BLUE-FISHING. 299 



"bows, leans over on her side and flings the water 

 from her stem with a charming freedom and ease. 

 All of which is simply delightful provided the 

 yachting party is not seasick. 



The sea happened to he rather heavier than we 

 expected, and occasionally a wave larger than usual 

 would fling its spray on deck, but we were pretty 

 good sailors and did not mind it. The fish, how- 

 ever, false to their hounden duty were not biting, 

 and the Commissioner proceeded to relate remi- 

 niscences between the puffs of his segar and the 

 pitches of the boat. There is one point upon which 

 I had observed that the two learned authorities were 

 in perfect accord ; they never disputed, never ap- 

 peared to doubt one another's stories, incredible as 

 these sometimes sounded to the uninitiated outsid- 

 ers. Only they seemed to feel it a point of honor to 

 match the statements with others as good or better. 

 He gave accounts of wondrous bags of game and 

 fish by land and sea, told of his catching, when 

 trolling at the same place years before, eighty blue- 

 fish that averaged ten pounds apiece, related how he 

 had sailed through miles of Spanish mackerel, and 

 observed that it was nothing uncommon to take 

 three hundred small blue-fish in a day's chumming. 



" Would you believe it," he added, evidently in- 

 tending to test the credulity of his companion, 

 "that there is good rail shooting in the streams be- 

 low my trout ponds ? Why I have killed a hundred 

 rail there in a day." 



I watched the countenance of the Superintendent 



