182 THE STURGEON. 
wooden fish-hook is now amongst the things that 
were, its place having been supplied by its 
civilised Birmingham brother, bartered by the 
Indians from the Hudson’s Bay Company. The 
fishing line is either made of native hemp, or the 
inside bark of the cypress-tree spun into cord. 
The bait is a long strip cut from the under- 
side of a trout, at one end of which the point of 
the hook is inserted; the strip being then wound 
tightly and evenly round the hook, and up the 
line about three inches, the silvery side outer- 
most. It is then firmly whipped over with 
white horsehair, a pebble slung on as a sinker, 
and the deception is complete. Five or six long 
barbed spears are stowed away in the canoe, the 
line coiled carefully in the bow, and the baited 
hook laid on it. Two wily redskins man this 
frail bark, the paddler squatting on his heels 
in the stern, the line-man standing in the bow. 
A few skilful turns of the paddle sends the 
canoe to the mudbank on which King Stur- 
geon is dozing, and awaiting his matin or ves- 
per meal. The dainty-looking morsel, bearing 
all the external semblance to a fish (but, like 
the Trojan horse, pregnant with mischief), sinks 
noiselessly and slowly to the bottom; the canoe 
drifts with the current, and in this manner the 
