It Is A Tough And Heedless Fish, Biting
From Impulse, Without Nibbling, And From Impulse Refraining To
Bite, And Sculling Indifferently Past.
It rather prefers the
clear water and sandy bottoms, though here it has not much
choice.
It is a true fish, such as the angler loves to put into
his basket or hang at the top of his willow twig, in shady
afternoons along the banks of the stream. So many unquestionable
fishes he counts, and so many shiners, which he counts and then
throws away. Old Josselyn in his "New England's Rarities,"
published in 1672, mentions the Perch or River Partridge.
The Chivin, Dace, Roach, Cousin Trout, or whatever else it is
called, _Leuciscus pulchellus_, white and red, always an unexpected
prize, which, however, any angler is glad to hook for its
rarity. A name that reminds us of many an unsuccessful ramble by
swift streams, when the wind rose to disappoint the fisher. It is
commonly a silvery soft-scaled fish, of graceful, scholarlike,
and classical look, like many a picture in an English book. It
loves a swift current and a sandy bottom, and bites
inadvertently, yet not without appetite for the bait. The
minnows are used as bait for pickerel in the winter. The red
chivin, according to some, is still the same fish, only older, or
with its tints deepened as they think by the darker water it
inhabits, as the red clouds swim in the twilight atmosphere. He
who has not hooked the red chivin is not yet a complete angler.
Other fishes, methinks, are slightly amphibious, but this is a
denizen of the water wholly. The cork goes dancing down the
swift-rushing stream, amid the weeds and sands, when suddenly, by
a coincidence never to be remembered, emerges this fabulous
inhabitant of another element, a thing heard of but not seen, as
if it were the instant creation of an eddy, a true product of the
running stream. And this bright cupreous dolphin was spawned and
has passed its life beneath the level of your feet in your native
fields. Fishes too, as well as birds and clouds, derive their
armor from the mine. I have heard of mackerel visiting the copper
banks at a particular season; this fish, perchance, has its
habitat in the Coppermine River. I have caught white chivin of
great size in the Aboljacknagesic, where it empties into the
Penobscot, at the base of Mount Ktaadn, but no red ones
there. The latter variety seems not to have been sufficiently
observed.
The Dace, _Leuciscus argenteus_, is a slight silvery minnow, found
generally in the middle of the stream, where the current is most
rapid, and frequently confounded with the last named.
The Shiner, _Leuciscus crysoleucas_, is a soft-scaled and tender
fish, the victim of its stronger neighbors, found in all places,
deep and shallow, clear and turbid; generally the first nibbler
at the bait, but, with its small mouth and nibbling propensities,
not easily caught.
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