to prepare nests for their mates, who were expected a little later. It
was a simple process. All they did was to shove the gravel aside with
their noses and fins and tails, and then fan the sediment away until
they had made nice, clean little hollows in the bed of the stream; but
there was a good deal of excitement and jealousy over it, and every
little while they had to stop and have a scrap. The biggest and
strongest always wanted the best places, and if they happened to take a
fancy for a location occupied by a smaller and weaker fish, they drove
him out without ceremony and took possession by right of the conqueror.
For the most part their fighting seemed rather tame, for they did little
more than butt each other in the ribs with their noses, but once in a
while they really got their dander up and bit quite savagely. And when
the lady trout came to inspect the nests that had been prepared for
them, then times were livelier than ever, and the jealousy and rivalry
ran very high, indeed.
Of course our Trout was too young to bear a very prominent part in these
proceedings, but he and some companions of about his own age skirmished
around the edges of the nesting grounds, and seemed to take a wicked
delight in teasing the old males and running away just in time to escape
punishment. And when the nests began to be put to practical use, the
yearlings were very much in evidence. Strictly fresh eggs are as good
eating down under the water as they are on land, and, partly on this
account, and partly because direct sunshine is considered very injurious
to them, the mothers always covered them with gravel as quickly as
possible. But in spite of the best of care the current was constantly
catching some of them and sweeping them away, and our young friend would
creep up as near as he dared, and whenever one of the yellow-brown balls
came his way he would gobble it down with as little remorse as he had
felt for his first larva. Now and then an irate father would turn upon
him fiercely and chase him off, but in a few minutes he would be back
again, watching for eggs as eagerly as ever. Once, indeed, he had a
rather close call, for the biggest old male in all the stream came after
him with mouth open as if he would swallow him whole, as he could very
easily have done. Our friend was almost caught when the big fellow
happened to glance back and saw another trout coming to visit his wife,
and promptly abandoned the chase and went home to see about it.
A year later our Trout went again to the gravelly shallow, and this
time, being six inches long and about thirty months old, he decided to
make a nest of his own. He did so, and had just induced a most beautiful
young fish of the other sex to come and examine it, with a view to
matrimony, when that same big bully appeared on the scene, promptly
turned him out of house and home, and began courting the beautiful young
creature himself. It was very exasperating, not to say humiliating, but
it was the sort of thing that one must expect when one is only a
two-year-old.
The next year he had better luck. As another summer passed away, and the
cooler weather came on, he arrayed himself in his wedding finery, and it
almost seemed as if he had stolen some of the colors of the swamp
maples, in their gay fall dress, and was using them to deck himself out
and make a brave display. In later years he was larger and heavier, but
I don't think he was ever much handsomer than he was in that fourth
autumn of his life. His back was a dark, dusky, olive-green, with
mottlings that were still darker and duskier. His sides were lighter--in
some places almost golden yellow; and scattered irregularly over them
were the small, bright carmine spots that gave him one of his _aliases_,
the "Speckled Trout." Beneath he was usually of a pale cream color, but
now that he had put on his best clothes his vest was bright orange, and
some of his fins were variegated with red and white, while others were a
fiery yellow. He was covered all over with a suit of armor made of
thousands and thousands of tiny scales, so small and fine that the eye
could hardly separate them, and from the bony shoulder-girdle just
behind his gills a raised line, dark and slightly waving, ran back to
his tail, like the sheer-line of a ship. There were other fishes that
were more slender and more finely modelled than he, and possibly more
graceful, but in him there was something besides beauty--something that
told of power and speed and doggedness. He was like a man-o'-war dressed
out in all her bunting for some great gala occasion, but still showing
her grim, heavy outlines beneath her decorations. His broad mouth opened
clear back under his eyes, and was armed with rows of backward-pointing
teeth, so sharp and strong that when they once fastened themselves upon
a smaller fish they never let him go again. The only way out from
between those jaws was down his throat. His eyes were large and bright,
and were set well apart; and the bulge of his forehead between them
hinted at more brains than are allotted to some of the people of the
stream. Altogether, he was a most gallant and knightly little fish, and
it would certainly have been a pity if he hadn't found a mate.
