reath of air stirs the surface of the woodland pond, and the trees
about the margin are reflected unbroken in its surface. The lilies and
their pads lie motionless, and in and out through the shadowy depths,
around the long stems, float a school of half a dozen little sunfish. They
move slowly, turning from side to side all at once as if impelled by one
idea. Now and then one will dart aside and snap up a beetle or mosquito
larva, then swing back to its place among its fellows. Their beautiful
scales flash scarlet, blue, and gold, and their little hand-and-foot fins
are ever trembling and waving. They drift upward nearer the surface, the
wide round eyes turning and twisting in their sockets, ever watchful for
food and danger. Without warning a terrific splash scatters them, and when
the ripples and bubbles cease, five frightened sunfish cringe in terror
among the water plants of the bottom mud. Off to her nest goes the
kingfisher, bearing to her brood the struggling sixth.

Later in the day, when danger seemed far off, a double-pointed vise shot
toward the little group of "pumpkin seeds" and a great blue heron
swallowed one of their number. Another, venturing too far beyond the
protection of the lily stems and grass tangle of the shallows, fell victim
to a voracious pickerel. But the most terrible fate befell when one day a
black sinuous body came swiftly through the water. The fish had never seen
its like before and yet some instinct told them that here was death indeed
and they fled as fast as their fins could send them. The young otter had
marked the trio and after it he sped, turning, twisting, following every
movement with never a stop for breath until he had caught his prey.

But the life of a fish is not all tragedy, and the two remaining sunfish
may live in peace. In spawning time they clear a little space close to the
water of the inlet, pulling up the young weeds and pushing up the sandy
bottom until a hollow, bowl-like nest is prepared. Thoreau tells us that
here the fish "may be seen early in summer assiduously brooding, and
driving away minnows and larger fishes, even its own species, which would
disturb its ova, pursuing them a few feet, and circling round swiftly to
its nest again; the minnows, like young sharks, instantly entering the
empty nests, meanwhile, and swallowing the spawn, which is attached to the
weeds and to the bottom, on the sunny side. The spawn is exposed to so
many dangers that a very sm