DUCK-SHOOTING. 389 



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 A'igorous, 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 hun it on 



O ' O 



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 thai 

 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 

 pickerel. Those curious nondescripts half fish, 

 half reptile bill or gar-fish, lepidosteus, relics of an- 