[Illustration: _Nesting Grounds._]
And now he started the third time for the gravelly shallow, and
travelled as he had never travelled before in all his life. Streams are
made to swim against--every brook trout knows that--and the faster they
run, the greater is the joy of breasting them. The higher the
water-fall, the prouder do you feel when you find you can leap it. And
our friend was in a mood for swimming, and for swimming with all his
might. Never had he felt so strong and vigorous and so full of life and
energy, and he made his fins and his tail go like the oars of a
racing-shell. Now he was working up the swift current of a long rapid
like a bird in the teeth of the wind. Now he was gathering all his
strength for the great leap to the top of the water-fall. And now,
perhaps, he rested for a little while in a quiet pool, and presently
went hurrying on again, diving under logs and fallen trees, swinging
round the curves, darting up the still places where the water lay
a-dreaming, and wriggling over shallow bars where it was not half deep
enough to cover him; until at last he reached the old familiar place
where so many generations of brook trout had first seen the light of day
and felt the cold touch of the snow-water.
As before, he and the other males arrived at the nesting grounds some
days in advance of their mates, and spent the intervening time in
scooping hollows in the gravel and quarrelling among themselves. Two or
three times he was driven from a choice location by someone who was
bigger than he, but he always managed in some way to regain it, or else
stole another from a smaller fish; and when the ladies finally appeared
he had a fine large nest in a pleasant situation a little apart from
those of his rivals. But for some reason the first candidates who came
to look at it declined to stay. Perhaps they were not quite ready to
settle down, or perhaps they were merely disposed to insist on the
feminine privilege of changing their minds. But finally there came one
who seemed to be quite satisfied, and with whom the Trout himself had
every reason to be pleased.
She was not a native of the stream, but of one of the hatcheries of the
Michigan Fish Commission; and while he was lying in the gravel she was
one of a vast company inhabiting a number of black wooden troughs that
stood in a large, pleasant room filled with the sound of running water.
Here there were no yearlings nor musk-rats nor saw-bill ducks looking
for fresh eggs, nor any dragons nor star-gazers lying in wait for the
young fry. Instead there were nice, kind men, who kept the hatching
troughs clean and the water at the right temperature, and who gently
stirred up the troutlets with a long goose-feather whenever too many of
them crowded together in one corner, trying to get away from the hateful
light. Under this sort of treatment most of the thirty million babies in
the hatchery lived and thrived. Only a few thousands of them were brook
trout, but among those thousands one of the smartest and most precocious
was the one in whom we are just now most interested. She was always
first into the dark corners, as long as dark corners seemed desirable;
and later, when they began to come up into the light and partake of the
pulverized beef-liver which their attendants offered them, there was no
better swimmer or more voracious feeder than she. All this was
especially fortunate because there was a very hard and trying experience
before her--one in which she would have need of all her strength and
vitality, and in which her chances of life would be very small, indeed.
It came with planting time, when she and a host of her companions were
whisked through a rubber tube and deposited in a big can made of
galvanized iron, in which they were borne away to the trout stream. The
journey was a long one, they were pretty badly cramped for room, and
before they reached their destination the supply of oxygen in the water
became exhausted. The baby trout began to think they had blown out the
gas, and they all crowded to the surface, where, if anywhere, the minute
bubbles that keep one alive are to be found. They gulped down great
mouthfuls of water and forced it out through their gills as fast as ever
they could, but, somehow, all the life seemed to be gone out of it, and
it did them no good whatever. Pretty soon a few turned over on their
backs and died, and every last one of them would have suffocated if the
man who had charge of the party hadn't noticed what was going on and
come to the rescue. Picking up a dipperful of water and troutlets, and
holding it high in the air, he poured it back into the can with much
dashing and splashing. Hundreds and hundreds of tiny bubbles were caught
in the rush and carried down to the bottom, and so the oxygen came back
again to the tired gills, and the danger was over.
