House, v. To harbour, to admit to residence; to shelter, to keep under a roof; to take shelter, to keep the abode.
Housedog, s. A mastiff kept to guard the house.
Housing, s. Cloth originally used to keep off dirt, now added to saddles as ornamental.
Howl, v. To cry as a wolf or dog; to utter cries in distress.
Howl, s. The cry of a wolf or dog; the cry of a human being in horror.
Hoy, s. A large boat, sometimes with one deck.
Hucho, s. A fish of the genus Salmo.
The hucho is the most predatory fish of the salmo genus, and is made like an ill-fed trout, but longer and thicker. He has larger teeth, more spines in the pectoral fin, a thicker skin, a silvery belly, and dark spots only on the back and sides. I have never seen any on the fins. The ratio of his length to the girth is as eight to eighteen, or, in well-fed fish, as nine to twenty; and a fish, eighteen inches long by eight in girth, weighed 16,215 grains. Another, two feet long, eleven inches in girth, and three inches thick, weighed 4lbs. 2¼ oz. Another, twenty-six inches long, weighed 5lbs. 5oz. Of the spines in the fins, the anal has nine, the caudal twenty, the ventral nine, the dorsal twelve, the pectoral seventeen: having numbered the spines in many, I give this as correct. The fleshy fin belonging to the genus is, I think, larger in this species than in any I have seen. Bloch, in his work on fishes, states, that there are black spots on all the fins, with the exception of the anal, as a character of this fish: and professor Wagner informs me, he has seen huchoes with this peculiarity; but, as I said before, I never saw any fish with spotted fins; yet, I have examined those of the Danube, Save, Drave, Mur, and Izar: perhaps, this is peculiar to some stream in Bavaria; yet the huchoes in the collection at Munich have it not. The hucho is found in most rivers tributary to the Danube—in the Save and Laybach rivers always; yet the general opinion is, that they run from the Danube twice a year, in spring and autumn. I can answer for their migration in spring, having caught several in April, in streams connected with the Save and Laybach rivers, which had evidently come from the still dead water into the clear running streams, for they had the winter leech, or louse, of the trout upon them; and I have seen them of all sizes in April in the market at Laybach, from six inches to two feet long; but they are found much larger, and reach thirty, or even forty pounds. It is the opinion of some naturalists that it is only a fresh-water fish; yet this I doubt, because it is never found beyond certain falls—as in the Traun, the Drave, and the Save; and, there can be no doubt, comes into these rivers from the Danube; and probably in its largest state, is a fish of the Black Sea. Yet it can winter in fresh water; and does not seem, like the salmon, obliged to haunt the sea, but falls back into the warmer waters of the great rivers; from which it migrates in spring, to seek a cooler temperature, and to breed. The fishermen at Gratz say they spawn in the Mur, between March and May. In those I have caught at Laybach, which, however, were small ones, the ova were not sufficiently developed to admit of their spawning that spring. Marsigli says that they spawn in the Danube in June. You have seen how violently they pursue their prey; I have never taken one without fish in his stomach; yet, when small, they will take a fly. In the Kleingraben, which is a feeder to the Laybach river, and where they are found of all sizes—from twenty pounds downwards—the little ones take a fly, but the large ones are too ravenous to care about so insignificant a morsel, and prey like the largest trout, often hunting in company, and chasing the small fish into the narrow and shallow streams, and then devouring them.
The hucho, as you have seen, preys with great violence, and pursues his object as a foxhound or a greyhound does. I have seen him in repose; they lie like pikes, perfectly still, and I have watched one for many minutes, that never moved at all. In this respect their habits resemble those of most carnivorous and predatory animals. It is probably in consequence of these habits, that they are so much infested by lice, or leeches, which I have seen so numerous in spring as almost to fill their gills, and interfere with their respiration, in which case they seek the most rapid and turbulent streams to free themselves from these enemies. They are very shy, and, after being hooked, avoid the baited line. I once saw the hucho, for which I was fishing, follow the small fish, and then the lead of the tackle; it seemed as if this had fixed his attention, and he never offered at the bait afterwards. I think a hucho that has been pricked by the hook becomes particularly cautious, and possesses, in this respect, the same character as the salmon. In summer, when they are found in the roughest and most violent currents, their fins (particularly the caudal fin) often appear worn and broken; at this season they are usually in constant motion against the stream, and are stopped by no cataract or dam, unless it be many feet in height, and quite inaccessible. In the middle of September, I have caught huchoes perfectly clean in rapid cool streams, tributary to the Laybach and the Save rivers; and, from the small development of their generative system at this time, I have no doubt that they spawn in spring. On the 13th of September, 1828, I caught, by spinning the small dead fish, three huchoes that had not a single leech upon their bodies, and they were the first fish of the kind I ever saw free from these parasites.
They migrate generally when the water is foul, and, except in the spring and autumn, do not so readily run at the bait. I was once nearly a month seeking for one in rivers in which they are found, between the end of June and that of July, without being able to succeed in even seeing one alive; and, as far as my information goes, the two places where there is most probability of taking them, are at Laybach and Ratisbon, in the tributary streams to the Save, and in the Danube; and the best time, in the first of these situations, is in March and April, and, in the second, in May. I am told, likewise, that the Izar, which runs by Munich, is a stream where they may be caught, when the water is clear: and I have seen in the fish market at Munich very large huchoes.