58 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 
thronged by what seemed to be busy couriers; and 
when the news finally spread of falling water, one night 
would suffice to make the lake, before so thronged with 
finny life, deserted; and a few nights only, perhaps, would 
pass, when the narrow bar would intrude itself between 
the inland lake and the river, that supplied it with 
water. : 
Such was the fish’s wisdom, seen and felt, where 
man, with his learning and his nicely-wrought mechan- 
isms, would watch in vain the air, the clouds, and see 
“no signs” of falling water.* 
Among arrow-fishermen there are technicalities, an 
understanding of which will give a more ready idea of 
the sport. The surfaces of these inland lakes are un- 
ruffled by the winds or storms; the heats of the sun 
seem to rest upon them; they are constantly sending 
into the upper regions, warm mists. Their surfaces, 
* It may not be uninteresting to naturalists to be informed, 
that these fish run into the inland lakes to spawn, and they do 
it of course with the rise of the water. These overflows are 
annual. A few years since the season was very singular, and 
there were three distinct rises and falls of water, and at each 
rise the fish followed the water inland, and spawned: a remark- 
abie example where the usual order of nature was reversed in 
one instance, and yet continuing blindly consistent in another. 
It is also very remarkable that the young fish, native of the 
lakes, are as interested to mark the indications of falling water 
as those that come into them; and in a long series of years of 
observation, but one fall was ever known before the fish had 
left the lakes. 