The emigrants reached the trout stream at last, and one would have
supposed that their troubles were ended. In reality the chapter of
trials and tribulations had only just begun, for the same fishes and
frogs and lizards that had so persecuted our friend and his brothers and
sisters were on hand to welcome the new arrivals, and very few escaped.
And so, in spite of its quiet beginnings in the peaceful surroundings
of the hatchery, this young lady trout's life proved quite as exciting
and adventurous as our friend's, and it is possible that the good care
which she received during her early infancy really served to make things
all the harder for her when she came to be thrown entirely on her own
resources. The mere change in the temperature of the water when she was
turned out of the can was quite a shock to her nervous system; and,
whereas most trout are somewhat acquainted with the dangers and
hardships of the stream, almost from the time they rip their shells
open, she did not even know that there was such a place until she was
set down in it and told to shift for herself.
However, by dint of strength, speed, agility, and good judgment in
selecting hiding-places--and also, in all probability, by a run of
remarkably good luck--she made her way unharmed through all the perils
of babyhood and early youth, and now she was one of the most beautiful
little three-year-old pirates that ever swooped down upon a helpless
victim.
As she and our friend swam side by side, her nose and the end of her
tail were exactly even with his. Her colors were the same that he had
worn before he put on his wedding garments, and if you had seen them
together in the early summer I don't believe you could ever have told
them apart. They were a well-matched pair, more evenly mated, probably,
than is usual in fish marriages.
But they were not to be allowed to set up housekeeping together without
fighting for the privilege. Hardly had she finished inspecting the nest,
and made up her mind that it would answer, and that he was, on the
whole, quite eligible as a husband, when a third trout appeared and
attempted to do as the big bully had done the year before. This time,
however, our young friend's blood was up, and, though the enemy was
considerably larger than he, he was ready to strike for his altars and
his fires. He made a quick rush, like a torpedo-boat attacking a
man-of-war, and hit the intruder amidships, ramming him with all his
might. Then the enemy made as sudden a turn, and gave our Trout a poke
in the ribs, and for a few minutes they dodged back and forth, and round
and round, and over and under each other, each getting in a punch
whenever he had a chance. So far it seemed only a trial of strength and
speed and dexterity, and if our Trout was not quite as large and
powerful as the other, yet he proved himself the quicker and the more
agile and lively. But before it was over he did more than that, for,
suddenly ranging up on the enemy's starboard quarter, he opened his
mouth, and the sharp teeth of his lower jaw tore a row of bright scales
from his adversary's side, and left a long, deep gash behind. That
settled it. The big fellow lit out as fast as he could go, and our Trout
was left in undisputed possession.
The nesting season cannot last forever, and by and by, when the days
were very short and the nights were very long, when the stars were
bright, and when each sunrise found the hoar-frost lying thick and heavy
on the dead and fallen leaves, the last trout went in search of better
feeding grounds, and again the gravelly shallow seemed deserted. But it
was only seeming. There were no eggs in sight--the frogs, the rats, the
ducks, and the yearlings had taken care of that, and I am very much
afraid that our friend may have eaten a few himself, on the sly, when
his wife wasn't looking--but hidden away among the pebbles there were
thousands, and the old, old miracle was being re-enacted, and multitudes
of little live creatures were getting ready for the time when something
should tell them to tear their shells open and come out into the world.
