262 DUCK-SHOOTING. 
in color, have a large head, and a yellow iris to the 
eye. The lake fish, which prefer the clearer element 
near rocky shoals, have a small head and red- 
dish eye, are dark-sided and vigorous, have a large 
forked tail, and are infinitely preferable on the table. 
One of our friends in the other boat was a practi- 
cal joker, and of a lively turn of mind. He at first 
amused himself by jerking the line of his companion 
who sat nearer the bow, to induce him to think 
it was a bite; then he landed all the fish that were 
taken on either hook; and finally, having acciden- 
tally caught his hook into his companion’s and drawn 
it in without the latter’s knowledge, he hung it on 
the gunwale and had the fishing to himself. As the 
portion of the line, or bight as sailors call it, which 
still towed overboard kept up the ordinary strain, 
his associate was in great wonderment at his bad 
luck, and did not discover the reason till the fishing 
Was over. 
Having absolutely filled our boats with bass that 
weighed from two to four pounds, and having or- 
dered a good dinner at the club-house to entertain 
some strangers, we returned, rather disgusted with 
such tame sport. 
We caught, besides the bass, a few pickerel and a 
small pike-perch, lucioperca Americana ; and found 
the most successful bait was a red and tin spoon, 
with a white feather on the hook. The natives call 
the pickerel a grass-pike, and the pike-perch a 
pickere!. Those curious nondescripts—half fish, 
half reptile—bill or gar-fish, Jepidosteus, relics of an- 
