Miscellaneous Suggestions. 347 



his hand and was forced to go out to the settlements for 

 medical aid. The consequences of the accident and early 

 and heavy snows prevented his return till the following 

 spring, yet he found his captives alive and active, though 

 all the food they could possibly have had, must have 

 been the almost infinitesimal quantity which entered be- 

 tween the slats of the car. True, this was largely dur- 

 ing the winter, when some suppose trout feed but little. 

 Take another case occurring in summer. Some years 

 ago the well-known guide John S. Danforth, to whom I 

 have so frequently alluded, had three or four nice large 

 fish/ He was suddenly called away for what he sup- 

 posed would be but a few days. He had taken the trout 

 for a special purpose, and wished to save them for the 

 end in view; so he put them in a small car, and sunk it 

 in about forty feet of water. He was gone some two 

 months, and often those unhappy fish weighed heavily on 

 his mind. On his return his first step was to raise the 

 car. He found them rather " lathy," as he expressed it, but 

 alive and well. Of course they were restored to liberty. 

 John told me another interesting incident, perhaps 

 somewhat remote from the matter in hand, but notwith- 

 standing I cannot omit it. While trapping in November 

 of 1883, he came across a spawning-bed, upon which a 

 quantity of trout up to a pound weight were still en- 

 gaged. The water was but about a foot or so in depth, 

 and was covered with a thin sheet of ice as clear as crys- 

 tal. He is a natural investigator, as I suppose all real 

 woodsmen must be. He saw his opportunity, and that 

 it was too good to be lost'. So unslinging his pack, he 

 stood his rifle against a tree, and fumbling in his pock- 

 ets, produced a fly and a piece of string. A neighboring 

 alder-bush supplied a rod, and rigging it up he cast his 



