New-York tribune., 1905-08-20

the center of the river | found
this lly-environed spot, reached
by a socalcd lost channel that wound in and out
and finally led to a sylvan dell of woodland joys
and beauties The entire surface a mosaic
OF white and grcen-the blossoms and leaves of
the pond-lily, the numbers of the former telling
the story that the place still free from vandas
and known only by those who were satisfied to
go and look and leave the garden undisturbed
The mystery that it had not been
devastated but the real mystery was several minia
ture mountains that from the clear sandy
bottom within foot SIX inches of the surface
piles of pebbles or stones about inch or inch
and half long. My boat ran aground the
summit of of these woodland Ararats and my
boatman, who knew all the reefs and shoals where
black bass congregatcd, and all the secrets of the
tribe, shook his head ominously. | suggested that
it was the ash dump of some steamer forgetting that
a steamer, if small could not have reached the
spot. Then | picked up some of the material and
found it to be stone pebbles One of the piles
four feet in height and six eight feet around
| discovered that it the nest of a fish,
of the suckers, silvery fish about six inches long
with a sucking mouth on the under side. This
chub-Sucker the called it, better known as
ScmotlHS, was a home, castle or nest-builder of
extraordinary talents, and the big heap of stone
was its efforts to protect its young and eggs. The
water of that region infected with yellow perch
rOck-basS sunfishes and a variety of small frv that
reduced the chances of life of young chub-sucker
to a minimum; hence the parent fishes, doubtless
the male, built piled up this fortress and in its
interstces the female deposited her eggs, and here
the young first appeared and found protection in a
fishs castle. The nest was used wear after
year. The ice of winter generally carried of the
top when the spring floods came, but the sucker
supplied and remeded the deficiency by dropping
more stones pebbles upon building material
that must have been brought in their sucker-like
mouths from distance, as in the immediate vicinity
of the mounds there stones or pebbles the
ground having been cleared and apparently swept
clean.
This nest is typical of what might be termed a
class of stone ncst-building fishes One of the most
interesting, the common sunfsh, at times will
bring pebbles and heap them up but the largest and
most conspicuous work of this kind is accomplished
by the lamprey eel n few years ago some farmers
in the vicinity of the Saco River in sailing over it
discovered what appeared to be artificial dam
of stones, and 1t suggested that at an early
date the natives of the region had been seized with
d desire to dam up the river and had started a
breakwater, but had been forced to abandon it.
The structure fifteen twenty feet in length
three or four in height and two three feet through
The theory OF the human origin of the work held
for years; but finally day an nquisitve man
went to one OF the farmers who seemed fond
OF plants, fishes and animals of all kinds and il
was not long before he heard the story and had
examined the stone dam breakwater and had
a Well-detned plan of it paper. Not only this.
he spent hours the river floating over the curious