320 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [12:7-Oct M 1916 



a low "pop" was heard as the ripples spread and the fish was gone 

 below again. They get much of their food by sucking the insects 

 from the underside of willow leaves, and logs that float on the 

 water, each time making a pop more or less loud. Likewise they 

 suck the stalks of reeds, cat-tails, and other water plants. 



At many places along the banks the willow roots grow out in the 

 water and form a large mass of fibers sometimes three feet thick. 

 The carp surely enjoy nosing up in these for food. Many times 

 they reach the surface of the water and stick their mouths out and 

 open and shut them as if gulping air. I have seen as many as six 

 mouths protruding above the surface out of a bunch of rootlets at 

 one time. The fish were entirely hidden except for their mouths — 

 they could not even see me. 



In the late afternoon, from four to five-thirty when the sun's rays 

 are quite oblique, they all seem to like to get out in the middle of 

 the stream and take a sunbath as it were. They all look toward the 

 sun with their heads close to the surface and now and then suck in 

 an insect that the wind is blowing along the top of the ripples. 

 I have counted by two's, twenty-eight of them below me at one 

 time out in the open stream; and none of them were less than 

 fifteen inches long. Of course if a strange man or dog passed by 

 they immediately disappear into the deep shades below and stay 

 there for some fifteen minutes, then they gradually take their 

 places again as before. When the sun gets quite low they go back 

 to the shades again among the cat-tails, and under over-hanging 

 weeds and trees that touch the water. 



I have found that the thing carp like best to eat is a stiff dough 

 made of flour and honey. They eat balls of this better than any- 

 thing else. I have tried everything from pieces of chicken and 

 beef, to bread and cake, — they like cake but like the honey and 

 flour mixture best of all. I think the dough balls of honey and 

 flour are the best bait to catch them with. 



Since learning their habits I have never used bait. I just tie the 

 line to a sapling, crawl down the bank to the water with the hook in 

 my hand, and wait for some fish to stick its mouth out of the 

 bunches of willow roots; then I jab the hook quickly into the 

 mouth of the first fish that appears, before he knows what has 

 happened; then I crawl up the bank and pull him in. Of course 

 when I first tried it I would miss the mouth of the fish and hit the 

 side of it , then he would get away in a hurry; but I became skilled 



