58 AMERICAN FISHES. 



perch, trout, young salmon and even the ravenous pickerel, are devoured. 

 They feed at the surface on moths, flies and frogs; they turn over stones 

 in search of crawfish and insect larvae. Rats and snakes have been seen 

 in their stomachs. A correspondent of Forest and Stream relates that 

 once, while fishing in the Chicago River, one of the small frogs used 

 for bait escaped and perched on a portion of an old wreck above the 

 water. A Black Bass came along, and, lifting his head from the water, 

 picked off the frog, and descended to the depths below. The angler finds 

 them at the proper seasons equally eager for fly-hook, trolling-spoon, or 

 still-bait, and always ready for a struggle which puts his rod and line to a 

 severe test. Their leaps are almost as powerful as those of the salmon. 

 The negro fishermen of Florida often surround a body of Large-mouths 

 with a seine, but as the lines are hauled in and the arc grows smaller the 

 dark forms of the " Trout " begin to appear, springing over the cork-line 

 and returning, wath a splash and a jet of spray, to liberty. I have seen 

 them rise five or six feet above the water. They are said to be taken best 

 at night, or when the river is high and the water muddy. Otherwise they 

 leap over the seine. Expert seiners coil their nets in such a manner as to 

 prevent the escape of part of the school. The Small-mouths are said, 

 generally, to prefer deep or swift, cool waters, while the Large-mouths live 

 in muddy, black pools, or in the shelter of old stumps and ledges. In 

 Florida they lurk among the lily-pads and aquatic plants in shallow, dark 

 streams, where they feed on a grub called the "bonnet-worm," which 

 burrows in the flower-buds of the ' ' bonnets ' ' or yellow water-lilies, NupJiar 

 advena. 



The account given by Laudonniere of the abundance of this fish in 

 Florida nearly two-and-a-half centuries ago, is well worth quoting: 



" Having passed," he writes, " most part of the day with these Indians 

 (at Cape Francois), the captain imbarked himselfe to pass over to the 

 other side of the river, whereat the king seemed to be very sorrie ; never- 

 theless, being not able to stop us, he commanded that with all diligence 

 they .should take fish for us, which they did with all speede. For, being 

 entered into their weares, or inclosures made of reeds and framed in the 

 fashion of a dalyzintto or maze, they loaded us with trouts, great mullets, 

 plaise, turbuts and marvellous store of other sorts of fishes altogether 

 different from ours." 



The spawning season occurs on the approach of warm weather. Its date 

 does not vary much with latitude. In Florida, in Virginia and in AVis- 

 consin they build their nests in May and J^nic. The oldest fish, we are 



