THE DEADLY SPOON. 363 



within, and brazed without, attached by a swivel at the lower 

 extremity to a stout triple hook, and at the upper to a piece of 

 strong gimp — which is so murderously destructive to the Black 

 Bass of the St. Lawrence, and the Mascalonge — would be found 

 no less effective with the Great Lake Trout ; nor if any one 

 should think it worth the while, would any harm be thought of 

 his applying any invention, however slaughtering and poacher- 

 like, to so base and caitiff a iish as the Lake Salmon. 



Of Back's Grayling it is almost unnecessary here to speak, so 

 far north are his customary haunts, and so very difficult and 

 expensive is it to reach the districts in which only he exists. 

 This is the more to be regretted for that he is one of the finest, 

 if not the very finest, of all the Sporting Fishes of America. He 

 is the boldest of biters at a fly, taking all those flies which are 

 most preferred by the Brook Trout, leaping many times out of 

 the water in his efforts to extricate himself from the hook, nor 

 ever succumbing to his captor's will without a desperate resist- 

 ance and a severe conflict. His flesh is no less delicious, and 

 his excellence at the board in no wise inferior to his spirit, or 

 the beauty of his colouring. 



Of the Attihawmeg or White Fish of the great lakes, of the 

 Otsego Bass, or as I should desire to have it hereafter called, 

 the Otsego Lavaret, and of the little Smelt, which are all mem- 

 bers of this same noble family, it needs not to make farther 

 mention. They all have been occasionally taken with the fly, 

 and will all undoubtedly be oftentimes again so captured, but 

 the certainty of their rising is by no means sufficient to warrant 

 the fisherman in wasting much time in their pursuit. 



I may here, before finishing this head of my subject, observe 



