BASS-FISHING IN SUNGAHNEETUK 107 



butcherly manner, but it was done in some way 

 by almost every one who fished at all, and at best 

 was a miserable business. 



The undiscovered and fruitful beds were few, 

 the barren and orphaned ones many, and if the 

 streams had been their only spawning-places the 

 bass must have been almost exterminated by such 

 continual persecution. But of the many adven- 

 turing through stress of nature up the rivers some 

 would escape, and there were the reefs and bars of 

 the lake, where others might breed undisturbed by 

 man, and so, among them all, perpetuate their 

 race until the day of deliverance. 



The bass, having hibernated in the depths dur- 

 ing the dead months, come on to the spawning- 

 grounds in May, and shortly after set about mak- 

 ing their beds, which, when finished, are shallow 

 concavities, in diameter about twice the length of 

 the fish, and from the time of completion till the 

 hatching of the eggs are most vigilantly guarded 

 and kept scrupulously clean. The eggs, which are 

 attached to the bottom by a glutinous coating, 

 are hatched in about two weeks after they are de- 

 posited. If a pebble or waterlogged chip or twig is 

 washed onto the bed, it is as quickly removed as is 

 the hook of the angler, and all animate intruders 

 are summarily driven off. The infant bass, at 

 their first hatching, are as black and unpromising 

 as a swarm of poUiwogs in a mud-puddle, but 