One of the Trout's most remarkable adventures, and the one which
probably taught him more than any other, came during the hot weather of
the following summer. The stream had grown rather too warm for comfort,
and lately he had got into the habit of frequenting certain deep, quiet
pools where icy springs bubbled out of the banks and imparted a very
grateful coolness to the slow current. It was delightful to spend a long
July afternoon in the wash below one of these fountains, having a lazy,
pleasant time, and enjoying the touch of the cold water as it went
sliding along his body from nose to tail. One sunshiny day, as he lay in
his favorite spring-hole, thinking about nothing in particular, and just
working his fins enough to keep from drifting down stream, a fly lit on
the surface just over his head--a bright, gayly colored fly of a species
which was entirely new to him, but which looked as if it must be very
finely flavored. As it happened, there had been several days of very
warm, sultry weather, and even the fish had grown sullen and lazy, but
this afternoon the wind had whipped around to the north, straight off
Lake Superior, and all the animals in the Great Tahquamenon Swamp felt
as if they had been made over new. How the brook trout could have known
of it so quickly, down under the water, is a mystery; but our friend
seemed to wake up all of a sudden, and to realize that he hadn't been
eating as much as usual, and that he was hungry. He made a dash at the
fly and seized it, but he had no sooner got it between his lips than he
spat it out again. There was something wrong with it. Instead of being
soft and juicy and luscious, as all flies ought to be, it was stiff, and
dry, and hard, and it had a long, crooked stinger that was different
from anything belonging to any other fly that he had ever tasted. It
disappeared as suddenly as it had come, and the Trout sank back to the
bottom of the pool.
But presently three more flies came down together, and lit in a row, one
behind another. They were different from the first, and he decided to
try again. He chose the foremost of the three, and found it quite as
ill-tasting as the other had been; but this time he didn't spit it out,
for the stinger was a little too quick for him, and before he could let
go it was fast in his lip. For the next few minutes he tore around the
pool as if he was crazy, frightening some of the smaller fishes almost
out of their wits, and sending them rushing up-stream in a panic. He
himself had more than once been badly scared by seeing other trout do
just what he was doing, but he had never realized what it all meant. Now
he understood.
The first thing he did was to go shooting along the surface for several
feet, throwing his head from side to side as he went, and doing his best
to shake that horrible fly out of his mouth. But it wouldn't shake, so
he tried jumping out of the water and striking at the line with his
tail. That wasn't any better, and next he rushed off up the stream as
hard as he could go. But the line kept pulling him round to the left
with gentle but irresistible force, and before he knew it he was back in
the pool again. Wherever he went, and whatever he did, it was always
pulling, pulling, pulling--not hard enough to tear the hook away, but
just enough to keep him from getting an inch of slack. If there had been
any chance to jerk he would probably have got loose in short order. He
rushed around the pool so hard that he soon grew weary, and presently he
sank to the bottom, hoping to lie still for a few minutes, and rest, and
perhaps think of some new way of escape. But even there that steady
tugging never ceased. It seemed as if it would pull his jaw out of his
head if he didn't yield, and before long he let himself be drawn up
again to the surface. Once he was so close to the shore that the angler
made a thrust at him with the landing-net, and just grazed his side. It
frightened him worse than ever, and he raced away again so fast that the
reel sang, and the line swished through the water like a knife.
[Illustration: "_He tried jumping out of the water._"]
The other two flies were trailing behind, and the short line that held
them was constantly catching on his fins and twisting itself around his
tail in a way that annoyed him greatly. He almost thought he could get
away if they were not there to hinder him. And yet, as it finally turned
out, it was one of those flies that saved his life. He was coming slowly
back from that last unsuccessful rush for liberty, fighting for every
inch, and only yielding to a strength a thousand times greater than his
own, when the trailer caught on a sunken log and held fast. Instantly
the strain on his mouth relaxed. The angler was no longer pulling on
him, but on the log. He could jerk now, and he immediately began to
twitch his head this way and that, backward and forward, right and
left, tearing the hole in his lip a little larger at every yank,
until the hook came away and he was free.
It was a painful experience, and he carried the scar as long as he
lived, but the lesson he learned was worth all it cost. I won't say that
he never touched bait again, but he was much more cautious, and no other
artificial fly ever stung him as badly as that one.
