Forest Neighbors: Life Stories of Wild Animals

by William Davenport Hulbert

Nesting Grounds.

And now he started the third time for the gravelly shallow, and travelled as he had never travelled before in all his life. Streams are made to swim against—every brook trout knows that—and the faster they run, the greater is the joy of breasting them. The higher the water-fall, the prouder do you feel when you find you can leap it. And our friend was in a mood for swimming, and for swimming with all his might. Never had he felt so strong and vigorous and so full of life and energy, and he made his fins and his tail go like the oars of a racing-shell. Now he was working up the swift current of a long rapid like a bird in the teeth of the wind. Now he was gathering all his strength for the great leap to the top of the water-fall. And now, perhaps, he rested for a little while in a quiet pool, and presently went hurrying on again, diving under logs and fallen trees, swinging round the curves, darting up the still places where the water lay a-dreaming, and wriggling over shallow bars where it was not half deep enough to cover him; until at last he reached the old familiar place where so many generations of brook trout had first seen the light of day and felt the cold touch of the snow-water.

As before, he and the other males arrived at the nesting grounds some days in advance of their mates, and spent the intervening time in scooping hollows in the gravel and quarrelling among themselves. Two or three times he was driven from a choice location by someone who was bigger than he, but he always managed in some way to regain it, or else stole another from a smaller fish; and when the ladies finally appeared he had a fine large nest in a pleasant situation a little apart from those of his rivals. But for some reason the first candidates who came to look at it declined to stay. Perhaps they were not quite ready to settle down, or perhaps they were merely disposed to insist on the feminine privilege of changing their minds. But finally there came one who seemed to be quite satisfied, and with whom the Trout himself had every reason to be pleased.

She was not a native of the stream, but of one of the hatcheries of the Michigan Fish Commission; and while he was lying in the gravel she was one of a vast company inhabiting a number of black wooden troughs that stood in a large, pleasant room filled with the sound of running water. Here there were no yearlings nor musk-rats nor saw-bill ducks looking for fresh eggs, nor any dragons nor star-gazers lying in wait for the young fry. Instead there were nice, kind men, who kept the hatching troughs clean and the water at the right temperature, and who gently stirred up the troutlets with a long goose-feather whenever too many of them crowded together in one corner, trying to get away from the hateful light. Under this sort of treatment most of the thirty million babies in the hatchery lived and thrived. Only a few thousands of them were brook trout, but among those thousands one of the smartest and most precocious was the one in whom we are just now most interested. She was always first into the dark corners, as long as dark corners seemed desirable; and later, when they began to come up into the light and partake of the pulverized beef-liver which their attendants offered them, there was no better swimmer or more voracious feeder than she. All this was especially fortunate because there was a very hard and trying experience before her—one in which she would have need of all her strength and vitality, and in which her chances of life would be very small, indeed. It came with planting time, when she and a host of her companions were whisked through a rubber tube and deposited in a big can made of galvanized iron, in which they were borne away to the trout stream. The journey was a long one, they were pretty badly cramped for room, and before they reached their destination the supply of oxygen in the water became exhausted. The baby trout began to think they had blown out the gas, and they all crowded to the surface, where, if anywhere, the minute bubbles that keep one alive are to be found. They gulped down great mouthfuls of water and forced it out through their gills as fast as ever they could, but, somehow, all the life seemed to be gone out of it, and it did them no good whatever. Pretty soon a few turned over on their backs and died, and every last one of them would have suffocated if the man who had charge of the party hadn't noticed what was going on and come to the rescue. Picking up a dipperful of water and troutlets, and holding it high in the air, he poured it back into the can with much dashing and splashing. Hundreds and hundreds of tiny bubbles were caught in the rush and carried down to the bottom, and so the oxygen came back again to the tired gills, and the danger was over.

The emigrants reached the trout stream at last, and one would have supposed that their troubles were ended. In reality the chapter of trials and tribulations had only just begun, for the same fishes and frogs and lizards that had so persecuted our friend and his brothers and sisters were on hand to welcome the new arrivals, and very few escaped. And so, in spite of its quiet beginnings in the peaceful surroundings of the hatchery, this young lady trout's life proved quite as exciting and adventurous as our friend's, and it is possible that the good care which she received during her early infancy really served to make things all the harder for her when she came to be thrown entirely on her own resources. The mere change in the temperature of the water when she was turned out of the can was quite a shock to her nervous system; and, whereas most trout are somewhat acquainted with the dangers and hardships of the stream, almost from the time they rip their shells open, she did not even know that there was such a place until she was set down in it and told to shift for herself.

