It Is A Gold Or Silver Bit That Passes Current
In The River, Its Limber Tail Dimpling The Surface In Sport Or
Flight.
I have seen the fry, when frightened by something thrown
into the water, leap out by dozens, together with the dace, and
wreck themselves upon a floating plank.
It is the little
light-infant of the river, with body armor of gold or silver
spangles, slipping, gliding its life through with a quirk of the
tail, half in the water, half in the air, upward and ever upward
with flitting fin to more crystalline tides, yet still abreast of
us dwellers on the bank. It is almost dissolved by the summer
heats. A slighter and lighter colored shiner is found in one of
our ponds.
The Pickerel, _Esox reticulatus_, the swiftest, wariest, and most
ravenous of fishes, which Josselyn calls the Fresh-Water or River
Wolf, is very common in the shallow and weedy lagoons along the
sides of the stream. It is a solemn, stately, ruminant fish,
lurking under the shadow of a pad at noon, with still,
circumspect, voracious eye, motionless as a jewel set in water,
or moving slowly along to take up its position, darting from time
to time at such unlucky fish or frog or insect as comes within
its range, and swallowing it at a gulp. I have caught one which
had swallowed a brother pickerel half as large as itself, with
the tail still visible in its mouth, while the head was already
digested in its stomach. Sometimes a striped snake, bound to
greener meadows across the stream, ends its undulatory progress
in the same receptacle. They are so greedy and impetuous that
they are frequently caught by being entangled in the line the
moment it is cast. Fishermen also distinguish the brook pickerel,
a shorter and thicker fish than the former.
The Horned Pout, _Pimelodus nebulosus_, sometimes called Minister,
from the peculiar squeaking noise it makes when drawn out of the
water, is a dull and blundering fellow, and like the eel
vespertinal in his habits, and fond of the mud. It bites
deliberately as if about its business. They are taken at night
with a mass of worms strung on a thread, which catches in their
teeth, sometimes three or four, with an eel, at one pull. They
are extremely tenacious of life, opening and shutting their
mouths for half an hour after their heads have been cut off. A
bloodthirsty and bullying race of rangers, inhabiting the fertile
river bottoms, with ever a lance in rest, and ready to do battle
with their nearest neighbor. I have observed them in summer, when
every other one had a long and bloody scar upon his back, where
the skin was gone, the mark, perhaps, of some fierce
encounter. Sometimes the fry, not an inch long, are seen
darkening the shore with their myriads.
The Suckers, _Catostomi Bostonienses_ and _tuberculati_, Common and
Horned, perhaps on an average the largest of our fishes, may be
seen in shoals of a hundred or more, stemming the current in the
sun, on their mysterious migrations, and sometimes sucking in the
bait which the fisherman suffers to float toward them. The
former, which sometimes grow to a large size, are frequently
caught by the hand in the brooks, or like the red chivin, are
jerked out by a hook fastened firmly to the end of a stick, and
placed under their jaws. They are hardly known to the mere
angler, however, not often biting at his baits, though the
spearer carries home many a mess in the spring. To our village
eyes, these shoals have a foreign and imposing aspect, realizing
the fertility of the seas.
The Common Eel, too, _Muraena Bostoniensis_, the only species of
eel known in the State, a slimy, squirming creature, informed of
mud, still squirming in the pan, is speared and hooked up with
various success. Methinks it too occurs in picture, left after
the deluge, in many a meadow high and dry.
In the shallow parts of the river, where the current is rapid,
and the bottom pebbly, you may sometimes see the curious circular
nests of the Lamprey Eel, _Petromyzon Americanus_, the American
Stone-Sucker, as large as a cart-wheel, a foot or two in height,
and sometimes rising half a foot above the surface of the
water. They collect these stones, of the size of a hen's egg,
with their mouths, as their name implies, and are said to fashion
them into circles with their tails. They ascend falls by clinging
to the stones, which may sometimes be raised, by lifting the fish
by the tail. As they are not seen on their way down the streams,
it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away
and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite
period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms
worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare's description of the
sea-floor. They are rarely seen in our waters at present, on
account of the dams, though they are taken in great quantities at
the mouth of the river in Lowell. Their nests, which are very
conspicuous, look more like art than anything in the river.
If we had leisure this afternoon, we might turn our prow up the
brooks in quest of the classical trout and the minnows. Of the
last alone, according to M. Agassiz, several of the species found
in this town are yet undescribed. These would, perhaps, complete
the list of our finny contemporaries in the Concord waters.
Salmon, Shad, and Alewives were formerly abundant here, and taken
in weirs by the Indians, who taught this method to the whites, by
whom they were used as food and as manure, until the dam, and
afterward the canal at Billerica, and the factories at Lowell,
put an end to their migrations hitherward; though it is thought
that a few more enterprising shad may still occasionally be seen
in this part of the river.
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