158 



TJic American Aiis^ler 



minnow, and the voracious trout and 

 bass that feed and fatten on them. In- 

 sect and minnow life are sure to be 

 utiHzed in feeding the game fish and 

 birds in which the sportsman so much 

 delights. "Were it otherwise, insect and 

 minnow life might become an appalling 

 nuisance, and game and good fish and 

 birds might be sadly depleted. 



The minnow as food for other and 

 larger fish to feed, grow and fatten 

 upon, plays a very important part in the 

 economy of nature. 



various observations and experiments. 

 May it not account for those mysterious 

 occasions which every angler has noted, 

 "when the fish won't bite ?" 



The mascalonge, pike, pickerel, perch, 

 catfish, eel, and the gamy bass and 

 trout, make their main dinner on the 

 minnow, as the worm, grub, helgramite, 

 crayfish, fly and little frog are only side 

 dishes. When the black bass are feed- 

 ing on minnows, during a tolerably 

 still time in September or October, on 

 the reefs and rocky shoals near the 



PLATE II. 



" What would become of the bass and the trout 

 If it weren't for the minnows a swimming 

 about?" 



" Gone, for want of food," would be 

 written on the gravestone of our mem- 

 ories of them. 



Did you ever see a big trout or bass 

 in the act of gorging himself with min- 

 nows? Of course, you have; and it 

 was a sight to be remembered. They 

 dart at a single minnow or a school of 

 them with lightning rapidity, causing 

 those they fail to gobble up to leap for 

 life clear out of the water. They will 

 feed thus for two or three hours, and 

 then sulk away in some secluded nook. 

 Three or four hours of repose follow, 

 during which no lure, however dainty, 

 will tempt them; and then again they 

 are up and at it. This we know from 



islands of Lake Erie, the leaping of the 

 minnows attracts large flocks of the 

 beautiful terns (a small species of the 

 gull). And what is very curious, the 

 terns hover over the water in the form 

 of a tunnel, and seem instinctively to 

 move around so as to bring the birds 

 that form the nozzle of the tunnel right 

 over where the minnows jump out of 

 the water, driven by the bass. Instantly 

 the birds nearest to the water seize the 

 little jumpers, and then take their place 

 at the top of the tunnel-shaped flock, 

 giving the next birds in their order a 

 chance to go through the same proceed- 

 ing. The observing angler is ever on 

 the watch for this apparently equitable 

 " turn and turn about " of the terns, 

 and when discovered makes a straight 

 wake for that locality, and then and 



