St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1910-04-06


look out of the window, He watche.
the little brown animal dive, come tc
| the surface with fish in his mouth
| drop it dead into the waste drain and In
| stantly dive for another, until it looks
| as if there would be but few left in the
pond if he does not quickly interfere.
shot from his gun settles the matter, but
| not before thirty fish have been killed
| The mink evidently intended to provide
feast for himself and family and all OF
| his neighbors before commencing to
| carry away his booty.
| Of all the ennemies of the fishes, the
| king6sher is most hated by the fish man.
| Not only is he very proficient in the art
of catching fish, but he proclaims his
presence with an unmistakable and
rafting cry. Although he builds his nest
| in the sand banks some distance away
he brings his children to the ponds as
soon as they can fly. He gets busy very
early in the morning and on Sundays,
when the fish man would like to enjoy a
morning nap, he is awakened by this
noisy robber. and knows that if he
fingers in bed he will be the loser of some
fine fish.
Cranes and herons make occasional
early morning calls, coming unannounc-
ed and doing their work silently and
quickly. They are quite as destructive
as the kingfsher.
The noisy bul1frog, in his search for live
food to appease neyer-failing appetite,
occasionally invades the ponds and
steals young fish. If live insects are
plentiful he is peaceful citizen, and the
little fish play around him unmolested;
but he must have live food.
The eel is an occasional visitor at the
ponds, having come all the way from the
oil a sc
slippery fellow to deal with, and such
good climber that it is difficult to stop
his ascent into the ponds. He is very
adept in catching young trout, and
knows how to round them up in schools.
The summer passes away quickly, and
notwithstanding sandpipers, kinghshers,
herons, cranes. bullfrogs and cells. the
ponds are teeming with fish. By the use
of traps set on poles for 6shhawks, owls
and kinghshers, others set in drains for
minks. and again in certain places where
cranes and herons are specially fond of
wading, and also by the use of the ever
ready shotgun. the fish have been quite
well protected. That these enemies are
numerous is shown by the fact that be-
fore winter comes again the fish man has
a record of no less than twenty-seven
kinds of birds, quadrupeds and reptiles
which have been destroyed in varying
quantities in order to protect the fish.
Our orphan and his companions are
now from three to five inches long, and it
is time for another distribution to ponds
and streams. They are first sorted and
counted out into cans of water, except
few of the largest and handsomest.
which are placed in rearing ponds to be
kept for breeders. Our orphan is one of
the latter.
The cans, which easily contained 5000
fry last spring, will not safely carry
more than 200 of the same fish three or
four months older. Some of the cans
are sent direct to the heads of streams in
the hills by wagon loads; others are
hauled to the station and loaded into
the baggage cars of passenger trains, to
be delivered to applicants for distribu-
are carried on cars especially equipped
for carrying quantities of live fish for
journeys requiring several days.
Thus the young fish are planted in the
waters which are to be their future
homes, where they must continue the
struggle for existence, with no fathers or
mothers to guide them and no fish man
to protect them.
In the rearing pond our orphan and
his friends are not so crowded as they
were in the nursery. They are now large
enough to attract the kinghshers, and
the orphan sees several ofhis companions
carried away in the beaks Of these
terrible birds before cold weather drives
them south. He, too, has a very narrow
escape, having felt the birds beak, but
soon learns to rush into deep water
whenever the shadow of a bird appears
above him.
They now have new experience in
the kind of food given them. While in
the nursery they learned to eat coarser
liver than was given them as fry but it
was otherwise the same. Now the liver
is mixed with the coarser part of -four,
called wheat middlings, after the latter
has been boiled, and this mixture is to be
their food for the rest of their lives at the
hatchery. They do not like it at first,
but it is that or nothing, aud they soon
learn to eat it, and continue to grow
much more rapidly than their mates
who have been liberated in streams and
ponds.
Throughout the winter, life at the
hatchery is uneventful for the fish. AS
the water grows colder they become less
active. For weeks at time the ponds
are covered with ice and snow. The
fish sleep away these days much as the
bears do, and need no food until warmer
weather arouses them. It is a busy time
for the fish man, however, for the hatch
ing troughs are full of eggs collected
from the older trout in the larger ponds.
Now, perhaps you are wondering how
the fish man got million eggs to fill the
troughs. Soon after the transfer of the
orphan to the rearing pond, which was
followed by the distribution of most of
his companions, and just about year
from the time when Mr. and Mrs. Trout
made nest and filed it with eggs, all
the older trout in the breeding ponds
take on brighter colors. The white tips
of the fms look whittier and the red along
the sides becomes redder, but they do
not have the brilliant colors of Mr.. and
Mrs. Trout These fish in the ponds are
domesticated trout, which have lived at
the hatchery all their lives. They have
not had an opportunity to swim about
wherever they pleased. to eat caddis