The years went by, and the Trout increased in size and strength and
wisdom, as a trout should. One after another his rivals went away to the
happy hunting-grounds, most of them losing their lives because they
could not resist the temptation to taste a made-up fly, or to swallow a
luscious angle-worm festooned on a dainty little steel hook; and the
number of fish who dared dispute his right to do whatever he pleased
grew beautifully less. And at last there was only one trout left in all
the stream who was larger and stronger than he. That was the same big
fellow who had come so near swallowing him on the occasion of his first
visit to the nesting-grounds; and the way the fierce, solemn old brute
finally departed this life deserves a paragraph all to itself.
It happened one morning in early spring, just after the ice had gone
out. Our friend was still a trifle sleepy and lazy after the long, dull
winter, though he had an eye open, as always, for anything particularly
good to eat. I doubt if he would have jumped at any kind of a fly, for
it was not the right time of year for flies, and he did not believe in
eating them out of season; but almost anything else was welcome. He was
faring very well that morning, as it chanced, for the stream was running
high, and many a delicious grub and earthworm had been swept into it by
the melting snow. And presently, what should come drifting down with the
current but a poor little field-mouse, struggling desperately in a vain
effort to swim back to the shore. Once before our friend had swallowed a
mouse whole, just as you would take an oyster from the half-shell, and
he knew that they were very nice, indeed. He made a rush for the unlucky
little animal, and in another second he would have had him; but just
then the big bully came swaggering up with an air which seemed to say:
"That's my meat. You get out of this!"
Our friend obeyed, the big fellow gave a leap and seized the mouse, and
then--his time had come. He fought bravely, but he was fairly hooked,
and in a few minutes he lay out on the bank, gasping for breath,
flopping wildly about, and fouling his beautiful sides with sand and
dirt. If he had understood English he might have overheard an argument
which immediately took place between the angler and a girl, and which
began something like this:
"There!" in a triumphant tone; "who says mice aren't good bait? This is
the biggest trout that's been caught in this stream for years."
"Oh, George, don't kill him! He's so pretty! Put him back in the water."
"Put him back in the water? Well, I should say not! What do you take me
for?"
Evidently the girl took him for one who could be easily influenced by
the right person, for she kept up the argument, and in the end she won
her case. The trout was tossed back into the stream, where he gave
himself a shake or two, to get rid of the sand, and then swam away,
apparently as well as ever. But girls don't always know what is good for
trout. It would really have been kinder if the angler had hit him over
the head with the butt of his fishing-rod, and then carried him home and
put him in the frying-pan. In his struggles a part of the mucus had been
rubbed from his body, and that always means trouble for a fish. A few
days later our friend met him again, and noticed that a curious growth
had appeared on his back and sides--a growth which bore a faint
resemblance to the bloom on a peach, and which had taken the exact shape
of the prints of the angler's fingers. The fungus had got him. He was
dying, slowly but surely, and within a week he turned over on his back
and drifted away down the stream. A black bear found him whirling round
and round in a little eddy under the bank, and that was the end of him.
And so our friend became the King of the Trout Stream.
You are not to suppose, however, that he paid very much attention to his
subjects, or that he was particularly fond of having them about him and
giving them orders. On the contrary, he had become very hermit-like in
his habits. In his youth he had been fond of society, and he and his
companions had often roamed the stream in little schools and bands, but
of late years his tastes seemed to have undergone a change, and he kept
to himself and lurked in the shady, sunless places till his skin grew
darker and darker, and he more and more resembled the shadows in which
he lived. His great delight was to watch from the depths of some
cave-like hollow under an overhanging bank until a star-gazer, or a
herring, or a minnow, or some other baby-eater came in sight, and then
to rush out and swallow him head first. He took ample revenge on all
those pesky little fishes for all that they had done and tried to do to
him and his brethren in the early days. The truth is that every brook
trout is an Ishmaelite. The hand of every creature is against him, from
that of the dragon-fly larva to that of the man with the latest
invention in the way of patent fishing-tackle. It is no wonder if he
turns the tables on his enemies whenever he has a chance, or even if he
sometimes goes so far, in his general ruthlessness, as to eat his own
offspring.