328 Lake Maxinkuckee, Physical and Biological Survey 



tomless pit, the Bull-head will bite just as well as though the boy 

 were dressed in purple and fine linen, with knee-breeches and plaid 

 stocking's. The Bull-head seems to be dozing on the muddy bot- 

 tom, and a stranger would say that he would not bite. But wait. 

 There is a movement of his continuation, and his cow-catcher 

 moves gently toward the piece of liver. He does not wait to smell 

 of it, and canvass in his mind whether the liver is fresh. It makes 

 no difference to him. He argues that there is a family out of meat. 

 'My country calls and I must go', says the Bull-head to himself, 

 and he opens his mouth and the liver disappears. 



"It is not certain that the boy will think of his bait for half 

 an hour, but the Bull-head is in no hurry. He is in the mud and 

 proceeds to digest the liver. He realizes that his days will not be 

 long in the land, or water, more properly speaking, and he argues 

 that if he swallows the bait and digests it before the boy pulls 

 him out, he will be just so much ahead. Finally, the boy thinks of 

 his bait, pulls it out, and the Bull-head is landed on the bank, and 

 the boy cuts him open to get the hook out. Some fish only take the 

 bait gingerly, and are only caught around the selvage of the mouth, 

 and they are comparatively easy to dislodge. Not so with the 

 Bull-head. He says if liver is a good thing, you can't have too 

 much of it, and it tastes good all the way down. The boy gets 

 down on his knees to dissect the Bull-head, and get his hook, and 

 it may be that the boy swears. It would not be astonishing, though 

 he must feel, when he gets his hook out of the hidden recesses of 

 the Bull-head, like the minister who took up a collection and didn't 

 get a cent, though he expressed thanks at getting his hat back. 

 There is one draw-back to the Bull-head, and that is his horns. 

 We doubt if a boy ever descended into the patent insides of a 

 Bull-head to mine for limerick hooks, that did not, before the work 

 was done, run a horn into his vital parts. But the boy seems to 

 expect it, and the Bull-head enjoys it. We have seen a Bull-head 

 lie on the bank and become dry, and to all appearances dead to 

 all that was going on, and when a boy sat down on him, and got a 

 horn in his elbow, and yelled murder, the Bull-head would grin 

 from ear to ear, and wag his tail as though applauding for an 

 encore. 



"The Bull-head never complains. We have seen a boy take a 

 dull knife and proceed to follow a fish line down a Bull-head from 

 head to the end of his subsequent anatomy, and all the time there 

 would be an expression of sweet peace on the countenance of the 

 Bull-head, as though he enjoyed it. If we were preparing a pic- 

 ture representing 'Resignation', for a chromo to give to subscrib- 



