ESOX 171 



while young, to dive for the fish, which it would 

 greedily swallow, were it not for a metallic ring 

 slipped over the neck, which holds the fish in the 

 throat, so that the man in the boat, pulls it out and 

 suffers the bird to dive again.* 



The cormorant will catch bushels a day, in this 

 manner, being taught to swim towards its master, 

 to deliver the burden. In other parts, it is a very 

 common practice, to take fish by torch light, as is 

 practised in spearing eels, suckers, &tc. in the in- 

 terior of New England. But they have one more 

 curious and successful mode, which does not seem 

 to have been copied anywhere, which is this : — a 

 white painted board, highly varnished, is fixed 

 along the outside edge of the boat, with another 

 inside, so that both are like the roof of a house. 

 In moon-light, the board reflects the rays into 

 the water, in such a manner, as to induce the fish 

 to spring toward it, supposing it a sheet of moving 

 water, and thus they fairly leap over the ridgepole 

 into the boat. 



The boldness and voracity of the pike are so 

 extraordinary, that it may with propriety be term- 



* Oviedo Gomaro, as well as other writers, have testified to 

 the fact, that the Indians of the Antilles, had the art of taming 

 a species of sea-fish, and employed them in pursuing others. 

 Its size was small, and in their dialect, called guaican, and by 

 the Spaniards, reverso. Mr Clinton says Oviedo explains the 

 manner in which they conducted the process. 



