204 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



broth of a boy, he liked it if a man finds that he does not get 

 on well with an Irishman, he may know that his own human 

 nature is not what it should be. 



Another incident of my walks stays in my memory because 

 it has an interest from the humanistic and naturalistic side. 

 I had been collecting specimens of a Sunday morning along 

 the banks of the Mystic River in Medford. Returning in the 

 evening, I found a place by the old Middlesex Canal where the 

 alewives were running up to spawn and a large gang of Irishmen 

 were engaged in catching them. As it was the first time I had 

 seen this anadromous fish, I was much interested in watching 

 the movements of the sportsmen. My large collecting basket, 

 which contained several black snakes and half a dozen or so 

 bullfrogs, all alive, weighed upon me ; so I set it down and in 

 the course of my wandering got on the other side of the canal 

 from it, and perhaps fifty feet away from where it stood near 

 the fishermen. Suddenly, to my vast surprise, there came from 

 the basket a wail precisely like that of a young child in pain. 

 The Irishmen heard it also, and in a moment a dozen of them 

 were gathered about it, intent on inquiry but half afraid to 

 make it. Seeing that if they opened the lid I should lose the 

 specimens, and fancying that it must be some ventriloquist 

 trick, I shouted to them to leave the basket alone until I could 

 get to it. This confirmed their suspicions ; they pulled out the 

 peg and threw the lid back, when forth sprang the frogs and 

 snakes, it was a hot day and they were nimble. Away went 

 the throng in wild fright at the issue of their investigation. 

 When I won back to the basket it was quite a way to the 

 place where I could cross back over the canal my captives 

 had disappeared; so I filled the empty basket with alewives 

 and went home. I had lost my day's collecting, but we had fish 

 at the club table in plenty. 



Though at first I thought it possible that the babe-like cry 

 was some trick of a ventriloquist, I was soon convinced that 

 such a trick was impossible, for the reason that the basket stood 



