More remarkable, however, than any previously described, are the nests of the Fresh-water Chub, _Semotilus bullaris_, which is known in some localities as the Stone Toter. This fish attains a length of about fifteen inches. The finest nests are on the shores of Westminster Island, but they are common on nearly every island that has a sandy, gravelly shore among the many that make up the Thousand Islands. The nest is a pile of stones, sometimes measuring ten feet across at the base, four feet in height, and containing a good-sized cart-load of stones, weighing in all perhaps a ton. Stones from small pebbles to some four inches in length were used, and as some of the nests are placed at considerable distances from the gravel-beds, and each stone represented a journey, the amount of labor performed, when it is considered that tens of thousands of stones must have been used in the building, certainly was incredible. Each stone is brought in the mouth of the Chub and dropped over the piles, one or more fishes working at the same heap. Some plan is evidently followed in the work, the first deposit of stones being small, and dropped so as to form a circle or semi-circle. The largest heaps are undoubtedly the work of successive years, the nests being annually added to during the last of May or June, when the Chubs are seen lying in the heaps, at which time the eggs are probably deposited. All the labor of piling up is to protect them from predatory fishes, a necessary and wise provision, as cat-fish, rock-bass, perch and others prey upon the eggs.
In gravelly beds the Trout excavates a simple nest, a mere depression in the sand, that is not at all incomparable to the nest of some species of gulls. A furrow in the gravelly bottom of a river, often ten feet in length, the depression being made as fast as it is required, is the nest of the Salmon. In Canadian rivers these nests can be easily distinguished by the lighter marking in the bottom.
Few persons of the many who delight to drift along our sea-shores are unfamiliar with the Toad-fish. So closely does he in shape and color resemble a moss-covered stone that his enemies are deceived. Intrenched among the weeds and gravel, which the mother-fish carelessly throws aside, after the fashion of some of the gulls, the young are reared, their yolk-sacs enabling them to cling to the rocks of the nest soon after birth. There, under the watchful eye of the parent, they remain until old enough to swim away.