20 PEPACTON: A SUMMER VOYAGE. 



ward the rifts : they were low mounds of small stones, 

 as if a bushel or more of large pebbles had been 

 dumped upon the river bottom ; occasionally they 

 were so near the surface as to make a big ripple. 

 The eel attaches itself to the stones by its mouth, 

 and thus moves them at will. An old fisherman told 

 me that a strong man could not pull a large lamprey 

 loose from a rock to which it had attached itself. It 

 fastens to its prey in this way, and sucks the life out. 

 A friend of mine says he once saw in the St. Law- 

 rence a pike as long as his arm with a lamprey eel 

 attached to him. The fish was nearly dead and was 

 quite white, the eel had so sucked out his blood and 

 substance. The fish, when seized, darts against rocks 

 and stones, and tries in vain to rub the eel off, then 

 succumbs to the sucker. 



" The lampers do not all die," said Denny, " be- 

 cause they do not all spawn ; " and I observed that 

 ihe dead ones were all of one size and doubtless of 

 the same age. 



The lamprey is the octopus, the devil-fish of these 

 waters, and there is, perhaps, no tragedy enacted 

 here that equals that of one of these vampires slowly 

 sucking the life out of a bass or a trout. 



My boys went to school part of the time. Did they 

 have a good teacher ? 



" Good enough for me," said Johnny. 



" Good enough for me," echoed Denny. 



Just below Bark-a-boom the name is worth keep 

 ing they left me. I was loath to part with them 



