is right every fish in them may 
be seen to about as good advantage as they 
might be in a glass case, while at the same 
time they are as nearly in their natural en- 
vironments as possible. 
At present some twenty-two ducklings, from 
ten days to two weeks old, occupy the ponds, 
and these, with the several families of fish, 
frogs and other: aquatic and amphibious ani- 
mals, afford entertainment to observers. The 
trout tamed more readily than the pike or 
suckers which one of the ponds contains, and 
they are far more intelligent, so to say. The 
larger trout are tamer than the smaller fish, and 
seem to fully comprehend and accept domestica- 
tion, One trout in particular, a beautiful fish 
that will weigh about three-quarters of a pound 
that was nearly drowned in his capture, and 
then carried a mile in a tin pail, is now about 
the tamest, most serenely sociable of the tribe. 
When I caught him in his native pool in the 
stream, a year ago, he proved a furious fighter, 
trying about-as many and varied maneuvers as a 
fish ever knows. After going into about every 
retreat in the pool, he finally fouled my line in 
a submerged bush and tangle of drift. When 
he was at last secured, although he was not 
seriously torn by the hook, he was so nearly 
done for by drowning and exhaustion that I had 
little hope of getting him to the pond alive. 
The fish are fond of the soft feed or mush 
prepared for the poultry, and when the mush is 
thrown into the water the struggles between the 
ducklings and the fish is very interesting to 
see. The ducklings dive to the bottom in 
three to five feet of water, scoot about among 
the darting fish, and may be seen struggling for 
the same morsel, which is soon torn to frag- 
ments and freely distributed. When the duck- 
lings get their portion, they promptly reverse 
their propellers and rise to surface to gorge it. 
| Frequently when the ducklings are swimming 
| the larger trout snap at their feet, sometimes 
jerking them about, and -the larger of the fish 
| could doubtless take the smaller ducklings 
| down. The birds, however, show no special 
fear of the fish. Some of the larger of several 
| pike might even swallow a small duckling, but 
| they have shown no desire to do so, and I have 
| not seen the pike follow them as the trout do. 
Conceding the animation of animals to imply 
intelligence, the precocity of many young 
creatures, as compared with the slower evolu- 
tion of human development, is wondrous. A 
duckling but a few hours‘from the shell is ready 
to forage on land or water, even under water, 
and will either flee enemies or threaten to fight 
them. Mothered by a: non-amphibious parent, 
a common domestic hen, he ignores her frantic 
advice, example and attempts at protection, and 
scoots for the first water, deep or shallow, there 
to paddle his own downy canoe until he sees 
fit to seek home and: mother. 

| 

Compared with the’ duckling the newly hatched 
troutlet is infinitely lower in the scale of ani- 
mal development, infinitely smaller and weaker. 
The first seen of him is when he comes to the 
surface of the water from the minute entoblast 
of the yellow egg in its cold bed of pebbles—a 
mere film of matter,. almost as transparent as 
the water; every organ and gland in his miracu- 
lously delicate anatomy as visible as motes in 
crystal. His minute form is even then shapely 
and graceful, and he is aquiver with life and 
alert consciousness, although there is not a 
round drop of blood in a thousand of him. He 
is born swimming, and under the microscope a 
complete fish, with the rudiments of his speckled 
and illuminated sides already there; infinitesimal 
as he is, already darting for and seizing his 
prey, whatever it may be, which is invisible to 
the human eye. 
He grows or develops bulk far less rapidly, 
size, than 
even in proportion to his does the 


Chapter Il. 
THAT WAS LOST. 
From the Montreal Star. 
THE BARK 
duckling, but be may be considered the bird’s 
equal in intelligence or sagacity in his own line 
of business and environment. If we concede 
the brain to be the center of animation—the 
governor of animal activity or life—what in- 
ferior and cumbrous bulk of matter handicaps 
man! Compare the filmy, almost microscopic 
infant fish, with its brain inconceivably minute, 
with that of an infant child—the alert conscious- 
ness of the one with the slow development of 
the other and higher! If the brain of the human 
infant was of the same relative capacity as that 
of the infant fish, what Czsars men would be! 
And if he developed the dominating tendencies 
of men and fish, what seizers we might also be! 
Surely nature adjusts some matters with ad- 
mirable judiciousness. 
There are some polliwogs and various other 
inhabitants in these ponds which I desire to 
examine, if the ducks and fish do not find them. 
From time to time I learn that there is a great 
deal to be found out if a man tries to look it 
up for himself. 
By the way, I am glad to be aboard with 
the “old guard,” having been a reader of and 
contributor to these columns for twenty-five 
years or more. Here in my house in the Shasta 
Mountains I have stacks of Forest AND STREAM, 
dating back a quarter of a century. And the 
oldest of them read very well yet. I find fre- 
quently that they contain things worth reading 
over every now and again. I am not old, 
neither, not having reached L yet. RANSACKER. 
135 

