I40 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



places in the vicinity of New York, shrimp, shedder crabs, 

 soft clams, squid and sand-worms are the favorite baits, 

 either in trolling or still fishing — the white sand-worm, or 

 blood-worm, as it is sometimes called, from the reddish fluid 

 that it gives out when pierced by the hook, being by far the 

 most killing of all. They cost about two dollars a hundred, 

 while, when fishing at Gay Head, Martha's Vineyard, I paid 

 but one dollar and fifty cents per hundred for young Lob- 

 sters. Mr. Tillinghast, of New Bedford, stood by me where 

 I was fishing, and kept me supplied with bait. The tail 

 was cut off and the shell peeled from it — that made one bait; 

 the rest of the lobster he cut up fine and threw into the wa- 

 ter as "chum," to attract the fish. After a time he became 

 tired, and although he declared that the water looked more 

 "Bassy" than he had seen it in the several days that he had 

 been trying for them, left me, saying jokingly, "All the Bass 

 you catch to-day I will put in my eye.'' In less than an hour 

 I had two, one of twenty-five pounds and one of fifteen 

 pounds. I shall always remember the pleasure that I took 

 in thinking of the unmerciful test that at his own suggestion 

 he would have to sustain on my return to the light-house. 



Neither will I soon forget the idyl of that day, when a bevy 

 of laughing beauties — school-girls — picnicking from New Bed- 

 ford, accompanied by a staid, elderly matron, came trooping 

 along the shore, gathering up the Irish moss, pebbles, and shells 

 or fossils washed from the cliffs overhead, giving a scream of 

 delight at each new find. One of them, incited by that 

 spirit of mischief inherited from her grandmother Eve — mis- 

 led, no doubt, by the roughness of my costume, the weather- 

 beaten shirt and hat, tattered trousers, and my swarthy, sun- 

 burned complexion — mounted on the rock by my side, and, 

 in the most demure manner possible, commenced to ply me 

 with all sorts of embarrassing questions — whether I was mar- 

 ried, or engaged, or had a sweetheart; and was this a cold 

 place to live in in winter, and other quizzing of like nature. 



