The Common Objects of the Country

So they were put into the jar—but then there was a scene which I will not describe, which I trust never to see again, and of which I do not even like to think. Suffice it to say, that nearly a quarter of an hour elapsed before these miserable creatures died, though in sheer mercy I kept them pressed below the surface.

Changing our post of observation from the banks of the ponds to those of the running streams, we shall find there many creatures worthy of observation; so many, indeed, that it would be a hopeless task to attempt to give even a slight account of one-fiftieth of them. I shall, therefore, only mention two creatures, as examples of the fish; and these two are chosen because they are exceedingly common, and very different from each other in colour and habits.

The first of these creatures is the common Stickleback, or Tittlebat, as it is sometimes called. There are several species of British sticklebacks; but the commonest, and I think the most beautiful, is the three-spined stickleback.

These little fish derive their name from the sharp spines with which they are armed, and which they can raise or depress at pleasure—as I know to my cost. For being, as boys often are, rather silly, I made a wager that I would swallow a minnow alive; and having made the bet, proceeded to win it. Unfortunately, instead of a minnow, a stickleback was handed to me, which having its spines pressed close to the body, was very like a minnow. Just as I swallowed it, the creature stuck up all its spines, and fixed itself firmly.

THE STICKLEBACK.

Neither way would it go, and the torture was horrid. At last, a great piece of apple that I swallowed gave it an impetus that started it from its position; but it was not for some time, that to me appeared hours, that the fish was disposed of. And even then it left its traces; and if it would be any satisfaction to the fish to know that ample vengeance was taken for its death, it must have been thoroughly gratified.

There are few fish more favoured in point of decoration than the stickleback; although the decoration, like that of soldiers, is only given to the gentlemen, and of them only to the victors in fight.

They are most irritable and pugnacious creatures, that is, in the early spring months, when the great business of the nursery is in progress. And the word nursery is used advisedly; for the stickleback does not leave her eggs to the mercy of the waters, but establishes a domicile, over which her husband keeps guard.

The vigilance of this little sentry is wonderful; and I have often seen fierce fights taking place. Not a fish passes within a certain distance of the forbidden spot, but out darts the stickleback like an arrow, all his spines at their full stretch, and his body glowing with green and scarlet. So furious is the fish at this time that I have sometimes amused myself by making him fight a walking-stick.

If the stick were placed in the water at the distance of a yard or so, no notice was taken. But as the stick was drawn through the water, the watchful sentinel issued from his place of concealment, and when the intruding stick came within the charmed circle, the stickleback shot at it with such violence that he quite jarred the stick.

His nose must have suffered terribly. If the stick were moved, another attack would take place, and this would be continued as long as I liked.

Sometimes a rival male comes by, with all his swords drawn ready for battle, and his colours of red and green flying. Then there is a fight that would require the pen of Homer to describe. These valiant warriors dart at each other; they bite, they manœuvre, they strike with their spines, and sometimes a well-aimed cut will rip up the body of the adversary, and send him to the bottom, dead.

When one of the combatants prefers ignominious flight to a glorious death, he is pursued by the victor with relentless fury, and may think himself fortunate if he escapes.

Then comes a curious result. The conqueror assumes brighter colours and a more insolent demeanour; his green is tinged with gold, his scarlet is of a triple dye, and he charges more furiously than ever at intruders, or those whom he is pleased to consider as such. But the vanquished warrior is disgraced; he retires humbly to some obscure retreat; he loses his red, and green, and gold uniform, and becomes a plain civilian in drab.

Sometimes I have brought on a battle royal between the guardians of several palaces, by dropping in the midst of them a temptation which they could not resist. This was generally a fine fat grub taken from a caddis case. The caddis is large and white, and so can be seen to a considerable distance.

As this sank in the water, there would be a general rush at it, and the ensuing contention was amusing in the extreme. First, one would catch it in his mouth and shoot off; half-a-dozen others would unite in chase, overtake the too fortunate one, seize the grub from all sides, and tug desperately, their tails flying, their fins at work, and the whole mass revolving like a wheel, the centre of which was the caddis worm.

