170 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



degree, and the heart is brittle : this species is much more 

 abundant,, and is chiefly split into rails, which rank next to 

 cedar for durability, but are far heavier and more difficult to 

 handle. The white ash is very scarce as a tree of any size, 

 and its value for the purposes named, and for sawing into 

 plank, is too great to allow it to be used for rails ; it is con- 

 fined to upland, or what is called hardwood land, while the 

 brown is most abundant in marshy ground, with the resinous 

 evergreens and the birch. 



C. Yonder is a boy angling in the brook : do you know 

 anything of the native fishes of our rivers ? 



E. Very little indeed : and nothing of their natural 

 history or specific characters. I have angled in the Coata- 

 cook, and caught several small species, which bite very freely. 

 Dace, trout, chub, lump-fish, and others, are names given to 

 our most common river fish, whether correctly, I am not ich- 

 thyologist enough to determine. The Salmon is taken in our 

 rivers: the Shad (Clupea Alosa), a fish very highly es- 

 teemed for its firmness and the delicacy of its flavour, 

 abounds, I believe, in the St. Lawrence in spring ; and the 

 Maskilonge, (Esox Estor ?) another fish of large size, of the 

 pike family, is found in the lakes. On the bank of the Ma- 

 suippi, about a mile above its junction with the Coatacook, 

 is a spot where the land, after descending with a gradual 

 slope, suddenly ends in rather a steep but grassy bank. At 

 the very edge of this bank is a farm-house, and the owner 

 has told me that he can sit at his door, and watch the stur- 

 geon and other fish playing almost directly under him, over 

 the pebbly bottom of the clear river. The Sturgeon ( Aci- 

 penser Sturio) is very numerous just there ; and is, I sup- 

 pose, the largest fish we have, being several feet in length. 

 They are long, slender, and angled, and covered with tuber- 

 cles ; the flesh is not much esteemed. They often leap from 



