TURNING THE TABLES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3831, 26 October 1883, Page 4

TURNING THE TABLES.

The implacable war which is waged by fish, and especially by tho Salmoniche, upon all sorts of Hies, is usually supposed to be one of tho strong against the weak ; and tender-hearted persons are often inclined to feel some pity for the winged victim who expiate their day's bath by falling into the ravenous jaws of their unseen enemies. It is, however, right in this ease, as in most others to hoar both sides of tho question, and not to assume without full information that the advantage is all on one side. Those who have not yet fully appreciated the force of this maxim as applied to tho trout and other voracious fishes will perhaps bo moro inclined to admit their error when thoy hear tho oxiieriences of a AVelsh -.-entlernan, who has just described them in tho pages ot Land ancl AVater. Ho narrates tho melancholy history of some infant trout ot the fontinalls and Loch Levcn species, winch lie had imported to a small watercourse near Machynlleth, intending when they had grown to years of discretion to place them in a pond. They grew rapidly larger in size, but at the same timo decreased in numbers with equal speed. At length tho owner discovered a very sufficient cause for the later phenomenon. Ho watched his proteges, and one morning saw three of them in the act of being slain by a subaqueous monster of an unknown form. It resembled a dragon fiy without wings, and attaoted the small trout in a ferocious manner " with a pair of small, crab-like, projecting claws. Having seized the prey with these weapons as, with sugar nippers, they then seemed to suck them till all was consumed, and on drawing off the water it was found that eight or ten of tho insects had in a few weeks destroyed 922 out of 1000 fry. The larva which did this execution is now pronounced to bo that of the dragon-fly, a creature which, iv its embryo state, seems to deserve its appellation more thoroughly than when buzzing through the air in its adult dovelopement. Thus, it appears that in preying upon the winged insect creation the finny tribe aro only in a legitimate way turning the tables upon that foe which in a prior state of existence has done their relations so much damage.