SOME FOREIGN RELATIVES 115 



me to suppose that the familiar habit of exaggeration 

 as to fish is practised across the ocean ; and though 

 Professor Brown Goode states that the maskinonge, 

 according to numerous witnesses, 'often attains the 

 weight of 80 Ib. or more,' the big ones are rather 

 rare. When found they are made a note of, with a 

 good deal of tophamper for luck. 



That enormous quantities are caught is beyond 

 dispute, and I cannot imagine a place in the world 

 where a man, equipped with strong and workmanlike 

 tackle, would obtain a greater glut of this description 

 of sport than in some of the lakes and connecting 

 waterways of Canada and the adjacent parts of the 

 Great Republic. It was a new experience for me to 

 make my way to a small Canadian town situated at 

 the foot of a lake which is quite undistinguished and 

 scarcely known beyond the district in which it is 

 located. Yet it teems with such fish as maskinonge, 

 green bass, and miscellaneous smaller fry. Parties go 

 there occasionally in the summer to moor their canoes 

 among or outside the aquatic grasses, and with the 

 coarsest of tackle haul out fish until the bottom of the 

 boat is so covered that they give up and return to 

 shore. 



My object was to catch a maskinonge and a bass. 

 I failed with the latter, but had remarkable success 



