THROUGH-ICE FISHING. SNAKES. 395 



built a small hut to keep out the light and sufficiently large 

 for the fisherman to sit inside, the end of his fish-spear 

 protruding through the top. With an artificial minnow 

 on a few feet of line in the left hand, and weighted so as 

 to make it readily sink, you attract the pike to the surface, 

 when, with a dexterous blow, you drive your leister home. 

 Very much like poaching ; still, where fish are so abundant 

 and wanted for food, this system becomes less culpable. 



At the northern end of Lake Couchachin, the beautiful 

 Severn, after, tumbling over a grand fall, starts on its 

 erractic, precipitous course for Lake Huron. To visit this 

 spot was not more than seven or eight miles of water, 

 through a labyrinth of islands, and along the most pic- 

 turesquely beautiful shore, wooded to the margin. Beside 

 the fall was a saw-mill belonging to a descendant of the 

 French aristocracy, who had emigrated before the days of 

 " The Empire." Whether or not the proprietor happened 

 to be at home, a cordial welcome could be relied upon, and 

 the fishing underneath the fall was always excellent 

 sometimes so good that your bait would scarcely touch the 

 water ere it was seized. However, there was one draw- 

 back, for the spot was infested with snakes, particularly a 

 large, thick, dirty-brown water species, which looked 

 exceedingly venomous. From the indifference with which 

 the mill hands treated them, I imagine their look was 

 worse than their bite. They had, however, a penchant for 

 minnow, for I saw one captured on the hook. As the wild 

 fowl migrate this is a splendid stand ; for if the weather 

 is in the least stormy, with an indication of cold, the ducks 

 keep passing all day, and their flight invariably is so low 