In Norway. 
Lysoen, near Bergen, Norway, June 
Editor Forest and Stream: “Lys” (pronounced 
Leseu) is the home of the-late Ole Bull and is 
on an island (Lys6en) a quarter of a mile from 
the mainland. I am the guest of the daughter, 
Mrs. Olea Bull Vaughan. The island contains 
600 acres of rocks on which there are about five 
acres of tillable land, two small lakes of a few 
acres each, of fresh water, about 100 and’ 200 
feet above salt water. The highest point is 450 
feet from which the North Sea proper can be 
seen ‘some eight to ten miles out. There are 
twenty-one miles of shell and gravel walks, three, 
four and six feet wide, running up and down 
and around the rocks, and are an excellent piece 
of engineering. Yesterday I walked eleven and 
one-half miles on them. I carry a pedometer 
and register each day’s walk (as I have noth- 
ing else to do except to eat five times a day). 
The days are long here now and will soon be 
longer. One evening last week I wrote until 10 
o’clock without a light in the room and without 
eyeglasses. 
The island is well covered with pine and birch 
trees. Many of the pines are very large, one 
measuring eleven feet in circumference. None 
have been cut since Ole Bull purchased it forty 
years ago. The rocks are also covered with a 
carpet of moss and heather in which one sinks 
a foot deep and for the past month (wherever 
the sun gets to it) the moss has been white with 
the “windflower’ (anemones) and shamrock, 
while on the highest nearby hills there are still 
spots of snow, and last evening from the tower 
(on the highest point) I saw in the distance a 
mountain still covered with snow. The highest 
hills on the immediate mainland on all sides 
(except toward the sea) are 800 feet high. The 
past four or five days have been as cold as at 
any time since April 25. We have had no frost 
about the house since I came. There is good 
fishing (not angling) in the fjords, although I 
have not done any as yet, but Mr. Vaughan 
promised last evening to take me out as soon as 
the evenings *zset warm. That is the time they 
do the. fishing. A few days ago Mrs. Vaughan 
showed me three brown trout that the house- 
keeper had*just- bought from the fisherman that 
furnishes them regularly. The trout were 124 
inches long and plump. I asked how much they 
paid for them and the housekeeper said, “One 
kroner,” which is 27 cents. We had two of them 
for dinner that evening. They were not like any 
fish I had ever eaten before. We have fish in some 
shape nearly every day, but not twice alike in a 
week. Yesterday we had fish pudding, and al- 
though it was all fish except the seasoning you 
would hardly believe it unless you saw it-made. 
J. L. Davison, 
I.— 

The Changed Times. 
In this year of grace we have to hark back 
to the time of Daniel .Boone, as well as to com- 
ment on the present, and prophesy of the future. 
This afternoon as I sat reading The Republi- 
can’s account of the Springfield celebration, a 
large and handsome deer stood in my tobacco 
field, only a few rods from my honse and the 
main road, down which, only a few minutes be- 
fore a big touring car had passed on its honk- 
ing way. When first seen he stood still, with 
erect head and distended nostrils, but soon evi- 
dently thinking himself too close to civilization, 
or possibly getting a sniff of gasolene, he cleared 
the field in a few bounds and disappeared in 
the woods. It is a far cry to Boone and Ken- 
ton, and if they would come back to-day—though 
the deer would look familiar—what wonders 
would they see! We talk into a bit of hard 
rubber and the voice is heard and recognized 
across the continent. The air trembles a bit, and 
we know what ship is off Nantucket, and if all 
on board are well! For prophecy—well, the air- 
ship is close by.—Springfield Republican. 

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