However, by dint of strength, speed, agility, and good judgment in selecting hiding-places—and also, in all probability, by a run of remarkably good luck—she made her way unharmed through all the perils of babyhood and early youth, and now she was one of the most beautiful little three-year-old pirates that ever swooped down upon a helpless victim.

As she and our friend swam side by side, her nose and the end of her tail were exactly even with his. Her colors were the same that he had worn before he put on his wedding garments, and if you had seen them together in the early summer I don't believe you could ever have told them apart. They were a well-matched pair, more evenly mated, probably, than is usual in fish marriages.

But they were not to be allowed to set up housekeeping together without fighting for the privilege. Hardly had she finished inspecting the nest, and made up her mind that it would answer, and that he was, on the whole, quite eligible as a husband, when a third trout appeared and attempted to do as the big bully had done the year before. This time, however, our young friend's blood was up, and, though the enemy was considerably larger than he, he was ready to strike for his altars and his fires. He made a quick rush, like a torpedo-boat attacking a man-of-war, and hit the intruder amidships, ramming him with all his might. Then the enemy made as sudden a turn, and gave our Trout a poke in the ribs, and for a few minutes they dodged back and forth, and round and round, and over and under each other, each getting in a punch whenever he had a chance. So far it seemed only a trial of strength and speed and dexterity, and if our Trout was not quite as large and powerful as the other, yet he proved himself the quicker and the more agile and lively. But before it was over he did more than that, for, suddenly ranging up on the enemy's starboard quarter, he opened his mouth, and the sharp teeth of his lower jaw tore a row of bright scales from his adversary's side, and left a long, deep gash behind. That settled it. The big fellow lit out as fast as he could go, and our Trout was left in undisputed possession.

The nesting season cannot last forever, and by and by, when the days were very short and the nights were very long, when the stars were bright, and when each sunrise found the hoar-frost lying thick and heavy on the dead and fallen leaves, the last trout went in search of better feeding grounds, and again the gravelly shallow seemed deserted. But it was only seeming. There were no eggs in sight—the frogs, the rats, the ducks, and the yearlings had taken care of that, and I am very much afraid that our friend may have eaten a few himself, on the sly, when his wife wasn't looking—but hidden away among the pebbles there were thousands, and the old, old miracle was being re-enacted, and multitudes of little live creatures were getting ready for the time when something should tell them to tear their shells open and come out into the world.

One of the Trout's most remarkable adventures, and the one which probably taught him more than any other, came during the hot weather of the following summer. The stream had grown rather too warm for comfort, and lately he had got into the habit of frequenting certain deep, quiet pools where icy springs bubbled out of the banks and imparted a very grateful coolness to the slow current. It was delightful to spend a long July afternoon in the wash below one of these fountains, having a lazy, pleasant time, and enjoying the touch of the cold water as it went sliding along his body from nose to tail. One sunshiny day, as he lay in his favorite spring-hole, thinking about nothing in particular, and just working his fins enough to keep from drifting down stream, a fly lit on the surface just over his head—a bright, gayly colored fly of a species which was entirely new to him, but which looked as if it must be very finely flavored. As it happened, there had been several days of very warm, sultry weather, and even the fish had grown sullen and lazy, but this afternoon the wind had whipped around to the north, straight off Lake Superior, and all the animals in the Great Tahquamenon Swamp felt as if they had been made over new. How the brook trout could have known of it so quickly, down under the water, is a mystery; but our friend seemed to wake up all of a sudden, and to realize that he hadn't been eating as much as usual, and that he was hungry. He made a dash at the fly and seized it, but he had no sooner got it between his lips than he spat it out again. There was something wrong with it. Instead of being soft and juicy and luscious, as all flies ought to be, it was stiff, and dry, and hard, and it had a long, crooked stinger that was different from anything belonging to any other fly that he had ever tasted. It disappeared as suddenly as it had come, and the Trout sank back to the bottom of the pool.