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Here in the spring vast numbers of shad are caught while on their way to spawning-beds in freshwater coves." Haverstraw Bay was crossed, and Tarrytown passed, when I came to the picturesque little cottage of a great man now gone from among us.
The males "are constantly fighting and tearing each other on the spawning-beds, and many so injure each other as to cause the death of numbers, many being seen swimming near the banks of the river in a state of exhaustion, and apparently in a dying state." The 'Field, June 29, 1867. For Mr. Shaw's Statement, see 'Edinburgh Review, 1843.
As they eat a large number of very small trout, as well as ova, on the gravel spawning-beds, crayfish should not be allowed to become too numerous in a trout stream. It is difficult to understand in what the great attraction of rook-shooting consists. Up to yesterday I had never shot a rook in my life. The accuracy with which some people can kill rooks with a rifle is very remarkable.
He adds, "from the great proportion of the males, they are constantly fighting and tearing each other on the spawning-beds." 'The Stormontfield Piscicultural Experiments, 1866, p. 23. Mr. F. Buckland remarks in regard to trout, that "it is a curious fact that the males preponderate very largely in number over the females.
With the minnow, an excellent observer states, that on the spawning-beds the males are ten times as numerous as the females; when a female comes amongst the males, "she is immediately pressed closely by a male on each side; and when they have been in that situation for a time, are superseded by other two males." Yarrell, 'Hist.
If I were a trout, I should ascend every stream till I found the Rondout. It is the ideal brook. What homes these fish have, what retreats under the rocks, what paved or flagged courts and areas, what crystal depths where no net or snare can reach them! no mud, no sediment, but here and there in the clefts and seams of the rock patches of white gravel, spawning-beds ready-made.
In the spring movements of the fishes up the stream, toward their spawning-beds, the females are the pioneers, appearing some days in advance of the males. With the birds the reverse is the case, the males coming a week or ten days before the females.
I surprised the cattle in the field, and those ruminating leg-deep in the water turned their heads at my approach, swallowed their unfinished cuds, and scampered off as if they had seen a spectre. I surprised the fish on their spawning-beds and feeding-grounds; they scattered, as my shadow glided down upon them, like chickens when a hawk appears.
They come by the legion, in countless scores of thousands; and when once they have tasted the waters of their birth they never touch food again, never cease their onward rush until they become bruised and battered wrecks, drifting down from the spawning-beds. When the call of nature is answered and the spawn is laid they die.
If I were a trout, I should ascend every stream till I found the Rondout. It is the ideal brook. What homes these fish have, what retreats under the rocks, what paved or flagged courts and areas, what crystal depths where no net or snare can reach them! no mud, no sediment, but here and there in the clefts and seams of the rock patches of white gravel, spawning-beds ready-made.
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