168 SUPPLEMENT TO THE BOOK OF THE BLACK BASS. 



only for holding its prey, ■\vliich is swallowed whole. The 

 brook-trout has longer, stronger and sharper teeth than the 

 Bass, and a large, long mouth, capable of swallowing a big- 

 ger fish than a Black Bass of equal weight. The mouth of 

 the Bass is very wide, for the purpose of taking in crawfish 

 with their long and aggressive claw^s, and not, as supposed 

 by some, for the SAvallowing of large fishes. The Black 

 Bass gets the best of other game fishes, not by devouring 

 the fishes themselves, but by devouring their food. For 

 this reason, more than any other, they should not be intro- 

 duced into the same waters with brook- trout. The pike or 

 pickerel is the bluefish of fresh waters, and in dental ca- 

 pacity and destructive possibilities is not far behind it. 



The brook-trout, I think, is the most beautiful of all 

 fishes, as a fresh run salmon is the handsomest and most 

 perfect in form. The salmon is a king, the brook trout a 

 courtier, but the Black Bass, in his virescent cuirass and 

 spiny crest, is a doughty warrior Avhose prowess none can 

 gainsay. 



I have fished for brook-trout in the wilds of Canada, 

 where a dozen would rise at every cast of the fly, and it 

 would be a scramble as to which should get it— great lusty 

 trout, from a half pound to two pounds in weight — but the 

 black fly made life a burden by day, and the mosquito by 

 night. The glory and beauty of the madly rushing stream 

 breaking wildly over the great black rocks, and the quiet, 

 glassy pools below reflecting the green spires of spruce and 

 fir, availed nothing to the swollen eyelids and smarting 

 brow. 



I have cast from early morn till dewy eve, on a good sal- 

 mon stream in New Brunswick, for three days in succession 

 Avithout a single rise. I have cast standing in a birch-bark 