It would be swallowed almost immediately, but the mouth of the stickleback is much too small to admit an entire caddis, and the skin of the grub is too tough to be easily pierced or torn. Half-an-hour often elapses before the great question is settled, and the caddis eaten.

The rapidity of the evolutions and the fierceness of the struggle must be seen to be appreciated—and it is a spectacle easily to be witnessed; wherever there are sticklebacks, caddis worms are nearly certainly found, and it only needs to extract one of these from its case and deposit it judiciously in the water.

The stickleback is a hardy little fish, and can easily be kept in the aquarium, if plenty of room be given to it. It has even been trained to live in seawater, by adding bay-salt to the water in which it dwelt; so that the plan of pickling salmon alive, by a judicious admixture of vinegar and allspice with the water, has something to which to appeal as collateral evidence.

The other representative of the fishes is a very curious one, and can be easily observed. It is called the “Lampern,” and is shown in the accompanying figure.

THE LAMPERN.

In some parts of England the lampern goes by the name of “Seven-eyes,” in allusion to the row of eye-like holes that may be seen extending along the side of the throat. These apertures are the openings by which the water passes from the gills.

The chief external peculiarity in this creature is the mouth, which, instead of being formed with jaws like those of other fishes, resembles none of them, not even those of the eel, which it most resembles externally. Indeed, on looking at the mouth of a lampern, one is forcibly reminded of the leech, for it is possessed of no jaws, and adheres firmly to the skin by exhaustion of the air.

Very delicate food are these lamperns, quite as good as the lampreys themselves, whose excellence is reported to have cost England one of her kings; yet I never knew but one person who would eat them, and very few who would even touch them, they also being called poisonous.

In Germany they know better, and not only eat the lamperns themselves, but, packing them up in company with vinegar, bay leaves, and spices, export them as an article of sale.

The solitary sensible individual of whom I have made mention was truly a wise man. He used to offer the young urchins of the neighbourhood a reward for bringing lamperns, at the rate of a halfpenny per wisketful.

A wisket, I may observe, is a kind of shallow basket, made of very broad strips of willow; and a wisket filled with lamperns would be a tolerable load for a boy.

So, for the sum of one halfpenny, that philosopher was furnished with provisions for a day or more.

Really, the prejudice against the lampern is most singular. Even near London, when lamperns lived in vast numbers in the Thames, they were only used as bait, being sold for that purpose to the Dutch fishermen. In one season, four hundred thousand of these creatures have been sold merely for bait for cod-fish and turbot.

The scientific name for the lampreys is “Petromyzon,” a word signifying “stone-sucker”. The name is rightly applied; for when the lampern wishes to remain still in one place, it applies its mouth to a stone, sticks tightly to it by suction, and there remains firmly at anchor, and defying the power of the stream. In favourable spots, thousands of these fish may be seen together, quite blackening the bottom of the stream with their numbers. They seem specially to affect shallow mountain streams; and, in spite of the rapid current, wriggle their devious way up the stream with great rapidity. When they are not quite pleased with the spot on which they settle down for the time, they scoop it out to their minds in a very short time. This task is accomplished by means of the sucker-like mouth. If a stone is placed in a position that incommodes them, they affix their mouths to it, and drag it away down the stream. In this way they will remove stones which are apparently beyond the power of so small a creature. By perseverance they thus scoop out small hollows, about eighteen inches long and a foot wide, in which they lie in groups so thick that I have more than once mistaken them for dark logs lying in the stream, and was only undeceived by the waving of the multitudinous tails. Year after year the lamperns followed the same course, and chose the same positions, so that we could at any time tell where these creatures would be found by the thousand, where they would be found singly, and where none would be seen at all.

The general thickness of this creature is that of a large pencil, but it varies according to the individual. The length is from one foot to fifteen inches or so.

There is a much smaller species of lampern called the Pride, Sand-pride, or Mud Lamprey, which is not more than half the length of the lampern, and only about the thickness of an ordinary quill. This creature has not the power of affixing itself like the lampern, on account of the construction of its mouth.

Having now taken a hasty glance at the vertebrated animals, we pass to those who have no bones at all, and whose skeleton, so to speak, is carried outside. Our representation of aquatic crustacea, as such creatures are called, will be the Cray-fish and the Water-Shrimp.

THE CRAY-FISH.

Every one knows the Cray-fish, because it is so like a lobster, turning red when boiled in the same way. This red colour is brought out by heat even if applied by placing the shell before a fire, and spirits of wine has the same effect. The last fact I learned from experience, and was very sorry that it was a fact, for the red shell quite spoiled the appearance of a dissected cray-fish that was wanted to look nice in a museum.

Being very delicate food, and, in my opinion, much better than the native lobster, they are much sought after at the proper season, and are sold generally at the rate of half-a-crown for one hundred and twenty.

There are many modes of catching them, which may be practised indifferently. There are the “wheels,” for example, being wicker baskets made on the wire mouse-trap principle, which the cray-fish enters and cannot get out again. Also, there is a mode of fishing for them with circular nets baited with a piece of meat. A number of these nets are laid at intervals along the river bank, and after a while are suddenly pulled out of the water, bringing with them the cray-fish that were devouring the meat.

But the most interesting and exciting mode of cray-fish catching is by getting into the water, and pulling them out of their holes.

Cray-fish take to themselves certain nooks and crannies, formed by the roots of willows or other trees that grow on the bank; and they not unfrequently take possession of holes which have been scooped by the water-rat. The hand is thrust into every crevice that can be detected, and if there is a cray-fish, its presence is made known by the sharp thorny points of the head,—for the cray-fish always lies in the hole with its head towards the entrance.

The business is, then, to draw the creature out of its stronghold without being bitten—a matter of no small difficulty. If the hole is small, and the cray-fish large, I always used to draw it forward by the antennæ or horns, and then seize it across the back, so that its claws were useless.

The power of the claws is extraordinary, considering the size of the creature that bears them. They will often pinch so hard as to bring blood; and when they have once secured a firm hold, they do not easily become loosened. Still, the risk of a bite constitutes one of the chief charms of the chase.

The legitimate mode of disposing of the cray-fish, when taken, is to put them into the hat, and the hat on the head; but they stick their claws into the head so continually, and pull the hair so hard, that only people of tough skin can endure them.

Sometimes, when the bed of the river is stony, the cray-fish live among and under the stones, and then they are difficult of capture; for with one flap of their tail they can shoot through the water to a great distance, and quite out of reach.

It is not unfrequent to find a cray-fish with one large claw and the other very small. The same circumstance may be noted in lobsters. The reason of this peculiarity is, that the claw has been injured, generally in single combat; for the cray-fish are terrible fighters, and the mutilated limb has been cast off. Most wonderfully is this managed.

The blood-vessels of the crustaceans are necessarily so formed, that if wounded, they cannot easily heal; and if there were no provision against accidents, the creature might soon bleed to death.

But when a limb, say one of the claws, is wounded the limb is thrown off—not at the injured spot, but at the joint immediately above. The space exposed at the joints is very small in comparison with that of an entire claw; and as the amputation takes place at a spot where there is a soft membrane, it speedily closes. In process of time, a new limb begins to sprout, and takes the place of the member that had been thrown off.

The eyes of the cray-fish are set on footstalks, so as to be turned in any direction, and they can also be partially drawn back, if threatened by danger. If the eye is examined through a magnifying glass of tolerable power, it will be seen that it is not a single eye, but a compound organ, containing a great number of separate eyes, arranged in a wonderful order. As, however, a description of an insect’s eye will be given at a succeeding page, we at present pass over this organ.

At the proper season of the year, the female cray-fish may be seen laden with a large mass of eggs, which she carries about with her, and by the movement of the false legs that are arranged in double rows on the under surface of the tail, keeps them supplied with fresh streams of water. In process of time, the eggs are hatched; but very few, in comparison, reach maturity. Even the mother herself is apt to eat her own young, when they have set themselves free from her control. I have known this to take place when we were trying to breed cray-fish in a tank. Only one attained to any size, and even that was not so large as a house-fly when we took it from the water.

FRESH-WATER SHRIMP.

TADPOLES AND YOUNG FROG.